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  • Emotion in dialogic interaction: Advances in the complex ed. by Edda Weigand
  • Francisco Yus
Emotion in dialogic interaction: Advances in the complex. Ed. by Edda Weigand. (Current issues in linguistic theory 248.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Pp. 282. ISBN 158811497X. $126 (Hb).

This interesting book addresses one of the most slippery issues in academic research: emotions. This is a slippery area not only because of the fact that the qualities of emotions overlap, to some extent, with those of feelings and attitudes, but also because of their dual (un)intentional status. Indeed, of particular interest is the fact that emotions can be broadly divided into unconsciously produced emotions and intentional emotions, the latter directed at an interlocutor and consciously assessed. Much research on the issue of (un)intentional emotional information has taken place, including the distinction between unintentional emotional behavior and intentional emotive communication.

This book is, specifically, on emotions in dialogic interaction, and is divided into several sections containing a number of articles by different authors. These articles were selected from a conference on the same topic held at the University of Münster in October 2002. The new approach taken in this conference, and hence in the book, was ‘to analyse emotion as an integrative component of human behaviour in dialogic interaction … Human beings are purposeful beings, and they try to negotiate their positions in dialogic interaction’ (ix). Human beings cannot ‘separate their abilities such as speaking, thinking, and perceiving, and they are inevitably influenced by emotions’ (ibid.).

Part 1 (‘Addressing the complex’, 3–96) is highly theoretical and contains papers by Edda Weigand, Frantisek Danés, Svetla Cmejrková, Carla Bazzanella, and John E. Joseph. The first paper sets the scope of emotions, while the second one addresses the universal vs. culturally specific status of emotions. The third paper focuses on the interface of emotions and communication. The fourth paper addresses the interplay of emotions, language, and context. Finally, the last paper provides an account of classical theories of language and emotion.

Part 2 (‘Communicative means for expressing emotions’, 97–204) includes papers by Karin Aijmer, whose paper focuses on emotions in interjections; Wolfgang Teubert, who deals specifically with the feeling of guilt; and Valerij Demjankov, Andrej Sergeev, Dasha Sergeeva, and Leonid Voronin, who conduct a corpus-based contrastive study of three basic emotions: joy, astonishment and fear, as communicated in English, German, and Russian. Finally, the last paper, by Maxim I. Stamenov, addresses ambivalence as a dialogic frame of emotions in conflict.

Part 3 (‘Emotional principles in dialogue’, 205–76) contains papers by Michael R. Walrod, Jörn Bollow, Elda Weizman, Tamar Sovran, and Christian Plantin. Walrod’s paper is about emotions in normative discourse and persuasion. Bollow analyzes emotion in tv debates. Both Weizman and Sovran are devoted to emotions in fictional discourse: literary dialogues and the author-reader-text emotion bond. Finally, Plantin examines emotions in argumentation.

This book offers a wide range of analyses of emotions in a highly advisable collection of pieces of research for anyone interested in how emotions shape us as human beings.

Francisco Yus
University of Alicante, Spain
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