Problems of Emotive Language

How discrete or independent are ''affective prosody'' and ''linguistic prosody''?

“…These data are not only consistent with the fact that intonation is just one of many elements of language used to convey emotion and attitude (Ladd, 1980;Stankiewicz, 1964), but they also strongly suggest that the poor performance of RHD patients on intonation in emotional contexts may in part be due to a primary inability to categorise the stimuli at a subjective emotional level. The right hemisphere's interaction with the limbic system (Lamandella, 1977) and especially its dominance in emotional processing (e.g., Gainotti, 1983;Silberman & Weingartner, 1986) lend strong support to this view.…”

“…The right hemisphere's interaction with the limbic system (Lamandella, 1977) and especially its dominance in emotional processing (e.g., Gainotti, 1983;Silberman & Weingartner, 1986) lend strong support to this view. Indeed, if the processing of emotions involves strategies for which this hemisphere is dominant , and if the verbal expression of emotions involves elements of language other than intonation (Ladd, 1980;Stankiewicz, 1964), then it is reasonable to expect that RHD patients would perform poorly relative to normal and LHD subjects on any verbal or nonverbal (e.g., Wittling & Roschmann, 1993) task that involves emotional information. This means that rather than being a special category of intonation unique to the signalling of emotions, ''emotional intonation'' may actually be emotionalised intonation.`E Papez (1937) suggested that higher cognitive functions influence emotions through interconnections between association areas of the cerebral cortex and limbic structures such as the hypothalamus.…”

“…As mentioned earlier, intonation is only one of many aspects of language used to convey linguistic and/or emotional and attitudinal information (Ladd, 1980;Stankiewicz, 1964). For example, in many languages including English, lexical items (e.g., taboo words and terms of endearment) as well as phrases and sentences (e.g.,`A FFECTIVE PROSODY'' AND``LINGUISTIC PROSODY'' ''What a wonderful day'', ''Get off my back'') signal emotions or attitude of the speaker.…”

“…It has been demonstrated for English that the words of a sentence may even override intonation in signalling attitudinal or emotional meaning (Ladd, 1980, p. 126). Stankiewicz (1964) has also shown for different languages that stress shift, code switching, substitution of grammatical constructions and phonological processes are also used to signal emotions.…”

Constructing Social Identity: A Language Socialization Perspective

“…For example, the stance of certainty is widely marked through factive predicates, determiners, cleft constructions, and other presupposing structures (Levinson, 1983;Givon, 1989), whereas uncertainty is widely marked through modals, rising intonation, and interrogative constructions (Lakoff, 1972). Possible universals in the marking of affective intensity include the use of vowel lengthening, modulation of volume and pace of delivery, use of a morphologically marked form (e.g., use of plural marking for a single referent, use of demonstrative pronoun to refer to a person rather than a thing), and code switching (Stankiewicz, 1964;Duranti, 1984;Ochs & Schieffelin, 1989).…”