INTRACULTURAL VARIATION OF SEMANTIC AND EPISODIC EMOTION KNOWLEDGE IN ESTONIAN

Ene Vainik

Institute of the Estonian Language, Tallinn

Abstract. This article compares gender- and age-based differences in the cognitive salience of emotion words elicited in two list tasks displaying the content of semantic and episodic emotion knowledge. The semantic emotion knowledge of women appeared as more accessible and different from their episodic knowledge; the difference in the cognitive salience of basic and non-basic emotion terms was higher. As for the age-related variation, the maximum difference between the basic term salience in the semantic and episodic emotion knowledge was revealed in the youngest group (age 14–26), whereas the middle-aged group (age 29–41) displayed the highest similarity.

Keywords: emotion terms, cognitive salience, age and gender, semantic and episodic emotion knowledge