The major underlying principle of the present paper is that, in opposition to the viewpoint of emotions as discrete entities, emotions are represented as clusters in conceptual space. The graded structure and fuzzy boundaries inherent in the prototype-periphery nature of these clusters dictate that the meaning of a specific emotion is governed by both inter- and intra-cluster relationships and their interactions. In addition to these relationships and interactions the paper examines both external and internal affects to compare and contrast the FEAR, COMPASSION, LOVE/JOY, and PRIDE clusters in British English and Polish. The three specific methods employed to analyze these are the GRID instrument, an online emotions sorting task, and a corpus-based cognitive linguistic methodology.

Jeśli przedmiotem badań językoznawcy jest język, to powstaje pytanie, jak ma on dotrzeć do przedmiotu swych badań.