Do emotions require linguistic expression for their actuality?

I guess the true questions in place is that if do emotions require causes, and not linguistic expression in particular to emote, is that it ? ...I very much guess the obvious answer is that they do naturally, prevented we end up believing in causality as we all seam to believe in practice (which is what matters), just as linguistic expression also requires causes to express whatever it means to convey...and just as it is very much true, that we can also express emotions through the medium of language, intended in particular as words in here, it is similarly true, that emotions themselves can be considered a language on its own, as they seam to be enough to communicate something on itself without recurring to the mediation of words as a particular process...

That's an interesting thought. It reminds me of how we say people "read"
the emotions "written" in another's facial expression.

Despite my previous post - which is one side of the story - I do think that 'our beliefs', our state of mind, our cynicism, our relationship to the other person and view of the other person, our 'trigger words', the way a verbal interaction is phrased, our past history, our associations with particular behaviour/objects etc...will often play a part in generating emotions within a person that would not occur from a person just experiencing the situation.

That is to say (when combining my first post) that feelings do occur without language, and the feelings that occur after language has run it's course is often different to the former.

Is the latter languages fault though? Probably - I think our brain is much more structured due to language (language follows a structure, and in order to easily follow it we must have that structure in our brain)...and experiences real or imagined have much the same effect on the brain well - though I think there's a lot more complexity than that to it

...today it is known, fairly common knowledge indeed, that the learning of a new language is responsible for the appearance of new patterns of behaviour, kind of a 2 me if you will, so what you said to an extent can be true...but if I remember correctly the question was if they are needed, and in that case the answer is a straight no, they are not particularly necessary...

It is more than obvious that people can be and ARE alone
feeling emotions, be thay love, hate, envy, fear, or lonliness.

Articulation is irrelevant.





David

That was the heading. The body of the OP contained thoughts likes this :

Can anyone remember the time before one had memories or language? Cos I can see a baby 'emoting' but wonder if they cognitively are aware of specific emotions, even if it could be in a very primal form...

U think a baby can get mad or afraid, without KNOWING it ??

I concur with, OmSigDAVID, is it? Additionally, I might add the following: an emotion is the recognizable and identifiable congealing of the roiling and palpably frenzied atmosphere of chaos which is the spectrum of our sentience- an emotion is the translation of a single extension of a minute component of this spectrum which endures for a period in which it is comprehended and contextualized syntactically. The sociological mentalities and contrived methods of thought which are wrought upon a generation then define these extension of the intangible phenomena of our existence- as such, however, I must say that the manner in which emotions are presented, through the mediums in which one is capable of functioning, is wholly distinct and discretely unrelated to the substance and very being of the emotions themselves. Yes, often emotions and such overt facets of our humanity are befuddled and squandered by idolatrous linguistic expression, for example, or diminutive physical idiocy, yet these ailments are mere fallacies inherent in our being as a humanity- as unavoidable and undesirable at times as they are, it is concluded that emotions may functions effectively devoid linguistic expression- in fact, conclusively, linguistic expression attempts to syntactically conceptualize an emotion which is as effective as attempting to assign a definite geometric figure for the expanses of the sea- futile, firstly, infeasible, and thirdly, consummately ignorant. As a society, it is pertinent that we acknowledge the epiphany that the superficial chalice from which we now extend has diluted the integrity and divinity of the humanity which must be purged of that which staunches its beauty and seen in the nude and bare form from which it derives- our emotions must liberate themselves from the fulminating bonds of the confoundingly ineffective harness which strains and ultimately encumbers our quest to achieve the true perception of the human form- to hell with the words which have decapitated the ineffable glory of ourselves and rendered us ignorant to the pulchritude which conceals itself within our very hides. Indict these vile phrases and oral excretions which have distorted all and ravaged the edifice of existence- behold only that which is, and not that which the poisonous minions of the hierarchy of corruption, our minds, seek to imbed indelibly within us. Be gone, repugnant serpents of fiendish temptation, ANEW THE DAY DAWNS AND UPON THE HORIZON SITS THE DESTINY TO WHICH WE HAVE RISEN FOR MILLENNIA- Alas for it to be the last days of such words... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you a mix of Rousseau with Joan D´Arc ? hmm...maybe just a modern Templar knight...you will lose that to along the way...and when you finally get yourself naked of all the nonsense you will miss the clothes like an old man misses its childhood...
(...here in the forum we have some atheist "templar" resistant´s around the place, nice folk...)

Of course they 'know' they get mad or whatever, but I'm not sure it's sophisticated enough for them to linguisticly express within themselves. Maybe at a certain age, but I'm no childhood/infant expert...

I don 't see that as a viable issue.
Its like saying that someone is thirsty but does not "linguisticly express within" himself.

If he FEELS it, that 's all there is TO it.
He is thirsty and he knows it; arguably, if he is not aware of being thirsty,
then definitionally he is NOT thirsty.





David

But in contrast to putting words to a feeling, all I was merely shedding light on was the fact we were all, at a stage, infants without that ability. Can you remember 'feelings' during your infancy? And if you could, articulating it now wouldn't be the same as an actual infant's ambiguous thought processes of an 'emotional' experience.

Without the ability to speak English??


That depends on how u define it.
I can remember my 3rd Birthday and remember time leading up to it.




"Ambiguous"??????? Y????





David

Animals have emotions, but also their own limited vocabulary of vocal, bodily, and olfactory signals. Due to animal thought lacking a sophisticated level of symbolic content, emotional feelings might fill the void by being far more developed, diverse, and distinct in non-humans. Accordingly, emotions would then be internal meanings themselves -- an "about something" -- the precursor to the public expressions of animal signals and the later emergence of actual language. Fear provoked by a predator doubles as a concept for predator; hunger serves dual duty as a concept for food or providing the "why" of seeking it; etc.

That may not be the final word on the subjective, but it is reasonable.

Sorry, I spawned this thread then abandoned it because I got busy.

I suppose the answer emotions do have an existence independent of their linguistic expression, but they are dependent on linguistic expression for their definition, which 'makes sense' within a specific cultural context/wider web of meanings. But there is also the fact that internal linguistic 'activity'/mental narrative can pull emotions in different ways, bring emotions into different shades of anger/joy etc. through reinterpretation of a context; so really it's an interaction as well as a definition.

That's really interesting G H. Is it just speculation or did you read a study somewhere?

No.

Animals without language feel emotions.

One the things language allows us to do is rehearse, relive, or even synthesize emotions independant of real stimuli in a highly sophisticated way that I don't think we could do without language. (although being owned by a cat I'll testify that they have imaginations and dream emotionally.)

Its not hard to SEE
their displayed emotions, in facial expressions
or in body language.

Its also discernable in some of the sounds that thay make.





David