Vicarious shame in a cross-cultural perspective: emotion concepts a.-s. Spanish shame and ger. Fremdschamen/Fremdscham

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Translation and Teaching Methodology Department, Hryhorii Skovoroda University in Pereiaslav

Translation from English Department Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Vicarious shame in a cross-cultural perspective: emotion concepts a.-s. Spanish shame and ger. Fremdschamen/Fremdscham

Kostiantyn Mizin

Doctor of Science in Philology, Full Professor, Foreign Philology,

Liudmyla Slavova

Doctor of Science in Philology, Full Professor, Theory and Practice

Abstract

VICARIOUS SHAME IN A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE: EMOTION CONCEPTS A.-S. SPANISH SHAME AND GER. FREMDSCHAMEN/FREMDSCHAM

Kostiantyn I. Mizin, Hryhorii Skovoroda University in Pereiaslav (Ukraine)

Liudmyla L. Slavova, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine)

Key words: shame, emotion concept, linguo-culture, linguo-cultural specificity, individualism, language corpus, term, semantic approximation.

The article is devoted to revealing the cross-cultural specificity of the emotion of vicarious shame on the example of the German concept fremdschamen/fremdscham and the Anglo-Saxon Spanish shame. The study aims to identify those cultural factors that led to the most noticeable differences in the conceptual structures of emotion concepts of Ger. fremdschamen/fremdscham and A.-S. Spanish shame. To meet this objective, a three-stage methodology was developed, which was based on the use of interdisciplinary research tools (traditional linguistics, cognitive and corpus linguistics), as well as the involvement of data from psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Strengthening the cross-cultural analysis with the empirical data of language corpora made it possible to reveal divergences in the conceptual structures of the concepts of A.-S. shame and Ger. scham, which are the base for such derivatives as Spanish shame and fremdschamen/fremdscham. A selection of the most relevant English lemmas Eng. shame and Germ. Scham is performed on the basis of two frequency indicators - (1) the combinability of these lemmas (Freq.) and (2) the typicality (regularity) of this combinability (logDice/MI-index). On the conceptual level Freq. is an indicator of the relevance of a concept in a certain linguistic community, and logDice/ Ml-index are indicators of the collocational strength, i.e. the invariability of the compatibility of this concept with other concepts. The proposed methodology made it possible to reveal divergences in the conceptual structures of the concepts of A.-S. shame and Ger. scham, which are the base for such derivatives as Spanish shame and fremdschamen/fremdscham. It was established that these differences led to different approaches to the cross-cultural transfer of the Spanish "foreign" (vicarious) shame, represented by the emotion concept of verguenza ajena, to German and Anglo-Saxon culture. Divergences were established against the background of two criteria for dividing cultures: "cultures of shame - cultures of guilt" and “individualism - collectivism” because these criteria are closely correlated with concepts representing the emotion of shame and its varieties. A certain correlation of the concepts of A.-S. shame and Ger. scham with the level of individualism in the respective cultures has been established, since a higher individualism index in Anglo-Saxons and a lower one in Germans somewhat influenced the external sanctioning of shame. In the Anglo-Saxon culture, a high index of individualism determined the greater privacy of shame, which brought the concept of shame closer in terms of sanctioning to guilt. Therefore, in the English-speaking environment, the connection between the concepts of shame and guilt is of significant relevance, which emphasizes that the Anglo-Saxons belong to the "guilt culture". However, the shame that an individual empathically experiences in a situation of shameful acts or the shameful behaviour of a stranger is not private, since it is based solely on external sanctioning. Therefore, "foreign" (vicarious) shame, to some extent, does not agree with the "individualistic" nature of Anglo-Saxon shame. This divergence between shame and vicarious shame led to the establishment of the association of "foreign" (vicarious) shame with the Spaniards in the English-speaking environment. As a result, the emotion concept of Spanish shame was formed. But among the Germans, who also belong to the "guilt culture", shame is not private but public, i.e., it has a distinctive external sanctioning. This means that, unlike shame and Spanish shame, German concepts of scham and fremdschamen/fremdscham are entirely consistent in terms of sanctioning. Therefore, in the German linguo-society, ethnic and socio-cultural restrictions did not arise during the transfer of the Spanish concept verguenza ajena.

Анотація

Пропонована стаття присвячена вивченню особливостей сприйняття емоції «чужого сорому» у споріднених німецькій і англосаксонській лінгвокультурах. Із цією метою виявлено лінгвокультурну специфіку емоційних концептів (ЕК) нім. FREMDSCHAMEN/FREMDSCHAM і англосакс. SPANISH SHAME, які в цих лінгвосоціумах репрезентують «чужий сором», крізь призму тих критеріїв поділу культур, які тісно корелюють із концептами, що репрезентують емоцію сорому та її різновиди. Такими критеріями є «культури сорому - культури провини» та «індивідуалізм - колективізм». Реалізація цієї мети передбачала опрацювання трьохетапної методики, що ґрунтується на застосуванні міждисциплінарного дослідницького інструментарію, а також залученні даних психології, антропології та соціології. Підсилення крос-культурного аналізу емпіричними даними мовних корпусів дало змогу виявити розбіжності в концептуальних структурах ЕК англосакс. shame і нім. scham, які є базовими для похідних Spanish shame і fremdschamen/fremdscham. Установлено, що саме ці розбіжності зумовили різні підходи до крос-культурного трансферу іспанського «чужого сорому», представленого ЕК verguenza ajena, до німецької та англосаксонської лінгвокультур.

Виявлено, що значний вплив на формування понять англосакс. shame і нім. scham має рівень індивідуалізму. Останній є вищим в англосаксонців і нижчим у німців, що певною мірою коригує в цих лінгвосоціумах внутрішнє санкціонування провини та зовнішнє сорому. В англосаксонській культурі високий показник індивідуалізму визначив більшу приватність сорому, що наблизило ЕК shame за параметром санкціонування до guilt. Через це в англійськомовному середовищі значну релевантність має зв'язок ЕК shame і guilt, що підкреслює належність англосаксонців до «культур провини». Однак той сором, який емпатично переживає індивід у ситуації ганебних учинків або ганебної поведінки чужої людини, не є приватним, оскільки він ґрунтується виключно на зовнішньому санкціонуванні, тому «чужий сором» деякою мірою не узгоджується з «індивідуалістською» природою англосаксонського сорому. Ця невідповідність між соромом і «чужим соромом» спричинила закріплення в англійськомовному середовищі асоціації «чужого сорому» з іспанцями, у результаті чого сформувався ЕК SPANISH shame. Натомість у німців, які також належать до «культур провини», сором є не приватним, а публічним, тобто має чітке зовнішнього санкціонування. Це означає, що, на відміну від shame і Spanish shame, нім. ЕК scham і fremdschamen/ fremdscham повністю узгоджуються у плані санкціонування. Тому в німецькому лінгвосоціумі не виникло етно- й соціокультурних рестрикцій при трансфері іспанського ЕК verguenza ajena.

Ключові слова: сором, емоційний концепт, лінгвокультура, лінгвокультурна специфіка, індивідуалізм, мовний корпус, термін, семантична апроксимація.

Introduction

The study of emotion concepts, especially those that contain meanings specific to a particular linguo-society, occupies a separate niche in linguistic cross-cultural research now adays. It is connected with the fact that emotion concepts are considered to be cultural concepts

[Goddard, 2018; Kovecses, 1990; Russell, 1991; Underhill, 2015; Wierzbicka, 1999]. Therefore, reinforcement of the linguistic analysis of the latter on the basis of interdisciplinary research tools allows revealing the characteristic features of categorization and conceptualization of the objective world by representatives of different linguo-cultures. Identifying the cultural specifics of emotion concepts is based on the common opinion among cognitive and cultural linguists that in the process of social interaction of individuals emotions receive socio- and ethnocultural semantic nuances, which influence their expression and perception by speakers of different languages and cultures [Dewaele, 2015; Robinson, Altarriba, 2015; Sharifian, 2015]. This idea has been verified in a number of studies devoted to the research of basic (universal) [Foolen, 2012; Soriano, 2015; Wilson, Lewan- dowska-Tomaszczyk, 2019], derived [Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Wilson, 2014; Panasenko, 2012; Wilson, Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, 2017], and culture-specific [Altarriba, 2003; Mizin, Ovsiienko, 2020; Mizin, Petrov, 2021; Ogarkova, 2013] emotions. The results of these linguistic studies are consistent with the conclusions of psychologists that emotions are somewhat differently perceived by representatives of various linguo-societies [see, e.g., Doyle, Gendron, Lindquist, 2021; Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, Barrett, 2014; Jack, Garrod, Yu, Caldara, Schyns, 2012].

A distinctive feature of emotion concepts is their fuzzy nature [see “fuzzy concepts in a fuzzy hierarchy” in: Russell, Fehr, 1994] which makes them particularly susceptible to the influence of culture [Wilson, Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, 2019, p. 92]. First and foremost, it is pertaining to derived (complex, social) emotions as amalgams of two or more emotional experiences. They are the result of the socialisation of individuals, so they show a noticeable cultural labelling. The diffuse nature of such emotions is considered to be the reason why their number has not been defined yet despite the involvement of modern methods and technical capabilities [Mizin, Ovsiienko, 2020, p. 115]. Scholars do not have a common point of view on the criteria for distinguishing between basic and derived emotions either. Therefore, certain emotions in some works are defined as basic, and in others - as derived, in particular, shame, which the proposed study is devoted to. For example, despite the prevailing idea in psychology that shame has a social basis, the American psychologist Izard [1992] considers it as a basic emotion. This is probably due to its “dual” nature, because although it is not considered innate (basic), it has at least several features of basic emotions (e.g., shame is characterized by a clear physiological expression: blushing, avoidance of eye contact, lowering of the head, etc.) [Tracy, Matsumoto, 2008, p. 11655].

Despite this “duality”, there is no doubt that shame is a social emotion, as it can only arise in the presence of other people who assess the morality of individual's actions. Therefore, this emotion plays a basic role in such essential aspects of culture as moral norms and socialisation processes of the individual, which makes it an important moral and regulatory mechanism not only of personal but also social life [Hurtado de Mendoza, Molina, Fernandez-Dols, 2010, p. 662]. In other words, the cultural concept that represents the emotion of shame is relevant for any linguo-culture, because it is a regulator of social relations, performing a moral and ethical function. Taking into account the fact that the norms of morality in different linguo-societies are somewhat different, the emotion concept of shame can even be one of the criteria for the division of cultures [see, e.g., Benedict, 1946]. Since this concept is a sociocultural phenomenon, its study can reveal the specifics of the perception and understanding of the objective world by representatives of a particular linguo-society. This is especially true for the concepts derived from shame, in particular vicarious shame, which arises in an individual through shameful actions/deeds of the other - “foreign” - person. In German linguo-culture, this shame represents the emotion concept of FREMDSCHAMEN/FREMDSCHAM (lit. foreign shame), and in Anglo-Saxon - SPANISH SHAME.

Linguo-cultural features of vicarious shame in English-speaking and German-speaking societies

Despite the fact that vicarious shame is familiar to speakers of different languages and cultures, in the German-speaking environment the concept of fremdschamen/fremdscham emerged relatively recently - in the mid-20s of the last century. The frequency graph of two parallel linguistic designations of this concept - the lexemes Fremdschamen and Fremdscham - shows that it has become increasingly relevant today since the late twentieth century (Fig. 1).

Figure. 1. The frequency graph of the lexemes Fremdschamen, Fremdscham, Fremdschuld according to Google Books Ngram Viewer;

German language; 1900-2019; smoothing 3 [Orwant, Brockman, 2024]

Therefore, fremdschamen/fremdscham is perceived in the German linguo-society as a fairly new concept that is confirmed by the corpora of the study, e.g.:

Es kommt aber ein Gefuhl hinzu, das man mit dem relativ neuen Wort Fremdscham be- zeichnen konnte [Geyken, 2024]

`However, this creates a feeling that could be described as a relatively new word Fremdscham'.

In addition, over the last decade, the lexemes Fremdschamen and Fremdscham have been admitted by some German-language mass media as the words of the year in youth jargon, in which the English word cringe is considered to be equivalent [see, e.g., Kasper-Claridge, 2021], e.g.:

Fremdscham - neudeutsch-denglisch auch Cringe genannt - uberkam mich v.a. beim Publikum [Geyken, 2024]

`I was overcome with Fremdscham - also known as cringe in neudeutsch-denglisch - especially from the audience'.

Today, the lexeme Fremdscham has largely given way to Fremdschamen (Fig. 1). Apparently, this is due to the fact that the noun Scham conveys the semantics of not only shame but also genitals (see subsection 3). Therefore, the composite Fremdscham, unlike Fremdschamen, can cause false associations with the genitals of the other person. It is noteworthy that there are original denotations for vicarious shame only in two European languages - German and Finnish (myotahapea). In a number of languages of Europe, about all in East Slavic languages, the calqued Spanish phrase verguenza ajena can be found, which being adapted in a foreign language environment, changed the component foreign (like in German) into Spanish, thus creating a false impression about the Spaniards as a nation that takes this emotion as something special, cf. in Ukrainian:

Либонь, уже вся Україна вивчила поняття “іспанський сором” [Shvedova at al., 2017-2024]

It seems that the whole Ukraine has already learnt the concept of “Spanish shame”.

Правда, я відчула іспанський сором, коли через тижні, подруга мене запитала, а чому я черепи Йоріками називаю [Shvedova at al., 2017-2024]

However, weeks later, when my friend asked me why I referred to the skulls as Yoricks, I had a feeling of Spanish shame.

Таке викликає не співчуття на Заході, а жалість і іспанський сором [Shvedova at al., 2017-2024]

This does not evoke sympathy in the West, but rather pity and Spanish shame.

This way the metaphorical expression Spanish shame appeared in the English language, which seems to emphasize that “someone else's shame” is not an Anglo-Saxon, but a “foreign” emotion. This phrase began to be recorded in English dictionaries, in particular. In the Urban Dictionary, created by Aaron Peckham, Spanish shame is defined as “the feeling of burning embarrassment for the actions of others, also known as second-hand embarrassment, empathetic embarrassment, third-party embarrassment or vicarious embarrassment. Derived from Spanish 'verguenza ajena' - literally 'shame on behalf of others'” [Peckham, 2024]. English-speaking psychologists use neutral terms without heterostereotypical semantics vicarious shame, vicarious embarrassment, empathic embarrassment or second-hand embarrassment [see, e.g., Miller, 1987]. Moreover, here the component shame of the folk-etymological form of the borrowed phrase Spanish shame is replaced by the component embarrassment. This indicates that in the English-speaking society, at the level of “naive” and scientific world perception, there is a certain disagreement as for which emotion - shame or embarrassment - is conveyed by the Spanish concept VERGUENZA AJENA.

The reason for it can be seen, firstly, in the fact that the concept of VERGUENZA covers the meanings of both Anglo-Saxon concepts - SHAME and EMBARRASSMENT [Hurtado de Mendoza, Molina, Fernandez-Dols, 2010, p. 674; Ogarkova, Soriano, Lehr, 2012, p. 268]. This illustrates the case when in one linguo-culture a certain emotion concept is quite clear, but in the other linguo-culture its equivalent concept can be blended, blurred [Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Wilson, 2018, p. 159]. Secondly, there are doubts about the lexeme shame as a scientific term, since it serves more as a “folk” name for the emotion of shame [Kollareth, Kikutani, Russell, 2019, p. 4]. Thirdly, shame and embarrassment are such close emotions that they are almost indistinguishable at the “naive” level not only among Spaniards but also among representatives of some other linguo-societies. Moreover, this lack of distinction concerns both the “naive” and the scientific point of view, since until quite recently a number of psychologists held the opinion that embarrassment is not a separate emotion, but a less intense type of shame [Borg, Staufenbiel, Scherer, 1988; Lewis, 1971].

“Naive” knowledge about the surrounding reality is reflected primarily in language [Wier- zbicka, 1999, p. 35], therefore, numerous differences in the linguistic marking of concepts close to shame can be traced in the contrastive study of related and unrelated languages [Kollareth, Fernandez-Dols, Russell, 2018, p. 275]. It is at the level of “naive” world perception that Anglo- Saxons have a close connection between shame and another emotion - guilt. This is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that the lexemes shame and guilt can be used interchangeably [Tangney, Miller, Flicker, Barlow, 1996, p. 1256]. Obviously, it is connected with the fact that in response to confrontation with misdeeds committed by his/her own in-group, a person might experience several negative emotions, labelled shame: guilt, but also shame, remorse, and/or regret [Imhoff, Bilewicz, Erb, 2012, p. 729]. However, despite the closeness of meanings, the lexemes shame, guilt, and embarrassment, as well as the emotions they denote, are clearly differentiated [Krawczak, 2018, p. 456; Peeters, 2020, p. 27]. This conclusion is consistent with the widespread view in psychology that shame, embarrassment, and guilt are separate self-conscious emotions [see, e.g., Menesini, Camodeca, 2008; Merkin, 2017; Tangney, 2003; Tangney, Mashek, Stuewig, 2005; Tracy, Robins, 2004].

Interchangeability in discourse and in the translation of a number of terms that objectify close emotion concepts correlate with one of the principles of cognitive linguistics - “semantic approximation” [Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Wilson, 2018, p. 183]. The basis of the phenomenon of semantic approximation is the diffuse content of cultural concepts in general. Obviously, due to this diffuseness, it is difficult for individuals to clearly determine what they feel in various shameful and unpleasant situations - shame, embarrassment or guilt. The situation becomes even more complicated if, at the same time, we have two overlapping “filters” - cultural and linguistic, because, firstly, the expression of emotions is influenced by cultural factors. Secondly, in various languages, there is a different “set” of linguistic units for indicating emotions. This can be explained by the fact that representatives of the European linguo-cultural space sometimes call the situation of shaming another person as feeling shame or embarrassment for another person, sometimes shame and embarrassment for another person at the same time.

The above-mentioned cross-cultural differences regarding the conceptualization of the emotion of vicarious shame in the Anglo-Saxon and German linguo-societies have determined the purpose of the proposed article, which lies in identifying those cultural factors that led to the most noticeable differences in the conceptual structures of emotion concepts of Ger. fremdschamen/ fremdscham and A.-S. SPANISH shame. The study is based on the assumption that the leading role among such factors is played primarily by those criteria for dividing cultures, which are closely correlated with the concepts representing the emotion of shame and its varieties, in particular, “cultures of shame - cultures of guilt” and “individualism - collectivism”.

Methods and material (language corpora)

It should be noted that the terms Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon culture, Anglo-Saxon linguo- society and English-speaking environment are methodologically somewhat blurred, as they refer to collective notions that unite representatives of English-speaking communities: British, North Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and others.

The research methodology involves the implementation of three stages:

Comparison of indicators of individualism and collectivism in British, North American and German cultures. This stage involves the use of current data from Hofstede's website [Schram, 2022], which regularly updates objective indicators regarding the six criteria identified by this scholar according to which cultures are divided in particular, including the criterion “individualism - collectivism”.

Defining the relationship between the characteristic features of the perception of the emotion of shame and guilt, which is close to it in these cultures, and the level of individualism and collectivism in them.

Confirmation of the results of the previous stage by means of a comparative analysis of the frequency indicators of those occurrences that form profiles of English query words shame in iWeb and German Scham in DWDS corpora. Unfortunately, the language profile in the DWDS corpus is not formed for the parallel name of the German concept containing the meaning of vicarious shame - the noun Schamen. Presumably, this is due to the fact that even modern computer programs do not allow automatically “screening out” the verb schamen from the noun Schamen, which derives from this verb.

It should be noted that DWDS - Digitales Worterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Digital Dictionary of the German Language), managed by Alexander Geyken [Geyken, 2024], and iWeb (Word Web Corpus), created by Mark Davies [Davies, 2024], are both corpora that contain texts in various languages, but they are not directly comparable in terms of their design, content, and usage. DWDS is a large corpus of written German that contains over 1.5 billion words from a wide range of sources, including literature, newspapers, and academic texts. It is a curated corpus, which means that the texts are carefully selected and annotated by language experts to ensure high quality and accuracy. DWDS is primarily used for linguistic research, such as analyzing word usage, word meanings, and grammatical structures in German. On the other hand, iWeb is a corpus of web-based texts in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, and others. It contains over 14 billion words and is one of the largest freely available corpora of its kind. Unlike DWDS, iWeb is an uncurated corpus, which means that the texts are not selected or annotated by language experts. Instead, iWeb uses a web-crawling algorithm to collect texts from the internet, which may include a wide range of sources, such as blogs, forums, news websites, and social media. emotion linguistic individualism

While both DWDS and iWeb can be used for linguistic research, they have different strengths and weaknesses. DWDS is designed for researchers who need a high-quality corpus of written German that has been carefully selected and annotated. iWeb, on the other hand, is useful for researchers who need a large corpus of web-based texts in multiple languages, but who are willing to accept lower quality and a broader range of sources. The two corpora are not directly comparable, and which one to use will depend on the specific research question and context.

The described procedure is based on the provision that corpus materials provide firm empirical grounds for the research. Here, linguistic phenomena are statistically analysed with the help of multivariate techniques, and social and cultural variation is explicitly included in the multifactorial model [Geeraerts, 2006, p. vi]. Therefore, the frequency of occurrence can be the basis for establishing the relevance of the semantics of lexemes. The closest lexical units can be determined from the point of view of contextual distance since the proximity of forms indicates the proximity of the content. This means that the closer one form is to another and the more often such combinations occur in discourse, the closer the semantic connections between them [Le- wandowska-Tomaszczyk, Wilson, 2018, pp. 178-179].

The profile-based approach has its advantages. It lies in the fact that complete multifactorial statistics can be applied, and more subtle semantic factors can be captured. Corpus profiles of words provide data on the frequency of left and right collocates of query words (a general list and lists separately for each part of speech) and co-occurrent forms. The number of lists in the iWeb and DWDS corpora is not the same. It is explained, apparently, by differences in the grammatical organisation of English and German languages. For example, in the iWeb web corpus, which contains 14 billion words, the current forms are represented by four lists divided by parts of speech (+NOUN/+ADJ/+VERB/+ADV). The DWDS corpus has a separate function, "DWDS-Wortprofils", which was significantly improved in 2021. At the same time, the volume of words involved in the formation of profiles has increased here to 4.8 billion.

A selection of the most relevant English lemmas Eng. shame and Germ. Scham is performed on the basis of two frequency indicators - (1) the combinability of these lemmas (Freq.) and (2) the typicality (regularity) of this combinability (logDice/MI-index). On the conceptual level, Freq. is an indicator of the relevance of a concept in a certain linguistic community, and logDice/MI- index are indicators of the collocational strength, i.e. the invariability of the compatibility of this concept with other concepts. To measure collocation strength, we have used Ml-score for the English data and LogDice for the German data. In fact, these two indicators can be comparable, especially in our study, because they both demonstrate how well associative links between two words are established. These indicators give more objectivity to the frequency indicator, since the frequency is often distorted by repetitions, random occurrences, onyms, etc.

Therefore, those lemmas that perform the function of cultural names of emotion concepts are of particular importance for the sample because, according to the indicators of the latter, it is possible to establish how closely they correlate with core concepts for the present study - A.- S. SHAME and Ger. SCHAM. The concepts that show the closest connection are called conceptual proximates (CPs) [Mizin at al., 2023, p. 78]. With the help of a comparative analysis of CPs, it is possible to identify the most relevant meanings of SHAME and SCHAM, which influenced the "domestication" of the Spanish concept VERGUENZA AJENA and the "foreignisation" in the Germanspeaking and English-speaking environments, respectively.

The "conceptual approximation" phenomenon serves as a methodological basis for singling out CPs. The former is based on the fact that each cultural concept is created due to its correlation with other concepts. This correlation occurs in the process of permanent interaction of individuals within a certain linguo-cultural group. As a result of such interaction, one concept leaves an "imprint" on the other, adding the meaning that is characteristic of the first concept. That semantic "imprint" serves as a conceptual link between two concepts. This means that the conceptual structure of any cultural concept is a systematically organized hierarchy of a set of such semantic "imprints", "highlighting" (dominant position) and "darkening" (marginal position), which depends on their approximation to or distance from the basic meaning of this concept. At the same time, those meanings closest to the basic one significantly influence it, mainly determining the concept's meaning as a whole. Since the cultural concept is a dynamic construct, the configuration of meanings in its conceptual structure is constantly changing. "Highlighting" and "toning down" of meanings creates the effect of conceptual approximation when one or the other conceptual connection can bring two concepts so close that they become interchangeable in certain situations. Taking into account the fact that meanings are objectified by language signs, such a conceptual approximation serves as a basis for the above-mentioned semantic approximation.

Since two indicators are important for the comparative study of CPs of core concepts SHAME and SCHAM - Freq. and logDice/MI-index, in subsection 3 of this study, the research material is presented in two tables respectively: Table 1 presents 30 CPs of the concepts of SHAME and SCHAM with the highest frequency index (this indicator shows the relevance of those meanings that represent these CPs for core concepts), and in Table 2 there are 30 CPs with the highest indicator of the collocational strength (this indicator demonstrates how well established is the conceptual connection of these CPs with core concepts). These indicators are mostly interrelated, although not consistently, as some CPs may have (1) high frequency with low collocational strength or (2) low frequency with high collocational strength. This means that in the first case, the relevance of a certain CP is distorted by “accidental” occurrences of lemmas - the one that objectifies this CP and the one that objectifies shame/scham. In the second case, the relevance of CP is distorted due to a high share of cliches (idiomatization) of the connection of these lemmas. Such cases were “screened out” when forming the sample of CP of this study by fixing the relevant values of their frequency and collocational strength: Freq. >5; Ml-index >4.0; logDice >4.0.

Results and discussion

Subsection 1: “Cultures of shame - cultures of guilt”: religious, ethnopsychological and ethnocultural basis of division

The anthropologist Ruth Benedict [1934], a bright representative of the ethnopsychological direction in American anthropology, almost a century ago proposed a new scheme for studying cultures, which was based on the notion of “patterns of culture”. According to this notion, each culture has its own essential core that determines the configuration of all its elements. ln other words, each linguistic and cultural community has a certain set of key ideas that serve as the basis for the socialization of individuals within this community, influencing, to a large extent, the formation of moral norms and value-related attitudes. This notion was further tested in the well-known work of the author The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture [Benedict, 1946], in which she theoretically substantiated the method of distance learning of cultures. This method has been subjected to devastating criticism more than once, but a number of modern studies in the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology and linguistics confirm the results that Benedict obtained due to it.

In particular, R. Benedict's idea that shame can be one of the criteria for dividing the cultures of the East and the West turned out to be quite scientifically objective: among the Japanese, this emotion plays a significant role in regulating social relations; at the same time, among Europeans, a similar social role is performed not by shame, but by guilt. This became the basis for her conclusion that the cultures of the East belong to “cultures of shame” and those of the West to “cultures of guilt” [Benedict, 1946, pp. 196, 223]. This opinion is consistent with the conclusion of the sociologist Hofstede [Hofstede, 2001] that in collectivistic cultures, there is a tendency for the violation of a certain social norm to activate shame, not guilt, in the individual. This means that R. Benedict's division of cultures according to the emotional criterion correlates to a certain extent with the division of cultures into collectivistic and individualistic ones.

The interdependence of the criteria “culture of guilt - culture of shame” and “individualism - collectivism” is not rigid, since the belonging, in particular, of European linguo-societies to “cultures of guilt” can be considered quite conditional due to the fact that the level of individualism among representatives of Western and Eastern Europe is different. Furthermore, even in Western Europe, this level shows differences if we compare, for instance, the British and the Spanish (Table 1).

“Cultures of guilt” clearly include those communities in which a high percentage of adherents of Protestant currents of Christianity can be traced since the notion of “culture of guilt” has close associations primarily with the Protestant personality [Werden, 2015, p. 175]. This can be explained, obviously, by the fact that the main idea of Protestantism denies the salvation of the soul by doing good deeds or by buying an indulgence (getting rid of sins for money) because a person must feel guilty for the rest of his life for every sin. Due to this in Protestant communities, confessions and repentance contributed to the development of individuals' sense of personal responsibility for committing sins. On the contrary, if the individual does not feel the need to compensate for the damage or repent, then he/she does feel more shame than guilt. The emotion of shame is more intense than guilt and is closely associated with weakness and helplessness [Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Wilson, 2014, p. 128]. The lack of willpower directly correlates with the irresponsibility of the individual, in particular with shifting the blame onto others. Diachronic studies confirm that the semantics of guilt appeared in the English lexeme shame in the period of the spread of Protestantism - in the 16th-17th centuries [Hurtado-de-Mendoza, Molina, Fernandez-Dols, 2013, p. 11].

The abovementioned makes it possible to assert that religion, related moral norms and value attitudes had a noticeable influence both on the formation of individualistic/collectivistic character traits of representatives of a certain linguo-society, and their perception of emotions. Thus, individualists are more prone to emotions that provide them with distance and independence, since the role of emotions is related to self-expression, personal aspirations and interests, as well as orientation to assessing one's own responsibility for choosing a model of behaviour in a particular situation of the social interaction. Instead, collectivists show a tendency to those emotions that are responsible for the interaction and relationship between the members of the group and contribute to the adaptation of a person in this group, because the feeling of internal solidarity of groups is important here, when an individual is ashamed of his/her actions in violation of generally accepted norms and causing inconvenience to members “of his/her own” group [Mizin at al., 2021, p. 101].

Subsection 2: Vicarious shame through the prism of the specifics of emotion concepts of A.-S. shame and Ger. SCHAM

The weakening of the role of religion in the modern world has led to some changes in the semantic structure of the Anglo-Saxon concept of SHAME since earlier it was more religious and collectivistic, and now it shows a tendency toward secularity and individualism [Tissari, 2006, p. 152]. The researchers have found that for members of the English-speaking US community, shame is more private, has a significant impact on self-esteem, and is closer to guilt. In contrast, shame is a more public and less painful emotion in a collectivistic culture such as the Spanish one. The privacy of shame in the English-speaking North American and British cultures is entirely consistent with pronounced individualism (Table 1). In such individualistic “guilt cultures”, shame can even be transformed into guilt [Wallbott, Scherer, 1995, pp. 481-482].

Table 1 Index of individualism in German, Spanish, British and American (the USA) cultures [Schram, 2022]

The privacy of guilt and the publicity of shame correlate with such a common criterion for distinguishing between these emotions as internal and external sanctioning [see more about internal sanctioning for guilt and external sanctioning for shame in: Werden, 2015, p. 141]. The abovementioned greater privacy of shame among Anglo-Saxons compared to Germans suggests that the concept of SHAME does not show clear external sanctioning (Table 1). However, vicarious shame is based only on external sanctioning, so it cannot be private. Probably, the case when the “foreign” concept of SPANISH SHAME conveys the meanings of “foreign” shame is more understandable for Anglo-Saxons than attempts to explain to themselves what kind of emotion they actually experience when they are ashamed of the actions of other people. This emotion is closer to guilt but is not guilt itself. It can be assumed that embarrassment for the Anglo-Saxons is the emotion that they experience in the case of “foreign” (vicarious) shame. This can also explain the fact that English psychologists call “foreign” (vicarious) shame using the terms vicarious embarrassment, empathic embarrassment, or secondhand embarrassment.

The German concept FREMDSCHAMEN/FREMDSCHAM, in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon SPANISH SHAME, being borrowed underwent a kind of “domestication” by means of literal translation of the phrase verguenza ajena. Such an approach seems illogical at first glance, since Anglo-Saxons and Germans have Germanic origins. However, despite this closeness, the individualism index in the German linguo-society is noticeably lower than in the Anglo-Saxon one: the Germans are closer to the Spaniards in this index than to the Americans (the USA) or the British (Table 1). This is a reason to assume that the German emotion concept of scham does not show such privacy as the Anglo-Saxon's shame, i.e., the former does not come close in terms of sanctioning to the concept of schuld 'guilt' (Table 2). Additionally, it may be related to the fact that some German regions are Catholic, while others - Protestant. So that the Catholic regions and their culture “pull” the German individualism index closer to Spain. In the German-speaking environment, there were no restrictions in the transfer of the Spanish concept of verguenza ajena. Given the tendency toward the formation of one-word composites in German, the name of the latter was first calqued as the composite Fremdscham, and later as Fremdschamen (Fig. 1).

Table 2 Characteristics of the emotion of shame through the prism of the opposition of the Anglo-Saxons and Germans according to the criterion of “individualism - collectivism"

It is noteworthy that the Germans, unlike the Anglo-Saxons, have not only the concept of FREMDSCHAMEN/FREMDSCHAM, but also FREMDSCHULD, e.g.:

Auf dem Oberkorper der Leiche sei eine Verletzung gefunden worden, die auf eine "Fremdschuld" hinweist [Geyken, 2024]

'An injury was found on the upper body of the corpse, indicating a “foreign guilt"'.

Hinweise auf eine Fremdschuld am Tod des Mannes liegen laut Polizei nicht vor [Geyken, 2024]

'According to the police, there are no indications that the man's death was the fault of another person'.

The latter does not contain empathic meanings of vicarious guilt, since it is associated with (1) shifting the blame onto others, (2) the guilt of another person, and (3) forgiveness of one's own guilt as a sin [Helbig, 2016, p. 452]. At the same time, FREMDSCHULD is not a particularly relevant concept for the German linguistic society (Fig. 1), actualising itself only in the crucial periods of German history [Beintker, 1994, p. 219].

Subsection 3: Verification of the specifics of A.-S. concept shame and Ger. scham based on the data of language corpora

As noted in Section 3 of this work, the study of the highest frequency indices (F) and the collocation strength (MI/lD) for those lemmas that objectify CPs of cultural concepts, including emotional ones, can provide objective data regarding the most relevant meanings of the latter. The definition of these meanings allows obtaining a fairly complete picture of the relevant semantic organization of cultural concepts.

In view of the significance of both of these characteristics, the analysis of the CPs of concepts of A.-S. SHAME and Ger. SCHAM under study is based on the data of four samples: in Table 3, CPs of these concepts are sorted according to the highest frequency index, and in Table 4 - according to the highest index of collocational strength. To highlight the features of the conceptual structures of the core concepts of SHAME and SCHAM, samples of 30 CPs for each of them are pretty sufficient. In addition, CPs indices of the German concept SCHAM, which exceed this number, are unrepresentative (minimum frequency in the corpus is >5).

It should be noted that the comparison of the conceptual structures of SHAME and SCHAM is carried out by establishing a hierarchy of meanings of these concepts based on the analysis of the indices of the frequency of the CPs (Table 3). The indices of collocational strength of the CPs are arranged separately only for the purpose of more precise visualisation of the established associations that arise in representatives of the Anglo-Saxon and German cultures regarding the emotion of shame (Table 4).

Table 3 Top 30 most relevant CPs of concepts shame and scham sorted by frequency Mi-index >4.0; logDice >4.0; Freq. >5

Table 4 Top 30 most relevant CPs of concepts shame and scham sorted by collocational strength Mi-index >4.0; logDice >4.0; Freq. >5

A contrastive study of CPs by frequency index (Table 3) revealed that the conceptual structures of emotion concepts of the A.-S. SHAME and Ger. SCHAM noticeably coincide: 35 out of 60 CPs convey similar meanings (58.3%). However, we are talking only about partial equivalence at the conceptual level. The latter is consistent with the partial equivalence of the names of these concepts at the language level: shame - '1) a painful emotion resulting from the awareness of inadequacy or guilt; 2) a state of dishonour; 3) an unfortunate development' (iWeb); Scham - '1) an unbearable (painful) feeling of embarrassment caused by remorse, exposure (compromising evidence), awareness of one's own vices or something indecent, dishonourable, ridiculous; 2) a blush of shame; 3) human genital organs' [DWDS]. Semantic divergence of the lexemes shame and Scham were outlined at the stage of formation of Old English and Old High Germanic languages: Proto-Germanic *skamo ^ Old English sc(e)amu 'shame', Old High German scama 'shame; remorse; dismay; ignominy', Middle High German schame 'outrage; genitalia', Old Saxon skama, Middle Low German scham(e) [DWDS]. Therefore, it can be assumed that the semantic divergence of the concepts SHAME and SCHAM has a long history.

It is noteworthy that SHAME demonstrates the closest conceptual relationship with GUILT (cf. Table 1), e.g.:

You are not coming to the Lord out of guilt and shame anymore [Davies, 2024];

The inevitable damage that is caused by severe picking often causes the individual to feel shame and guilt [Davies, 2024];

Meanwhile, the male victim told how he had felt shame and guilt despite knowing he had done nothing wrong [Davies, 2024].

Almost three times higher frequency of CP GUILT compared to other CPs of the core concept of SHAME indicates the dominance of guilt in the conceptual structure of the latter. This fact correlates with the results of subsections 1 and 2 of the proposed study, providing fairly objective evidence that the Anglo-Saxons belong to the “guilt culture”. In contrast to SHAME, the semantic hierarchy of the German concept SCHAM is presented more evenly because it has no meanings with a clear dominance. At the same time, in the German linguo-society, the emotion of shame most closely correlates with metaphysical fe...