Issues in the translation equivalence of basic emotion terms

Abstract

Translation equivalence of emotion terms has increasingly become a key issue of study design in emotion psychology. Here, the translation equivalence of basic emotion terms (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise) in English and Polish was quantified. Two databases of the lexicalizations of these basic emotions were used (1759 English; 577 Polish terms). Both collections were subjected to a translation-backtranslation procedure with four professional translators. Rates of agreement on translation, backtranslation, and backtranslation accuracy were used to calculate the translation equivalence. 5.12% of English and 4.68% of the Polish emotion terms were found to have full translation equivalents. Over 80% of terms in both languages had only partial translation equivalents. The results indicate that the fundamental differences in emotion term granularity and the morpho-semantic makeup of the languages impacts their degree of translation equivalence. The implications for the research on emotions and language in cross-cultural contexts are discussed.