Week 3 - Vocabulary Changes Everything

As noted in a wide range of studies (one example being Emotion-specific vocabulary and its contribution to emotion understanding in 4- to 9-year-old children by Streubel et. al.), having the vocabulary to accurately explain your emotions impacts your emotional intelligence and awareness of your emotional wellbeing. I have noticed that our English/American emotional vocabulary is much smaller than the Italian one. If you asked me to name my emotion on a day I am feeling bad I would be limited to "sad," "anxious," worried," or maybe "tired." Strangely, though, when our psychiatric patients enter the clinic here they often describe their state as that of "anguish," "rumination," polarization," obsession," or other very nuanced phrases. It is also notable that these relatively technical phrases are being used by untrained patients, not just medical staff.

American English compensates for this simpler vocabulary by having more commonly used turns of speech and idioms. Phrases like "A for effort," "brownie points," or "out of the park" all cannot be translated well into Italian in a way that preserves their meaning.

I am not a linguist but in my experience these differences in where we place the priority in our languages have an impact on how we process our mental health.