Expressions of Emotion of Happiness in Croatian and Italian Idioms

Abstract

Emotions are responses to the world around us. They have always been very important human adaptations to the surrounding world. Emotions can be shown by non-verbal communication, but they can also be verbalized. This paper explores different modalities of expressing happiness using Croatian and Italian corpora of idioms. The central objective of the research is to determine whether correspondence exists between the two languages in terms of the forms of idioms and their meaning. Firstly, the phraseological analysis will focus on idioms that include the emotion of happiness (or one of its synonyms) as one of their components (e.g., “biti lud od sreće”, “essere pazzo di gioia”). Secondly, the paper analyzes the somatic idioms where one can detect the emotion of happiness based on their semantic aspect (e.g., “imati osmijeh od uha do uha”, “avere un sorriso da un orecchio”). Thirdly, the analysis will include non-somatic idioms in which one can detect the emotion based on their semantic aspect (e.g., “biti u sedmom nebu”, “essere al settimo cielo”). The paper demonstrates that the phraseological corpora of the two languages overlap to a large extent, both on the level of phrasing and content, but also that each corpus has its own specificities which reflect individual cultures, worldviews, and experiences of the two peoples.