Negativity Bias in Language

Zhuo Jing-Schmidt has developed a cognitive-affective model for understanding the negativity bias found in emotive intensifiers in German, English, and Chinese. Jing-Schmidt formulates an argument that illuminates the transformation by which words can take on emotional value, metonymically linking metaphor to emotion and emotion to semantic intensity. This means that the more intense the emotion behind the word, the greater the word's effect in usage. The particular draw of this study is that it argues that the emotional intensity of the intensifier is most noticeable when it is "negative."