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A good point of departure for this discussion is (Damasio 1996) in which
Damasio states that there are no emotionless statements. This insight has led to the
formulation of Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, which can be paraphrased as
follows: when humans remember particular events the long-term memories that are
activated, include the emotive states that they experienced when the events were
committed to memory. In this regard Damasio describes the role of two emotionprocessing
centres, situated in the two frontal lobes ofthe human neocortex, and shows
that through their involvement emotive mind-body states are intimately involved in
concept-forming processes like understanding, planning, critical thinking, selfevaluation
and finally in remembering past events. The question however arises, how
language, as humans'primary tool for formulating and expressing concepts, is involved
in the encoding of concepts. Because humans express encoded concepts to fellow
humans within particular cultural or intercultural contexts, it is necessary to also
involve the interrelationship of language and culture in any explanation of how
language encodes emotive expressions.
EMOTION AND CULTURE
According to Lutz and Abu-Lughod (1990:47) emotion and culture are mutually
linked. It is only simplistic folk models of human existence where a person's thoughts
and feelings are separated.
Serious treatment of human emotions sees emotions as
"arising in social situations and compelling certain types of response." This is
illustrated in the following way:
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