Participation and Footing

This chapter presents a sociopragmatic approach to the study of affect and emotion, taking into account the fact that human emotions are conceptualized and linguistically expressed by means of speech acts within different and various affective practices. Key theories addressing the topic from a linguistic and discourse-pragmatic perspective are outlined and critically discussed, arguing for the need to broaden the scope of research towards a more complex, multidisciplinary and multidimensional analysis of emotion. Thus, the main findings of approaches such as those of functional linguistics, cognitive linguistics, social and cultural theories and sensory pragmatics are also outlined. The relationship between emotion and other discursive phenomena such as stance taking, (im)politeness, swearing, humor or irony is highlighted, as is the relationship between emotion and evaluation. Finally, an analysis of a videotaped narrative of personal experience is presented, emphasizing the importance of both deconstructing the different elements of discursive emotion and formulating appropriate research questions, in order to shed light on the crucial sociopragmatic aspects of affective relational practices.