Spatial Metaphors in Reporting Emotions: The Use of Emotional Deixis in Interviews with Parents of Children with a Language Disorder

Abstract

The paper explores how Hungarian parents of children with a language disorder use emotional deixis to report their child’s condition. Demonstrative pronouns and the metaphorical meaning of space, particularly proximity, are observed in a corpus of six interviews. The questions raised are: a) What entities and relations are typically referenced by emotional deixis? b) What kinds of metaphorical meanings are conveyed by spatial closeness in the use of demonstrative pronouns? Results show that the parents use proximal emotional deixis differently from the usual pattern; instead of expressing their internal direct and positive experience, they employ them to report fundamentally negative experiences of the child’s condition, development, diagnosis or therapy, or other negative experiences. Such application of emotional deixis indicates an intense and vivid experience, namely mental and emotional proximity to negative experiences, which stems from the empathic parental role.