This book analyses the emotional message of Hungarian folksongs from a Cultural Linguistic
perspective employing a wide range of empirical devices. It combines theoretical notions with
analytical devices and has a multidisciplinary essence: it relies on the latest Cultural
Linguistic findings employing spatial semantics cognitive linguistics cognitive psychology
and ethnography. The book addresses key questions including: How is nature conceptualized by a
folk cultural group? How are emotions and other mental states expressed via nature imagery with
respect to metaphors and construal schemas? The author argues that folksongs reflect the
Hungarian peasant communities' specific treatment of emotions captured in an underlying
cultural schema 'reservedness.' This schema is grounded in principals of morality and tradition
and governs the various levels of representation. The main topics discussed are related to two
core issues: cultural metaphors and cultural schemas of construal in folksongs. It provides a
detailed example based on over 1000 folksongs of how a cultural group's cognition can be
analyzed and better understood through a representative corpus-based linguistic approach. The
research is also pioneering in constructing a comprehensive analysis framework adapted to folk
poetry and offers an example of how cultural conceptualizations can be investigated in various
discourse types. Last but not least the book offers insights into the work of Hungarian
linguists and folklorists concerning cultural conceptualizations which have largely been
unavailable in English.
