Learning words the Emotional way :)

“The best and the most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart.”

And if I may add to Helen Keller’s quote “and expressed through words.”  Words are a medium through which emotions are expressed. Since emotions are an intrinsic part of the human experience, we need to expand our emotional vocabulary to express ourselves with precision and clarity.

Apart from learning the syntax of English, we need to explore other methodologies that will help in building a strong emotional vocabulary and be really useful in describing how we feel. This will also helpin improving our Reading and Comprehension skills, especially in today’s era when we communicate via personal texts such as diaries, emails, blogs, transcribed speech and fiction which contain emotion rich data. This ultimately would help us crack the VA RC section in our exams.

Using a Vocabulary chart of emotions:

Tom Drummond, an emirates educator of children and adults has done extensive research on this subject and has created a vocabulary chart that explores the ten basic categories of human emotions which will help students move towards better expression. These are: Happiness, Care, Depression, Inadequacy, Fear, Confusion, Hurt, Anger, Loneliness and Remorse.He further categorizes these emotions according to their intensity ranging from low, medium to extreme so as to make us aware of their varying degrees and contexts.

This vocabulary chart is fairly comprehensive and will surely help in enriching our vocabulary.

A student can select words from each category and explore their usage to form clear ideas of how andwhere exactly to use them in sentences.  This can be done through the various dictionaries available online.

For example, let us explore ‘Happiness” from our vocabulary chart. Let’s pick three words of different intensities:  1: content 2: Light-hearted  3: ecstatic

1: Content:Intensity: low, can be used as an adjective and as a verb.

As an adjective:

1. If you are content with something, you are willing to accept it, rather than wanting something more or something better.

Examples : I am content to admire the panoramic view from my hotel room.

I’m perfectly content with the way the campaign has gone.

Synonyms: satisfied, happy,pleased

1. If you are content, it can also mean that you are fairly happy or satisfied.

Example: He says his daughter is quite content with her new job.

As a Verb: If you content yourself with something, you accept it and do not try to do or have other things.

Examples: He wisely contented himself with his family and his love of nature.

Most manufacturers content themselves with updating existing models.

2:  Light-hearted : Intensity : medium, is used as an adjective.

1. Someone who is light-hearted is cheerful and happy.

Example: They were light-hearted and prepared to enjoy life.

Synonyms: carefree, happy, bright, glad

1. Something that is light-hearted is intended to be entertaining or amusing, and not at all serious.

Example: This film takes a light-hearted view of how fraudulent Godmen turn religion into business and fool the common people.

3: Ecstatic: Intensity: extreme, is used as an adjective.

If you are ecstatic, you feel very happy and full of excitement.

Examples : His wife gave birth to their first child, and he was ecstatic about it.

The cricketers were greeted by the cheers of an ecstatic crowd.

Synonyms: rapturous, entranced, enthusiastic, frenzied

Happy learning !!!

This article has been authored by Sonia Saxena , a Verbal faculty at TIME Mumbai