Emotional vocabulary
The idea of emotional vocabulary is interesting. Our emotional vocabulary includes the repertoire of emotional expressions we have developed over time. I know some people whose vocabulary is very rich, and others whose are more limited. We are most struck by people who dramatically express or lack the vocabularies for compassion, courtesy, honesty, love, passion, curiosity.
How well we “get along with” and connect with people may have to do with the similarities and compatibilities of our emotional vocabularies — that we speak in languages each other understands. Music, film, and the visual arts are great examples, because of their natural capacities for rich emotional vocabularies, of attracting people from across a wide bandwidth of international venues.
