METAPHORICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN ITALIAN

METAPHORICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION OF

helps us understand the target domain, which is an abstract and complex domain (e.g., EMOTION, KNOWLEDGE, HUMAN RELATION, etc.) and is characterized by not being directly derived from physical experience.Target domains are usually complex domains and contain knowledge that relates to both concrete domains and some other abstract domains.The metaphorical process always proceeds in one direction only, namely from the source domain to the target domain, i.e. from the concrete to the abstract and not vice versa.The understanding of the target domain in relation to the source domain is possible because of the systematic, precise and unidirectional correspondences or mappings between the two domains, which take place at the level of the constituent elements of the two domains and occur automatically.Among the features is the systematicity that enables us to understand one concept in relation to another (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 29), and which is reflected in metaphorical linguistic expressions (MLEs).Lakoff (1993: 215) further argues that in mappings it is important to preserve the structure of the image schemas2 underlying the source domains so that they match the structure of the target domain.Knowledge about the source domain is thus in some sense consistent with knowledge about the target domain, whose inherent structure constrains the mappings.Since each metaphor structures one or only some aspects of a particular concept, the concept can therefore only be understood on the basis of a combination of several metaphors, Kövecses (2010: 96) states: "Since the concepts (both target and source) have several aspects to them, speakers need several source domains to understand these different aspects of target concepts."

Conceptualization of emotions
Previous research on emotion concepts in many languages shows that emotion concepts have a very complex conceptual structure (the most important authors in this context are Barcelona 1992;Matsuki 1995;Rull 2002;Soriano 2003;Będkowska-Kopczyk 2004;Stefanowitsch 2004 and2996;Gibbs 2005;Oster 2010;Adamiczka 2011;Ogarkova and Soriano 2014;Kövecses, Szelid, Nusz, Blanco Carrión, Akkök and Szabó 2015;Tran 2019;Jelčić Čolakovac 2020;Yanti and Aziz 2021).Lakoff and Johnson, the founders of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, believe that some concepts, including emotions, are structured almost exclusively metaphorically.Moreover, they are convinced that no conceptual structure arises directly from emotional functioning (1980: 79).Emotional experiences, which are of great importance to individuals, are therefore less clearly defined than individuals' experiences of their own bodies.Consequently, they are structured by better defined ones and perceived by the latter in an indirect way through metaphors.
Many authors (Fainsilber and Ortony 1987;Fussell and Moss 1998;Gibbs 1994;Kövecses 2000a and2014;Gibbs, Leggitt and Turner 2002) who have worked on the conceptualization of emotions make it clear that metaphorical language plays an important role in understanding the language of emotions, not only in describing and categorizing emotional experiences, but also defining them more precisely and even in creating them.They agree that there are systematic correspondences between emotions and our sensorimotor experiences that are reflected in metaphorical language.For this reason, the conceptualization of emotions is mainly explored through metaphorical or metonymic linguistic expressions, and there are an enormous number of such expressions for a given emotion.Kövecses (2002: 110) concluded, based on several studies in English, that in most cases there should be more than a hundred expressions for a single emotion, which proved to be true in our study (Table 2).Gibbs et al. (2002: 125, 133 and 134) argue that emotions themselves can often be understood through many, sometimes even contradictory, metaphors and that MLEs, their manifestations, reflect even very subtle differences in emotional experience, because metaphorical language allows for greater precision, directness and clarity and is therefore able to differentiate between the complex variations of a particular emotional state.It is also important to emphasize that people use linguistic metaphorical expressions not instead of literal expressions, but in addition to literal expressions (Fainsilber and Ortony 1987;Fussell and Moss 1998).Fainsilber and Ortony (1987: 247) describe the use of these expressions as necessary because they can express what literal expressions cannot, i.e. metaphorical language and literal language complement each other.
Kövecses, who has devoted much of his research to the study of CMs of emotions, has on the one hand examined the conceptualization of individual emotions, especially HAPPINESS (Kövecses 2008(Kövecses , 2015) ) and ANGER (Lakoff and Kövecses 1987;Kövecses 2000b;Kövecses et al. 2015), but on the other hand also tried to answer some more general questions, such as: Are there source domains that are specific only to emotions?Are there domains that are specific to all emotions?And what are the specific metaphors for each emotion?(Kövecses 1998, 2000a, 2002; 2014 3 ).Comparing emotion conceptus to other concepts he found that source domains for emotion concepts were not domains specific only to emotion concepts.When comparing emotion concepts with each other he first found that there is a whole range of domains that are typical of (almost) all emotion concepts, second that some source domains apply to a group of emotions, and third that there are very few source domains that are specific to a single emotion.
In general, the main source domains associated with emotions are the following: CON-TAINER, FORCE and OPPONENT.In the conceptual metaphor EMOTION IS A SUBSTANCE IN A CONTAINER, we think of the emotion as a substance and the human body as the container in which the emotion is contained.One can also metaphorize individual parts of one's own body, which means that one perceives the body as a container consisting of smaller containers -body parts (Będkowska-Kopczyk 2009: 30) -and these parts then become containers for emotions.In Western cultures, for example, the heart is usually the body part that is considered the seat of emotions in folk theory (Gibbs 2017: 39).Kövecses (2000a: 62) notes that the metaphor EMOTION IS AN AUTONOMOUS FORCE is based on the image schema FORCE, one of the most basic image schema of the conceptual system.Derived from our bodily experience, it plays a central role in the conceptualization of emotions.Individuals are confronted daily with the effects of various forces within and outside their own bodies, in nature and in the environment.Dixon (2003: 3) argues that throughout history emotions have been perceived as forces that work against the individual, i.e. against their will and reason.In most cases, these are forces over which the individual has no control, which is consistent with the notion of emotions as phenomena that the individual cannot resist.The conceptual metaphor EMOTION IS AN OPPONENT describes emotions as something that works against the individual and that must be kept under control (Rull 2002: 186).This source domain is often used to refer to negative emotions or very intense emotions, regardless of their valence.

1.3
Valence and the Conceptualization of Emotions Kövecses (2000a: 4) argues that the source domains, and thus the MLEs that result from the mappings between the two domains, focus on different aspects (features) of emotion concepts, and it is these aspects that give us a more accurate insight into the conceptualization of emotions.He lists (ibid: 40-46) the following aspects: existence, intensity, passivity, control, positive -negative evaluation, difficulty, desire/need, non-physical unity, progress, and harm.Since this article deals only with valence (positive/negative), we will discuss only this feature in detail.Valence is probably one of the most important dimensions of emotions by which they are classified and described.Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson andO'Connor (1987: 1068) and Keltner, Oatley and Jenkis (2014: 174) note that there is every indication that emotions at the higher level of categorization are divided into two clusters precisely on the basis of valence.According to Ogarkova (2013: 54), in Western cultures valence is perceived as a difference in the perceived (un)pleasantness of an emotional experience, Kövecses (2000a: 44) refers to this aspect as "positive -negative evaluation".As for cultural differences, Karandashev (2021: 231) and Galati, Sini, Tinti and Testa (2008: 216) argue that the distinction between emotions with positive and negative valence is similar across cultures.Kövecses (2000a: 44) lists the following source domains that focus on the aspect of valence: UP-DOWN, LIGHT -DARK, WARM -COLD, VALUABLE -NON-VALUABLE, 4 noting that they can only be used with emotions that are inherently good or bad.Source domains, on the other hand, can also focus on the negative or positive aspects of each emotion, regardless of its valence.Other source domains associated with negative valence in the literature are ILLNESS (Kövecses 2002a), FORCE -its negative effects (Kövecses 2002a, Rull 2002), OPPONENTS (Rull 2002), WEIGHT (Kövecses 2020), FOOD -taste (Zhou in Tse 2020: 7, 9 and 11), OPPONENT (Rull 2002).Source domains associated with positive valence are RAP-TURE/BEING DRUNK (Kövecses 2000a(Kövecses : 75, 2008: 136): 136), LIGHT (Kövecses 2008: 136).
The following findings about positive and negative valence (Averill 1980: 7 and 9;Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer and Vohs 2001: 355) are also relevant and may influence the conceptualization of emotions: negative events have a longer-lasting effect than positive events; individuals remember emotions with negative valence more strongly; emotions with negative valence have stronger effects; and individuals experience emotions with negative valence twice as intensely as emotions with positive valence.Emotions with negative valence are also discussed more frequently and more thoroughly in the literature because they are considered 'problematic'.The predominance of emotions with negative valence is also said to be reflected in language, where words describing emotions with negative valence are more common than words for emotions with positive valence (Averill 1980: 8).More recently, however, especially with the rise of positive psychology, interest has shifted to emotions with positive valence.
Since valence has proven to be an important feature of emotions, we expected that it would also influence the conceptualization of emotions in Italian and that there would be some significant differences between emotions with positive and emotions with negative valence, both at the level of CMs and at the level of MLEs.Following other authors (Kövecses 2002a and2008;Rull 2002) we expected most of the differences in the following metaphors: EMOTION IS AN OPPONENT, EMOTION IS AN ILLNESS, EMOTION IS FOOD, EMOTION IS AN AUTONOMOUS FORCE.We have assumed that even in metaphors that seem to be shared by several emotion concepts, many differences arising from will emerge at the level of MLEs

METHODS
In order to determine the differences in the conceptualization of positive and negative emotions we focused on five emotions -three with negative valence (FEAR, ANGER, SAD-NESS) and two with positive valence (HAPPINESS and LOVE)5 .
To identify the MLEs, and thus CMs, we opted for a corpus-based approach, which has proven to be one of the most suitable for the study of the conceptualization of emotions, as it allows us to systematically identify metaphors and metonymies in natural discourse (Oster 2010;Stefanowitsch 2006).Based on the assumption that each emotion is structured as a category, we selected from the target domain two (2) to six (6) keywords for each emotion (Table 1).The 24 selected keywords are all nouns, i.e. the names of the selected emotions and their synonyms. 6Fussell and Moss (1998: 128-129) found that when expressing emotions, people do not use metaphorical expressions in place of literal expressions, but together with them.Metaphorical expressions are therefore used as an additional explanation to literal terms.For this reason, we have assumed that with well-chosen keywords from the target domain we can use this method to find many MLEs in which emotion concepts are manifested.
In addition to identifying CMs (and metonymies) that structure the concepts of emotion, the corpus-based approach gives us insights into the broader context and use of a single MLE, all of which allows us to describe emotion concepts using multiple dimensions.Another advantage of the corpus-based approach is the possibility to quantify data, i.e. to determine the frequency for each MLE.
We choose the itWaC, 7 the Italian Web Corpus, a reference corpus of the written Italian that contains more than one billion words and is the largest corpus of modern Italian.Given the available Italian corpora, we considered the selected corpus to be the most appropriate in terms of its size and composition for the study of the conceptualization of emotions. 8 In the corpus, we searched for MLEs using the keywords listed in Table 1.For each keyword, we first searched for all concordances in the corpus and then analysed the first 10,000 random concordances.If a keyword has fewer than 10,000 occurrences, we analysed all the concordances we obtained for that word.We transferred the concordances for each keyword into MS Excel, where we then sorted and analysed them.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
With a detailed corpus analysis of more than 160,000 9 concordances, we obtained: • 1,862 different MLEs used 16,280 times for emotions with negative valence.• 656 different MLEs used 5,949 times for emotions with positive valence.
The analysed concordances and the obtained MLEs allowed us to draw some important conclusions about the conceptualization of the selected emotions and about the conceptualization of emotions with positive and negative valence.In order to be as systematic as possible, and to be able to compare the emotion concepts and MLEs for all emotion concepts, we created a list of CMs for emotion concepts in Italian based on the analysis of all MLEs obtained in the corpus.The list is presented in Table 2, where the frequencies 10 of the MLEs for each CM are also listed for a better understanding of the further discussion.Based on the obtained results, we can confirm that the emotion concepts analysed in Italian have a very complex conceptual structure.Since the selected concepts FEAR, ANGER, SADNESS, HAPPINESS and LOVE belong to the category EMOTIONS, similarities in the conceptualization of emotion concepts were to be expected.Many authors - Kövecses (2000aKövecses ( : 36, 2014: 16) : 16) in particular, but also Rull (2002: 180), Stefanowitsch (2006: 91) and others -have written about the source domains that apply to all or most emotion concepts in English, Spanish, German and other languages.The analysis of the linguistic material from the itWaC corpus has shown that all the selected emotion concepts in Italian share pretty much all the basic metaphors for emotions.The emotions under consideration are therefore conceptualized in Italian as a: The similarities between the emotion concepts are also evident at the level of language, and we found many linguistic metaphorical expressions that apply to all or to most emotion concepts we analysed (examples 1 to 22 If at the basic level there seem to be more similarities than differences between the emotion concepts, the differences between the emotion concepts considered and between emotion concepts with positive and negative valence emerge at the level of the specific metaphors and from the analysis of MLEs and their number. For the metaphor EMOTION IS A SUBSTANCE IN A CONTAINER (BODY) the similarities between the emotion concepts seem to be obvious.There are some differences between emotions that are not manifested at the level of negative and positive valence but are the peculiarities of each emotion concept.For example, only ANGER and HAPPINESS are conceptualized as a Although the basic metaphor EMOTION IS A CONTAINER/BOUNDED SPACE is an important way of conceptualizing all the emotions in the study, the analysis of the MLEs reveals some interesting differences between emotions with different valences.MLEs for emotions with positive valence mostly refer to the existence and duration of the emotion (examples 28 to 32) and its intensity (examples 33 to 35).The latter is indicated as a full container.However, in the case of emotions with negative valence, there are many realizations that refer to the intensity of the emotion, which is understood as the depth of the container (examples 36 to 40).Negative emotions are also seen as a bounded space that we want to leave.The MLEs expressing this aspect refer to the end of the emotion (example 41): Examples of Valence as an important feature of emotions also influences conceptualization when we examine in detail the MLEs and the number of their frequencies for the metaphor EMOTION IS AN OPPONENT.The opponent in our metaphor is a very broad concept and includes an enemy (in war), an opponent, a rival or/and a competitor.The source domains OPPONENT and ENEMY are frequently mentioned in the literature in relation to emotions (Kövecses 1990a(Kövecses , 2000a;;Rull 2002;Kövecses 2008Kövecses , 2014)).Our study has also confirmed that this metaphor is one of the most important in the conceptualization of emotions.Moreover, it clearly shows that while we perceive all five considered emotions as opponents, we perceive the negative ones as opponents or enemies to a greater extent.In the analysed concordances, we found 257 different
Our study has shown that the source domain ILLNESS plays an important role in the conceptualization of emotions in general, but also shows significant differences between emotions with positive and negative valence.While the specific metaphors EMOTION IS A PHYSICAL DISEASE and EMOTION IS A MENTAL ILLNESS (INSANITY) are particularly important for emotions with negative valence, all specific source domains (PHYSICAL ILLNESS, MENTAL ILLNESS, DRUG and MEDICINE) are important for emotions with positive valence.In the case of emotions with positive valence, many interesting peculiarities emerged at the level of the MLEs.Kövecses (2000a: 44) believes that the source domain PHYSICAL DISEASE is mainly used to conceptualize emotions with negative valence, but our research has shown that this is not entirely the case in Italian.The metaphor itself is very important for the conceptualization of FEAR and SADNESS, but we did not find any linguistic realizations for ANGER (examples 60 to 64).Furthermore, we found quite a lot of linguistic realizations for emotions with positive valence as well.The analysis of the MLEs provided us with further insights: we were able to establish that only one aspect of the source domain PHYSICAL ILLNESS is important for the conceptualization of HAPPINESS, and this aspect is its contagiousness (see example 65).For LOVE, which is also an emotion with positive valence, we found very similar linguistic realizations as for emotions with negative valence, and the analysis of the concordances led us to conclude that all these MLEs refer to cases of rejected, unrequited love, i.e. to the negative aspects (unpleasantness) of this emotion (examples 66 to 68).

Examples of EMOTION IS A DISEASE:
(60) soffrire di paura/per lo spavento/di timore/di tristezza/di amore/per amore (61) morire di/per spavento/di tristezza/d'amore ( 62) malato di tristezza/di infelicità, malattia d'amore/ammalarsi di tristezza ( 63) alleviare l'infelicità/la paura/la tristezza ( 64) guarire dalla paura/la tristezza/l'infelicità/dalla disperazione (65) felicità/allegria contagiosa, contagiare con l'allegria/di gioia (66) soffrire per amore, sofferenza d'amore (67) curare le ferite del cuore ( 68) sintomo dell'innamoramento The source domain RAPTURE/HIGH or more specifically DRUNKENNESS/BEING DRUNK is frequently mentioned in the literature in connection with various emotions, including LOVE and HAPPINESS (Kövecses 1986: 92;Apresjan 1997: 182;Kövecses 2000a: 26;2018: 73), in various languages.Kövecses (1990aKövecses ( : 178, 2000a: 75) : 75) cites this source domain as typical of positive emotions and suggests that it has much in common with the domain INSANITY.The states of insanity and drunkenness overlap to some extent as the behaviour of the individual in both states is similar -irrational, and excessive -but the cause of this behaviour is different.However, when we speak of positive emotions the feeling of partial irrationality induced by drugs/alcohol is combined with a pleasant feeling.For Italian, our data show that this metaphor can only be associated with positive emotions, since we found MLEs for both positive emotions considered (examples 69 to 71) and not for the three emotions with negative valence.
Examples of EMOTION IS A DRUG/DRUNKENNESS: (69) ebro di felicità/di gioia, ebbrezza di felicità/dell'amore (70) ubriaco di gioia/di allegria/di amore, inebriante allegria (71) sbronza di felicità In our study the specific metaphor EMOTION IS MEDICINE (examples 72-75) is characteristic of HAPPINESS and not for emotions with positive valence as we expected based on the literature where this metaphor is mentioned primarily for LOVE.

Examples of EMOTION IS MEDICINE: (72) dose di allegria (73) l'allegria fa bene (74) effetti benefici dell'allegria (75) iniezione di felicità/allegria
The metaphor seems to be consistent with the prevailing idea, particularly important in the last few decades, of the importance of non-physical factors, including happiness, in disease.Happiness is understood in popular theories of emotion as something that has a positive effect on a person's health and more generally on their quality of life.Some correlations have also been scientifically proven: on the one hand the negative effects of depression and anxiety on physical health have been established, and on the other hand the positive effects of happiness have also been reported, especially with regard to the significantly longer life expectancies of happy people (Veenhoven 2008: 455).
The metaphor EMOTIONS ARE AUTONOMOUS FORCES is mentioned by most authors who have studied the conceptualization of emotions.Kövecses (2000a: 62) explains that this metaphor is based on the image schema FORCE, which is one of the most basic image schemas of the conceptual system.It has its origins in our bodily experience and plays a central role in the conceptualization of emotions.Every day a person encounters the actions of various forces within and outside their own body, in nature and in the environment.Dixon (2003: 3) notes that throughout history emotions have been perceived as forces that work against the individual, i.e. against their will and reason.In most cases these are forces over which the individual has no control, which is consistent with the folk theories that understand emotions as phenomena over which the individual has no control and cannot resist.This metaphor also proved to be very important in our study, for all the emotions considered: we found 808 linguistic realizations of this metaphor and 5,746 examples of these realizations.The metaphor is also important when we try to determine differences in the conceptualization of positive and negative emotions.The most obvious difference lies in the specific metaphor EMOTION IS A NATURAL FORCE, in which it becomes clear that, although all the emotions are conceptualized as NATURAL FORCES, emotions with positive and negative valence are conceptualized as different forces of nature: emotions with positive valence are conceptualized as LIGHT (examples 76 to 80), emotions with negative valence do not have a unique pattern, as SADNESS is conceptualized as  83) covare rabbia/la collera/il furore/l'ira, friggere di rabbia, la rabbia/il furore scalda An important difference between positive and negative emotions is also evident in the metaphor EMOTION IS A WILD (CAPTURED) ANIMAL.Kövecses (2000a: 62) notes that the behaviour of a person who is not in control of their emotions is often compared to the behaviour of a wild animal.The same author (2018: 76) makes the connection between this metaphor and the concept of emotions (of which Darwin is the most prominent representative) as instinctive reactions that humans have inherited from their animal ancestors over evolution.The desire to have an emotion under control is shown in the version CAP-TURED WILD ANIMAL.Rull (2002: 185 and 186) makes the connection between the control of an emotion and a wild animal we keep in captivity because we see it as dangerous.
For this metaphor we found an extremely high number (107 MLEs used 1,337 times) of realizations for negative emotions (examples 84) and only a few (16 MLEs used 31 times) for positive emotions (examples 85), which correspond to the realizations we also found for negative emotions and which almost all refer to the aspect of intensity.So, as expected, in Italian negative emotions are seen as more dangerous and intense.The same MLEs are sometimes used to refer to a very strong positive emotion.

Examples of EMOTION IS A WILD (CAPTURED) ANIMAL:
(84) rabbia/collera/ira feroce, in preda alla paura/allo spavento/al timore/alla rabbia/ all'ira/alla tristezza, ringhiare di rabbia, gli artigli del panico, controllare la rabbia/l'ira/la paura (85) gioia feroce, gioia/amore selvaggia(o), in preda all'amore/alla gioia, nido d'amore Interesting differences in relation to the various valences were also revealed in the basic metaphor EMOTION IS AN OBJECT, or more precisely in quite all its specific metaphors.For the conceptual metaphor EMOTION IS A BUILDING we found MLEs only for emotion concepts with positive valence.We found a few very different realizations (examples 86 to 90).At least some of them refer to the fact that it is possible to build or destroy happiness (and love) and that the individual plays an important role in this.The other MLFs refer to the aspect of the existence of emotions and to the intensity of emotions.
Examples of EMOTION IS A BUILDING: (86) costruire la felicità/amore (87) distruggere la felicità, amore distrutto (88) felicità incrollabile (89) la porta della felicità (si chiude/si apre) (90) i pilastri della felicità Smith (2020) believes that the concept of happiness as something that can be methodically constructed and controlled has only been present in Western cultures since the 18th century, before which happiness was seen as a matter of chance, fate or even the grace of God (Kövecses 2015: 166).Also important for the conceptualization of negative emotions are the metaphors EMOTION IS A BURDEN and EMOTION IS AN OBSTACLE.Kövecses (2020: 49)  (96) la paura/il timore blocca, bloccato dalla furia/dal terrore/dal panico (97) la paura insuperabile (98) superare la paura/lo spavento/il timore/il terrore/il panico/lo sgomento/lpira/la tristezza/la rabbia (99) affrontare la paura/il terrore Although we found MLEs for the metaphor EMOTION IS FOOD for all the considered emotions (except FEAR), we found significant differences between emotions with positive and negative valence, especially in relation to taste.Other authors, for example Zhou and Tse (2020: 7, 9 and 11), also found a relationship between sadness and a bitter taste, and a bitter taste and negatively valenced emotions in general.Similarly, the analysis of the LMEs has shown that in Italian emotions with a positive valence are associated with a good and sweet taste (examples 100 to 101).and those with a negative valence (except fear) are associated with a bitter taste (examples 102 to 103).

CONCLUSIONS
Valence, one of the most important properties of emotions, also influences their conceptualization.For Italian we found differences at the level of specific metaphors, but even greater differences emerged at the level of metaphorical linguistic expressions themselves.We found that the source domains OPPONENT, OPPONENT WE FIGHT, ILLNESS, DARKNESS, COLD, HEAT, CAPTURED WILD ANIMAL, FOOD (bitter taste), BURDEN and OBSTACLE were relevant for negative emotions.For emotions with positive valence, the initial domains are MEDICINE, LIGHT, DRUG/DRUNKENNESS, OBJECT, BUILDING, FOOD (good and sweet taste).In some cases, the source domains do not apply to the valence of the emotion, but to the positive or negative aspects of a particular emotion, regardless of its valence.For example, the source domain ILLNESS, which is typical of negative emotions, refers only to the negative aspects of LOVE (rejected or unrequited love).

METAPHORICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EMO-TIONS IN ITALIAN
The aim of this article is to discuss the conceptualization of negative and positive emotions in Italian.In other languages, emotions have been found to have a very complex conceptual structure.Many authors (Fainsilber and Ortony 1987;Fussell and Moss 1998;Gibbs 1994;Kövecses 2000a;Gibbs, Leggitt and Turner 2002;Kövecses 2014) who worked on the conceptualization of emotions make it clear that metaphorical language plays an important role in understanding the language of emotions, not only describing and categorizing emotional experiences, but also defining them more precisely and even creating them.Since valence is one of the most important features of emotions, we were interested in how it influences their conceptualization and how differences in valence are manifested at the level of metaphors and metaphorical linguistic expressions.We analysed more than 150,000 concordances from the itWaC corpus and found that emotions in Italian have a complex conceptual structure.Comparing the results by valence, we found that the differences between emotions with positive and negative valence do not occur at the level of basic metaphors, but at the level of some specific metaphors and even more clearly at the level of metaphorical linguistic expressions.We found that while all emotions are perceived as OPPONENT / ENEMY, this source domain applies in particular to emotions with negative valence.Only emotions with negative valence are perceived as OPPONENT WE FIGHT, which means that we have to overcome and control them.In contrast, only positive emotions are perceived as LIGHT, MEDICINE, DRUG and BUILDING.As with the metaphor EMOTIONS ARE FOOD, positive valence is clearly associated with a good and sweet taste and negative valence with a bitter taste.If emotions with a positive valence are perceived as LIGHT, emotions with a negative valence are perceived as DARKNESS (SADNESS), COLD (FEAR) and HEAT (ANGER).At the level of metaphorical linguistic expressions, we found some other interesting differences.
Keywords: conceptual metaphor, emotion concepts, valence, Italian emotion is used generically and can be interchanged with any or all of the emotions discussed **F -fear, A -anger, S -sadness, H -happiness, L -love, MLE -number of different MLEs, MLEe -number of times the LMEs are found in the analysed concordances MLEs and 2,122 examples of MLEs for negative emotions versus 35 different MLEs and 57 examples of MLEs for positive emotions.The realizations are shown in examples 42 to 50 and mostly refer to the intensity of the emotion.

Table 1 :
Keywords for the five selected emotions

Table 2 :
Conceptual metaphors for emotion concepts in Italian with frequencies of different LMEs and the number examples of LMEs in the concordances 9 A total of 50,152 for fear, 11,745 for anger, 25,887 for sadness, 32,029 for happiness and 12,491 for love.10 It is impossible to draw important conclusions from the frequencies alone, as the numbers are not directly comparable due to the different number of keywords and analysed concordances.However, from the overall analysis we were able to conclude that the number of MLEs does not depend only on the number of considered concordances.From this we can conclude that frequencies can be an additional piece of information that, together with the analysis of linguistic expressions, gives a more detailed picture of the conceptualization of emotions.
mentions a source domain WEIGHT, which can be elaborated in BURDEN or/and in OBSTACLE.The realizations are of different types, but all refer on the one hand to the intensity of the emotion (examples 91 to 93 and 96 to 97), and on the other hand to our desire to control our emotions (examples 94 to 95 and 98 to 99).Since positively valued emotions bring pleasure, we do not regard them as obstacles and/or burdens.