Qualitative Emotion Analysis
Choose and analyze a fragment of discourse by determining the linguistic means of conveying the emotional stance of its characters:
- I.
State the type of discourse (fiction, advertising,
medical, legal, media, political etc.) and
the type of interaction (cooperation, argumentative communication
(cooperative or competitive));
- II. State the type of linguistic manifestation of emotional experiences
i)
Expression of emotion by:
a)
physiological reactions
(non-verbal and paraverbal);
b)
correlation between
manifestation rules and the manifestation);
ii.
Displaying the emotion betrayed in the use of:
a)
Expressive language means
(emotive language);
b)
Modifying language means
(hedges, intensifiers);
c)
Ideologically marked
vocabulary (social rank, economic status, political membership);
d) Attitudinally marked
vocabulary (ethical modality: rightness and wrongness, aesthetical modality:
(beauty (appealing) and ugliness (hideous); high (high-flown) and low
(pathetic), tragic and comic);
iii.
Thematization of emotions:
a)
Verbal labelling of emotions
and of their intensity (emotion terms: nominal, adjectival, verbal forms);
b)
Description of emotions and
experiences (emotion reporting via declarative formulas: I feel/ I have the feeling/ I
feel as if/like; metaphorical formulas: on cloud number nine, blood runs cold, hot under the collar, head over heels, jump for joy);
c)
Description of events and
circumstances relevant to an experience (emotion elicitors);
d)
Description of situational
circumstances of an experience (state and action motivation);
- III.
Outline pragmatic intentions for emotional behaviour (informing about emotions, sharing experiences, reporting or self-reporting
about experiences, eliciting information about or analysing one’s emotional
experiences, finding about and discussing the third-party’s experiences,
calling for subsiding/eliciting emotions);
- IV. State the empathetic/emotional deixis (emotional slant) (positive/negative, elated/depressing)
Model: “Could I give you a hug?” Tess has just set her own dishes down when she
found herself hugged hard and hugging back. While Tess was in Casey’s clutches,
the girl, exclaimed, “Ooo, you’re just super! And grew up right over here,
across the alley. I want to be just like you.” With that, the impetuous girl
hit the door. “’Night, Mac. Tell Mary I’ll be up to see her tomorrow afternoon”
(Spencer, 192).
It is an instance of
cooperative discourse with an emotional deixis of escalating positive emotions
of joy and surprise; lingual markers of positive basic emotion of joy are the
polite request Could I give you a hug?,
exclamation Ooo, exclamatory
utterance you’re just super! and
simple chopped clauses; nonverbal markers are hugs and clutches (haptic
non-verbal signs of communication), impetuous behaviour and exclamatory
intonation. The fragment exhibits abundant use of connotatives aimed at
implicit rendering and eliciting of emotions. The indirectness of discursive
emotions reification evinces the double standards of the English speaking
society to oppress emotions as opposed to the true feelings. The use of bald-on
politeness and positive politeness strategies suggest the close relations
between the communicants while pragmatic emotive intentions entail informing
about emotions and sharing emotions.
