ELSEVIER

Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

Toward a pragmatics of emotive communication*

Claudia Caffi, Richard W. Janneyb
* Dipartimento di Scienze Glottoetnologiche, Universitri di Genova, Via Balbi 4, I-16126 Genoa, Italy
b Department of English - EZW, University of Cologne, GronewaldstraJe 2, D-50931 Cologne, Germany

Abstract
The task of developing a unified pragmatics of emotive communication poses many interesting challenges for future research. This paper outlines some areas in which more work
could be done to help coordinate present linguistic research. After briefly reviewing some
pioneering historical work on language and affect, the paper discusses the following concepts,
all of which seem to be in need of further clarification: emotive meaning, involvement,
emotive markedness, degree of emotive divergence, objects of emotive choice, loci of
emotive choice, and outer vs. inner deixis. Competing categories of emotive devices in current studies of language and affect are reviewed, and a simplified framework is proposed,
consisting of: (1) evaluation devices, (2) proximity devices, (3) specificity devices, (4) evidentiality devices, (5) volitionality devices, and (6) quantity devices. It is argued that only
with consensual categories and objects of analysis can investigators start focusing on, and
comparing findings about, emotive linguistic phenomena from a unified point of view.
Finally, some distinctions between potential perspectives, units, and loci of emotive analysis
are proposed, and the paper concludes with a call for increased discussion of how research on
language and affect might be better coordinated in the future.

1. Introduction:

Metatheoretical views from a fuzzy periphery

Presently, a vast amount of linguistic data on language and affect is being collected in pragmatics that cannot be fully compared or interpreted due to the lack of
a unified, overriding conceptual framework. If we look at the growing body of literature on language and affect, it is difficult to discern a consensual theory, a consensual object of investigation, or a consensual analytical methodology. Investigators

* We would like to express our thanks to Horst Amdt and Klaus HSlker for their valuable comments
on the line of reasoning presented in this paper, and free them, at the same time, from any responsibility
for deficits in the final product. Parts of the paper are adapted from a forthcoming book by Richard
W. Janney entitled Speech and Affect: Emotive Uses of English.
Stankiewicz (1964: 267) used the expression fuzzy periphery to refer to the no mans land of
emotive language. His original statement was: I see no reason . why we should be reluctant to admit
the existence of a fuzzy periphery.
0378-2166/94/$07.00 0 1994 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
SSDI 0378-2166(94)00040-L

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ofPrugmntics 22 (19941 325-373

presently seem to be proceeding

in an ad hoc manner, operating on the basis of
sometimes very different assumptions,
producing findings that are interesting on an
individual
basis, but which cannot be fully accounted for from a unified point of
view. Yet, if there is anything that we can be intuitively sure of as users of language,
it is our awareness, deeply rooted in our everyday experience as communicators,
that
feelings and language are intimately interconnected
in speech and writing.
In this paper, we would like to make some modest suggestions about how linguists
working in this area might begin cooperating
in investigating
affective features
of language from a more unified, systematic, pragmatic point of view. We do not
presume to be able here to fully answer all of the metatheoretical
and methodological questions potentially
raised by our suggestions,
but we do believe that it is
important to draw attention to the lack of coordination
in current research, and to
suggest the feasibility, at least, of bringing order to this endeavor.
The complexity of the interface between language, people, and affect is implicit in
the observation that: (1) we can all express feelings that we have, (2) we can all have
feelings that we do not express, and (3) we can all express feelings that we do not
have, or feelings that we think our partners might expect or wish us to have, or
feelings that it might simply be felicitous to have in a given situation for particular
reasons. In short, we all seem to be capable of producing,
modifying,
and modulating linguistic and other expressions
of affect more or less at will, in very subtle
ways, in order to fit the personal and interpersonal
exigencies of different occasions;
and we are capable of negotiating
agreement about the intersubjective
significance
of our expressions
of affect. In this broad sense, at least, the expression of feelings
and attitudes in language does not seem to be that much different from the expression of ideas: both processes are cognitively mediated - if perhaps in different ways,
to different extents, and to different purposes (cf. Arndt and Janney, 1991).
But how do we do this? On the basis of what type of linguistic knowledge,
or
what type of broader underlying
pragmatic capacity?
Is the ability to produce and
interpret expressions
of affect in speech and writing rooted in knowledge of some
hitherto underexplored
emotive subcode within the code of language, as suggested
by Stankiewicz
(1964), Volek (1987), and others? Is it rooted in knowledge of hitherto only partly investigated
uses of the affective tools, devices, or resources of
language, as suggested by Irvine (1982), Labov (1984), Ochs (1986), and Ochs and
Schieffelin
(1989)? Or is it perhaps rooted in knowledge
of a much wider, metacommunicational
pragmatic
nature,
for which we presently
have only dim
metaphors, as suggested by Watzlawick
et al. (1967), Friedrich (1986), Arndt and
Janney (1987), and a few others?
Behind questions like these, there are naturally some even more basic metapragmatic questions (cf. Caffi, 1993). For example, how far do present pragmatic conceptual frameworks, descriptive approaches, and analytical procedures actually go in
accounting
for this complex, if apparently effortless, everyday ability? Is a unified
investigation
of language,
affect, and human interaction
even within the present
scope of linguistics?
Is a new, even more integrative, interdisciplinary
effort perhaps
called for? For lack of space, these questions will remain only implicit in the following discussion. Instead, we will have the following, more restricted, aims: first,

C. Cafj?, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

321

we will review some old and new approaches to language and affect that seem to be
of potential interest in developing what we would like to call a pragmatics of emotive communication; second, we will discuss some conceptual and methodological
constraints on current research on language and affect, pointing out some underlying
linguistic issues at stake in this research; and third, we will present a rough sketch of
some conceptual distinctions that we feel could be helpful in approaching emotive
communication from a unified, pragmatic point of view. The paper is not programmatic in spirit, but exploratory. That is, it is not an attempt to impose our own
sketchy, preliminary ideas about various problems that seem (to us) to need to be
dealt with in present studies of language and affect on others working in this area,
but rather an attempt to clear ground for further discussion, in the hope of encouraging suggestions about how studies of language and affect might be better coordinated
in the future.
I .I. Some preliminary definitions
I .I .I. The emotive capacity
One of our underlying assumptions will be that all competent native speakers of a
given language possess what might metaphorically be called an emotive capacity:
that is, certain basic, conventional, learned, affective-relational communicative skills
that help them interact smoothly, negotiate potential interpersonal conflicts, and
reach different ends in speech. These skills are related, to performances of linguistic
and other activities that broadly can be interpreted as signs of affect, or as indices
of speakers feelings, attitudes, or relational orientations toward their topics, their
partners, and/or their own acts of communication in different situations. Successful
interaction depends to a certain extent on a mastery of these conventional skills. We
will assume that explaining what the emotive capacity is, where it comes from, and
how it is used to reach different ends in linguistic interaction, are fitting goals of
pragmatic research.
1.1.2. The notion of afSect
The decision to focus on language and affect implies some body of underlying
assumptions about what affect is to begin with. The great diversity of phenomena
studied under the rubric of affect in different branches of science underscores the
truism that affect means many things to many people - not only across disciplines
but also within disciplines, among different investigators. Like other terms used in
science, the term affect is a figure of speech, a metaphor, which, reified by scientific practice, enables us to approach certain ranges of conceptualized phenomena as
independent objects of study, and define certain other ranges of phenomena as
beyond the scope of investigation (cf. Sarbin, 1986: 87).
Western psychologists commonly distinguish between feelings, a broad, complex
class of subjective personal sensations or states of inner physiological arousal (cf.
Besnier, 1990: 421); emotions, a restricted subset of empirically investigable phenomena within this general class that are relatively transitory, of a certain intensity,
and are attached to, or triggered by, particular objects, ideas, or outer incentive

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C. Cafi, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pra,qnatics 22 (1994) 325-373

events (cf. Kagan, 1978: 1617); moods, which are said to be of longer duration
than emotions, and not necessarily attached to specific inner states or definite objects
(cf. Davidson, 1984: 321); and attitudes, or transitory feeling states with partly
uncontrollable subconscious psychobiological components and partly controllable
expressive components, which are said to be instrumental in maintaining social and
psychological equilibrium and adapting to different situations (cf. Plutchik and
Kellerman, 1980: 30).
The term affect is usually reserved for feeling states that are ascribed to others
on the basis of their observable behavior in different situations (cf. Besnier, 1990:
421). In cognitive psychology, notions of affect range from hot to cold extremes
(cf. Mandler, 1990: 21). At the hotter end, affect is used almost synonymously
with emotion, as defined above. At the cooler end, it is used to refer simply to
human preferences, attitudes, or likes and dislikes, and to adaptive choices related to
these (cf. Mandler, 1990: 21-22). This latter perspective, which is incidentally of
great potential interest for pragmatics, sees affect as a state of interpretive action and
arousal that results from goal-directed cognitive appraisals of perceptions of inner
and outer processes in different contexts (cf. Lazarus, 1982: 1024; Lewis et al.,
1984: 271).
In linguistics, on the other hand, the term affect is often used simply as a broad
synonym for feeling, and is regarded as subsuming not only traditional psychological notions of emotion, mood, and attitude, but also notions of character and personality, and notions related to interactional linguistic phenomena such as masking,
hedging, undercutting, and so forth (cf. Irvine, 1982: 32; Ochs, 1986: 254; Ochs
and Schieffelin, 1989: 7). In the following pages, in keeping with standard linguistic usage, we will use the term affect in this latter, broader sense - apologizing to
psychologists in advance for blurring important theoretical distinctions - as an overriding, generic term for linguistically expressed feelings, attitudes, and relational dispositions of all types (cf. Ochs, 1989).
I .I .3. Emotive communication
We would like to suggest that pragmatics should focus broadly on what Marty
(1908), at the turn of the century, called emotive communication: the intentional,
strategic signalling of affective information in speech and writing (e.g., evaluative
dispositions, evidential commitments, volitional stances, relational orientations,
degrees of emphasis, etc.) in order to influence partners interpretations of situations
and reach different goals. Marty contrasted the notion of emotive communication
to the notion of emotional communication, which he regarded as a type of spontaneous, unintentional leakage or bursting out of emotion in speech (cf. Amdt and Janney, 1991). According to Marty, emotive communication influences partners interpretations of situations by suggesting what he called states of affairs that coincide
with ones own declared feelings and desires in the widest sense (Zustanden, die
dem kundgegebenen eigenen Ftlhlen und Wollen im weitesten Sinne entsprechen)
(1908: 364). Martys wording is important here, because it underscores the notion
that emotive communication, by this definition, has no automatic or necessary relation to real inner affective states. Rather, it is related to self-presentation, and it is

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329

inherently strategic, persuasive, interactional, and other-directed by its very nature

(cf. Parret, 1984: 583; Robinson, 1986: 659; Amdt and Janney, 1991: 526-532).
Emotive communication, thus viewed, is hence less a personal psychological phenomenon than an interpersonal social one. This aligns Martys (1908) idea of emotive utterances conceptually with Ballys (1909) and Sapirs (1927) notions of
social emotional displays, Biihlers (1934) idea of relational traffic signals, and
Blacks (1949) notion of persuasive employments of affect.
We could say that the function of emotive communication, in Biihlers terms, is
essentially appellative: emotive uses of language impose a kind of communicative
valence (kommunikative Vulenz) on the situation, influencing partners perceptions
of what literally is communicated at the ideational level (cf. Biihler, 1934: 31).
During interaction, we tend to perceive others as opening up or closing down,
being responsive or reticent, making signs of approach or withdrawal; we perceive
their relative strength or weakness, their fuller or lesser presence, their attentiveness
or disinterest (cf. Frijda, 1982: 112). All such perceptions are rooted in, and depend
on, emotive displays. The prerequisite for interpreting emotive activities, according
to Frijda, is often merely only the ability to view a piece of linguistic or other behavior as the possible starting-point of its own continuation (1982: 112). It is the
capacity, for example, to view positive behavior as a possible starting point for
agreement or cooperativeness, negative behavior as a possible starting point for
disagreement or conflict, confident behavior as a possible starting point for selfassertiveness or determination, uncertain behavior as a possible starting point for
compromise or resignation, and so forth. In all cases, the interpretation of emotive
activities involves an appreciation of interpersonal relations and self-presentation
strategies (cf. Frijda, 1982: 112). In this sense, following Biihlers (1934) discussion
of the appellative function, emotive communication seems to be more closely related
to notions of dramatic performance (role performance) and rhetoric (persuasion) than
to traditional notions of emotional expressivity (cf. Amdt and Janney, 1991).

2. Historical notes on language and affect

A reasonable first step toward developing a unified pragmatics of emotive communication, we would like to suggest, is to reflect on the history of similar endeavors in the past, and see what lessons can be drawn from these. Throughout the history of linguistic thought, we can find an unstable balance between the necessity of
abstraction and the necessity of not losing sight of living language. Emotive communication inherently belongs to the latter. Solutions to the problem of the relation
between language and affect vary according to the roles assigned to these two competing needs. The problem of the relation itself, however, has always been present in
theoretical reflections on language - present, and yet often somehow repressed, due
to the difficulty of solving it in a fully satisfactory way. It figures, for example, in
Sublimes (Pseudo-Longinus) &3oq (1st century A.D.), and in the semiotics of passions of the 70s (cf. Greimas, 1983; Parret, 1986; Fabbri and Pezzini, 1987), in the
acrus signatus (as opposed to the actus exercim) of medieval scholastic philosophy,

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C. Cafi. R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

and in the entangled problem of connotation (for a good historical survey on connotation, see Garza-Cuarbn, 199 1).
If we look for theories that explicitly make the linguistic expression of affect a
central concern, however, the list of possible candidates becomes shorter: we can
find significant forerunners not only in linguistics, but also in rhetoric, philosophy of
language, and linguistic stylistics. In particular, Aristotles rhetoric, Martys philosophy of language, Ballys linguistic stylistics, and Prague functionalism offer precious insights. Each of these approaches is famous, and at the same time extremely
complex, making any attempt to explain the many subtle differences between their
underlying views of language and affect potentially a subject of volumes of philological and exegetical analysis. Here, we will simply mention, in a very cursory way,
some reasons for their relevance.
2.1. Rhetoric:

Aristotle

and the argumentative

perspective

If pragmatics - envisioned here as dealing with the whole reality of communication, including its emotive aspects - could choose a prestigious ancestor, it should be
ancient rhetoric. Aristotles Rhetoric can be seen as a metapragmatic treatise on the
construction of the shared knowledge necessary for effective emotive communication. Starting from what today would be regarded as a social psychological perspective, Aristotle analyzes different kinds of argumentation which must fit different
types of audiences. In Rhetoric I, (A), 3, 1358b, perhaps an original source of the
recurring semiotic triads in philosophy and linguistics throughout the ages, Aristotle
states that discourse is comprised of three fundamental elements - the speaker, the
topic, and the hearer.
In the present century, Aristotles rhetoric of persuasive discourse has been
pursued in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytecas Trait& de largumentation.
La nouvelle
rhetorique (1958), a work of great potential interest for pragmatics, which focuses
on complex emotive strategies stemming from speakers continuous efforts to adapt
to their addressees. Interestingly, some basic aspects of Giles and Couplands
(1991: 60ff.) accommodation theory are anticipated by, and subtly analyzed in,
the Traits. The main problem dealt with by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca is how
speakers build up a consensus, or a communion of minds, with addressees through
the strength of their arguments, and by the capacity of these to trigger the
addressees emotive participation.
What makes the classical rhetorical perspective a refined precedent of a pragmatics of emotive communication is mainly its strong intersubjective orientation.
In classical oratory, emotive activities are regarded as semiotic phenomena with
communicative potential, regardless of whether they are sincere or not, and
regardless of which mode (verbal, prosodic, or kinesic) they are performed in. It
could be claimed, in fact, that emotive uses of language have been studied
throughout most of Western intellectual history as rhetorical techniques. Rhetorical communication and emotive communication share some crucial features: both
trigger a surplus de sense, both presuppose shared knowledge on the speakers and
hearers parts, and both rely on the hearers cooperation and willingness to under-

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331

take the inferential steps necessary to give utterances intended meanings beyond
their literal ones.
One interesting goal for a pragmatics of emotive communication would be to
begin attempting to account for emotive rhetorical techniques from a new, more systematic, unified, point of view. This would require, among other things, rethinking
and reinterpreting many important rhetorical insights of the past, and perhaps
re-evaluating some modem contributions in this area such as Lausbergs (1960) and
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytecas (1958). Helpful recent research in this direction
has been done by Mortara-Garavelli (1988).
2.2. Philosophy of language: Anton Marty
Anton Martys (1908) discussion of emotive ;iujerungen, at the turn of the
century, may be regarded as an important pioneering philosophical contribution to
later linguistic studies of emotive communication.2 To Marty, as said earlier (see
section 1.3), we owe the insight that we must first distinguish between emotional
(cathartic, expressive) and emotive (instigative, appellative) affective uses of speech
before we can begin to investigate language and affect from a systematic pragmatic
point of view. In the present connection, Martys main contribution was his discussion of what he called interest-demanding (interesseheischende) utterances: that
is, utterances signaling momentary evaluative stances or volitional states, which are
performed by speakers to strategically guide partners attention and influence their
behavior. For this category, he invented the term emotive utterances, apologetically adding that One must excuse the new term on the grounds that in present linguistic usage, no better term for the whole class is available, as words like proclamation, request, wish, command, etc. all have a narrower meaning (Man
entschuldige den neuen Terminus damit, da8 im bisherigen Sprachgebrauch ein fur
die ganze Klasse passender nicht vorhanden ist, da die Namen: Ausrufung, Frage,
Wunsch, Befehlsatz usw. alle einen engeren Bedeutungsumfang haben) (1908:
275). Later, Btihler (1934) integrated Martys distinction between emotional and
emotive uses of language into his notions of the Ausdruck and Appell functions of
language.
According to Marty, emotive communication is rooted in the relationship between
explicit forms of linguistic expression and their potential implicit significance for
interpreters. Marty noted that speakers habitually modify explicit forms of linguistic
expression in order to emotively color them and steer interpretations of their
implicit, intended significance (1908: 524ff.). The linguistic activities involved in
emotive communication, he said, are not cathartic in nature, but intentional, informative (Mitteillung), persuasive (uberzeugung), and/or coercive (Beeinflussung). An
utterance, he argued, is like a stenograph or a rough sketch of an idea: while the
basic conceptual coordinates for interpreting it are provided by the linguistic code,
* Martys philosophy
was much more linguistically
as is evidenced by the title of Martys major work,

Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie (1908).

oriented,

for example,

than his friend Brentanos,

Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeine

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C. Cap,

R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragtnatics 22 (1994) 325-373

the task of filling the utterance into a meaningful cognitive-emotive whole is left
largely up to the interpreter (1908: 145). In interpreting an utterance, he said, the
partner must assign relative importance to the concepts referred to, and must reconstruct most of the implicit relations between these concepts and the speaker, the
topic, and the context in which the utterance is made. Inferences about such implicit
relations are influenced, in part, he maintained, by the form of the utterance. He concluded that the potential emotive interpretations of utterances are restricted by the
perspectives on events that the utterances explicitly sketch out.
In Martys view, although notions like, for example, You must do x, I want
you to do x, Please do x, It would be nice if you did x, Ill be unhappy if you
dont do x, Would you like to do x? , etc., may all perhaps potentially be in mind
at the moment that a speaker makes an utterance meant to express a general idea
like do x, the stenographic nature of utterances themselves requires speakers to
select only one version. Insofar as only one version can be uttered explicitly, the
others remain implicit. Marty claimed that for this reason, it is constantly necessary
for speakers to reduce complex thoughts into simplified, explicit verbal sketches on
the one hand; and by the reverse logic, it is constantly necessary for partners to
expand simplified verbal sketches into complex thoughts on the other. From this, he
concluded that the literal information that passes back and forth during conversation
is thus inevitably always only a small, selective percentage of what potentially may
be meant by the speaker, and what potentially may be understood by the partner
(1908: 168).
Emotive expressions, he said further, can be distinguished into two main subclasses: (1) those related broadly to evaluation, e.g., expressions of acceptance
or rejection, agreement or denial, like or dislike, etc., and (2) those related to what
he termed interest, e.g., expressions of wishes, desires, and feelings related
to these (1908: 276).4 He regarded this second category as linguistically more
complex than the first one. In sections 3, 4 and 5, in which we discuss the categorization of emotive communicative activities in psychology and linguistics, we will
see that Marty seems to have been quite correct. His category of interesseheischende _&&erungen seems to have certain similarities with the psycholinguistic
notion of the motivational potency of utterances (see section 4) and with notions
of linguistic involvement (see section 6), both of which are associated with a
multitude of linguistic activities. A pragmatics of emotive communication can
scarcely ignore Martys contribution to later distinctions in Btihlers Sprachtheorie,5

3 Marty would not have subscribed to the view of language as a conduit of meaning.
4 Martys sub-class
of evaluative
phenomena
corresponds
roughly with psychological
concepts of
positive and negative attitudes and their intensity.
His sub-class
of interest-related
phenomena
corresponds roughly with psychological
concepts of individual conation or motivation and its urgency.
5 In a review of Marty (1908) Biihler remarked that whereas Wundt concentrated
on language mainly
as Ausdruck (emphasizing
emotional
expressivity),
and Husserl, in his strong opposition
to Wundt,
focused mainly on language as Darstellung (emphasizing
the referential function), Marty dealt with the
Ausdruck (emotional)
and Appell (emotive)
functions,
but ignored aspects of language
related to
Darstellung.

C. CafJi, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

and to the Prague School notion of the expressive-emotive

tion 2.4).

function

333

(see sec-

2.3. Linguistic stylisties: Charles Bally

Charles Ballys linguistic stylistics is also of special interest: not only for pragmatic approaches to emotive communication in particular, but also for pragmatics
tout court, because style (understood as expressivity in Ballys approach), is
regarded not simply as an auxiliary or accompanying feature of the linguistic system, but as a constitutive one. Style, as defined by Bally, makes it possible to
establish a link between affect as a psychological category, and grammar (understood in a broad sense as also including the prosodic resources of language) as a
social category. Ballys stylistics is of extraordinary linguistic relevance mainly
because, in it, affective values are embedded in the linguistic system itself, and not
simply added to, or superimposed on, the linguistic system.
As is well-known, Ballys stylistics is a stylistics of language (while Vosslers
and Spitzers, for example, are stylistics of literary texts). Bally defines stylistics
as follows : Stylistics studies the expressive facts of language from the viewpoint
of their affective content, in other words, the expression of feelings through language and the action of language on feelings (La stylistique Ctudie . .. les faits
dexpression du langage organise au point de vue de leur contenu affectif, cesta-dire lexpression des faits de la sensibilite par le langage et laction des faits de
langage sur la sensibilitb) (1970: 16 [ 19091). Following Bally, two abstract fundamental tendencies, or modes of communication, are dialectically at work in language: the intellectual mode (the mode pur) and the affective mode (the mode
v&x). These two modes do not constitute a true dichotomy, but are rather ideal
poles of a continuum: a message, that is, will be more oriented toward one of
them or the other. The intellectual, logical mode is, above all, an abstract possibility which offers the identifying term: that is, the neutral choice - for example,
in a series of affective synonyms representing possible choices for the speaker
(and not only words, but also whole sentences and expressions) - against which
the expressive choice can be detected, compared, and evaluated. There is a continuous silent process of comparison at work in communication:
Words are
understood and felt only through a continuous and unconscious comparison
among them in our mind (les mots ne sont compris et sentis que par une comparaison incessante et inconsciente qui se fait entre eux dans notre cerveau)
(1970: 22 [1909]).
In Ballys view, there are two main types of affective features: first, natural affective features (caractkes affectifs naturels), which are connected with notions of
intensity, evaluation, and beauty (1970: 300, 170ff. [1909]); and second, evocative
effects (effets par &vocation), which are connected with the capacity of linguistic
choices to evoke the milieu where their employment is most natural (les milieux
oti leur emploi est le plus naturel) (1970: 30 [1909]). While natural affective features of language are implicitly centered on the speaker, he says (partly prefiguring
later notions of the expressive function), evocative effects are centered mainly on

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C. Cuffi, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragtnatics 22 (1994) 325-373

the addressee (cf. Segre, 1985: 314), and are related to subcodes and registers of
language that project different tacit definitions of the partners social status, professional affiliations, respective cultural levels, and so forth.6
Bally further distinguished between two types of formal expressive processes
@rocedesformels) and linguistic features connected with these: first, what he calls
direct processes, which involve lexical choices; and second, indirect processes,
which involve prosodic and syntactic choices that go beyond single words (1970:
250ff. [ 19091). Ballys exemplifications of these two types of expressive processes
and their formal features deserve careful attention in modern pragmatics. There is
not enough room in these sketchy notes to fully discuss Ballys contribution to the
understanding of affective aspects of language, but it is worth emphasizing that
Ballys approach is not restricted to the lexicon. His notion of modality in the
analysis of sentences is an important step that clears the way for the representation
of ways in which speakers subjective attitudes are formally embedded in
sentences.
According to Bally, a sentence is comprised of a modus (similar to the modern
notion of modality) and a dictum (similar to the notion of propositional content).
The modus, which is expressed by verbs of propositional attitude like think,
rejoice, hope, etc., is the heart of the sentence (cest lame de la phrase)
(1965 : 36 [ 1925]), and represents the speakers attitude toward the propositional
content, or the dictum, in Ballys terms, in its active, operative mode. The link
between the intellectual and emotive modes, rediscovered within the theoretical
unit sentence (see section 7.7.2), finds its formal abstract representation here.
Starting from this conception, Bally develops a refined analysis of different types
of dislocation (la phrase segmentee), which, in many respects, anticipates both the
Prague studies of the thematic progression of texts in theme-rheme, and modern
pragmatic analyses of right- and left-dislocation.

6 While there are certain similarities

between Ballys natural/evocative
distinction,
Martys emotional/emotive
distinction,
and Bilhlers expressive/appellative
distinction,
it would be a mistake to
assume that these notions are all synonymous.
Ballys discussion
is, in a sense, more linguistically
oriented than those of Marty and Biihler. Rather than discussing
different reasons or psychological
motivations
for making linguistic choices, that is, Bally is pointing out two different basic types of
linguistic stylistic choice: his natural affective features are related mainly to intrastylistic choices, or
choices within a given style or register between different linguistic form tokens and arrangements;
and
his evocative features are related mainly to interstylistir choices, or choices between different styles or
registers of speech per Se (cf. Amdt and Janney, 1987).
Notions somehow close to Ballys more explicit notion of modality can be found in the following
definitions:
the intellectual
subscription
to an act can be accompanied
by a more or less lively sympathy toward that act (lassentiment
intellectuel
que nous donnons a un act peut etre accompagne
dune sympathie
plus ou moins vive pour cet acte) (Brunot, 1922: 539); Every sentence of colloquial language . . . is comprised
of two distinct elements:
the idea and its presentation
There is also
a feeling which accompanies
the experience
and which is expressed
at the same time as the experience . It is the affective presentation (Toute phrase du langage courant
renferme deux elements
bien distincts:
lidee et la p&sentution de celle-ce .., I1 y a aussi un sentiment qui accompagne
lexperience et que le sujet exttriorise
en mCme temps quelle .._ Cest la prf?sentation affective) (Camoy,
1927: 1).

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335

Ballys importance for a pragmatics of emotive communication rests finally in the

fact that he restores the crucial role of emotive expression in language; and he goes
further, assigning affective language, the mode vecu, supremacy with respect to
intellectual language. Whenever we speak, he says, we are called upon to choose the
most effective ways of expressing our ideas and feelings; and our feelings come
first. In saying this, Bally completely subverts de Saussures dichotomy between
lungue and parole. The subversion, however, was never made explicit in Ballys
works, where we find nothing but words of devoted assent to the master whose notes
he, together with Sechehaye, so carefully collected and edited into the Cows (1916).
Perhaps this explains divergent, often critical, interpretations of Ballys viewpoints
later (cf. Stankiewicz, 1964; Braselmann, 1982; Chiss, 1987). Without entering into
exegetical discussion here, it may suffice to quote a touching passage, which has the
flavor of a confession: [after acknowledging the Saussures importance for his
work] Nevertheless, this incomparable master did not particularly dwell on the questions which I later came to love, I mean the questions concerning expressive language, the vehicle of affective thought (Toutefois ce maitre incomparable ne sest
pas attarde specialement aux questions qui mont passion5 plus tard, celles notamment qui concement le langage expressif, vehicule de la pensee affective) (Journal
de Gendve, 10 April, 1957, quoted in Hellman, 1988: 109).
Once we recognize the true significance of affect in Ballys stylistics, which has
nothing to do with the whimsical expression of idiosyncratic emotionality or irrationality, but rather comes very close to the Latin afSicere (to affect, to do something
to something, to influence something or someone), it becomes possible to share
Braselmanns (1982) and Wunderlis (1990) conclusion that it is reductive to see
Ballys works merely as studies of expressive language. His research, beyond
being stylistic, is, in fact, eminently pragmatic: it is centered on the active social
character of language, viewed as the tendency by which speech is moved to serve
action (la tendance qui pousse la parole a servir laction) (1965: 18 [ 19251). The
social nature of affective language is never blurred in Ballys research: one can
show what one is thinking and feeling only through expressive means which are
understandable to others (on ne peut montrer ce quon pense et ce quon sent soimeme que par des moyens dexpression que les autres peuvent comprendre) (1970:
6-7 [1909]). Ballys work paves the way for models of linguistic communication
based on intersubjectivity, such as those developed by Benveniste and Bachtin later
in the century, and makes him, as Wunderli (1990: 385) says, one of the important
forerunners of modem pragmatics (einer der wichtigen Vorlaufer der heutigen
Pragmatik).
2.4. Linguistics: Prague functionalism
Finally, important contributions to the study of language and affect have also
come for several decades from the Prague School, which has dealt with the affective
functions of language since the very beginning (cf. Dane:, 1989). The second and
third statements of the third thesis of the Prague Linguistic Circle (1929), for example, are directly concerned with this issue. After distinguishing conceptually between

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22 (1994) 325-373

internal and manifested

speech (in a manner, incidentally,
that is reminiscent
of
Martys earlier distinction
between inner and outer manifestations
of language),8
the writers state that the features important for the characterization
of language are
the intellectuality and the emotionality of language manifestations.
Both these features either interpenetrate
each other or one of them prevails over the other (1929:
88). In the Prague functionalist
view, intellectual
speech is always socially
oriented;
emotional
speech, on the other hand, may be itself an outlet of the
speakers emotion
(Martys emotional
function
Btihlers Ausdruck function);
it
may also have a social orientation:
for example, when it aims at causing emotions
in the hearer (Aristotles persuasive goal, Martys emotive function Btihlers Appell
function).
Among works in the Prague functionalist
tradition that are particularly relevant for
modem studies of language and affect, at least Mathesiuss
studies of linguistic
means of reinforcement
(Verstiirkung) and emphasis (Emphase) have to be mentioned. Mathesius (1964) distinction
between reinforcement
and emphasis may be
summarized
as follows: whereas reinforcement
is mainly a lexical matter, involving
choices of graded suffixes, marked lexemes, slang, and so forth, emphasis is mainly
a matter of syntax and prosody, and involves choices in sentences in which the particular Satzmelodie and intonation express the emphatic orientation of the speaker to
the content (emphatische Einstellung des Sprechenden zum Satzinhalt) (1964: 430).
Roman Jakobson, who was a protagonist of Prague functionalism
from the outset,
includes, within his widely-known
six functions of language, a function called the
expressive
or emotive function, which is speaker-centered,
and is based on the
expressive
(Ausdruck) function in Biihlers (1934) Organon-model. In Jakobsons
words, this function aims at a direct expression
of the speakers attitude toward
flawhat he is speaking about . . . The emotive function, laid bare in the interjections,
vors to some extent all our utterances,
on their phonic, grammatical,
and lexical
level (Jakobson,
1960: 354). In hindsight,
it is rather unfortunate
that Jakobson
combined Martys (and, to a lesser extent, Biihlers) clear distinction
between the
emotional
and emotive functions of language into a single function in his model.
Nevertheless,
Jakobson makes explicit reference to Martys contribution,
pointing
out the informational
capacity of emotive elements of messages, and stressing the
systematic - and not yet adequately
studied - character of this capacity. In this
connection,
Jakobson offers the famous example of the forty different interpretable
messages communicated
by the phrase This evening in Stanislavskijs
Moscow
Theatre, and understood by the audience.
After Jakobson, working within a much narrower conceptual
framework,
Stanckiewicz (1964) repeatedly emphasizes the systematic character of expressive devices
in language. Stanckiewicz aims at restoring the primacy of cognitive aspects of affective linguistic forms, narrowing the range of affective phenomena potentially relevant
to linguistics to features such as expressive phonemes, expressive derivation, suffixes,
Biihler did not always draw a clear distincand so forth. According to Stanckiewicz,
* The fact that Marty taught for many
influence later on the Prague School.

years

in Prague

gives rise to intriguing

conjectures

about

his

C. CafJi, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

337

tion between emotive phenomena which are contextually conditioned and emotive
features which are embedded in the code (1964: 266). Here again, it could be argued,
we find a certain lack of clarity with respect to differences between the expressive
(subjective, personal) and emotive (intersubjective, interpersonal) functions of signs of
affect in speech. Stanckiewicz himself seems to have recognized the problem of the
failing interpersonal orientation of a strictly code-centered approach: practically
every word can be endowed with emotive connotations if it is placed in an appropriate
social situation or verbal context (1964: 242). The history of concepts of expressivity and emotivity in the Prague functionalist approach has been dealt with in detail
recently by Volek (1987).
Finally, it remains to be said that, over the years, the Prague School linguists have
raised many important foundational questions about relations between language and
affect, some of which are still waiting for adequate answers. One problem that especially needs to be addressed - which is related to the concept of markedness as first
defined in Prague phonology, and is potentially very important for studies of emotive communication (cf. Hiibler, 1987, and see section 6 below) - is: from where
must we begin in order to detect, and make inferences about, emotive connotations
in the first place? As Bally said, two opposing tendencies appear to be operative in
expressivity (les tendances opposees de lexpressivite): expectation (lattente) and
surprise (la surprise) (1965: 69 [1932]). The crucial point generally seems to be the
divergent choice from some type of expectation. We will go into this matter in more
detail in section 6.

3. Psychological dimensions of affect

Another step toward developing a unified pragmatics of emotive communication
- in addition, that is, to reconstructing the history of related endeavors in the past would be to start working on developing systematic concepts about the underlying
nature of what Black (1948), Richards (1948), Stevenson (1948), Alston (1967), and
others earlier in the century called emotive meaning.
3.1. The issue of emotive meaning
The issue of how emotive activities function as substitutes for what they mean,
denote, signify, or index has important implications for studies of emotive communication (cf. Ogden and Richards, 1923; Black, 1949). Regardless of how we ultimately analyze emotive linguistic phenomena, initially, we depend, to a greater
extent than we perhaps like to admit, on assumptions about what emotive signs are
signs of, and about their potential meanings and interpretations in different situations. We need such assumptions in order to designate conceptualized emotive
activities as objects of analysis in the first place (cf. Janney, 1981; Amdt and Janney, 1987: 13-20). The decision to study emotive communication from a pragmatic
perspective implies underlying interpretive assumptions (or biases) of some kind
from the very outset, and these should be stated explicitly in advance.

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22 (1994) 325-373

Almost fifty years ago, Black (1948: 112-l 13) argued that confusion in
approaches to emotive language in America during the 1920s to 40s were due
mainly to the lack of a consistent and coherent theory of emotive meaning ; and
today, we still lack linguistically useful theories of emotive meaning (cf. Volek,
1987: 249). As a consequence, linguists studying emotive communication are sometimes forced to adopt (or adapt) interpretive categories derived from Western psychological notions of underlying basic dimensions of affect (cf. Brown and
Gilman, 1960; Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968; Dittmann, 1972; Arndt and Janney,
1983; Brown and Levinson, 1987; Dane& this issue).
Gaps between psychological and linguistic approaches to affect, however,
presently make it difficult to imagine directly transferring concepts from psychology
into linguistics without first considering their compatibility, descriptive adequacy,
and explanatory power in the linguistic context. Psychological studies often do not
take language and interaction fully into consideration; and linguistic studies, on the
other hand, often shy away from psychology. Although potentially useful models of
emotive meaning were devised many years ago in psycholinguistics (cf. Osgood et
al. 1957; Davitz, 1964, etc.), there has not yet been much apparent interest in incorporating these into current studies of emotive communication. As a result, the work
of many linguists who presently are most actively addressing issues related to language and affect tends to remain psychologically rather uninformed.
3.2. Dimensions of affect in psychology
In psychology, there is a tradition of tripartite distinctions between metaphorical
basic dimensions of affect reaching back to about the turn of the century (cf. Gallois,
this issue) (see Table 1). The term dimension was first used in connection with affect
in studies of mood in the 1950s (cf. Nowlis and Nowlis, 1956). It was originally a
means of suggesting that affective states are not static, stable mental things (e.g., fixed
qualities, traits, or characteristics of mind), but dynamic, gradient mental processes that
must be represented and measured on variable, more/less scales (cf. Osgood et al.,
1957). Western psychologists tend to agree about three broad basic dimensions of affective experience: (1) a positive or negative evaluative dimension, (2) a power, control, or
potency dimension, and (3) an activity, arousal or intensity dimension (see Table 1).
The psychological view, at the most reduced level, is that people typically respond
affectively to objects of appraisal9 (if and when they respond) mainly by feeling positively or negatively evaluatively inclined toward them, and by feeling in some sense
either in control of them or not in control of them; and these affective orientations
tend to vary in intensity or strength. The resilience of psychological distinctions such
as these for the past several decades seems to argue in favor of using related dimensions, at least, for comparing assumptions about emotive meaning in linguistics.0
The issue of objects of emotive appraisal is dealt with in section 8.
lo Osgood et al.s (1957) categories of evaluation, potency, and activity
Table I, as these have been the most widely recognized
psycholinguistic
have been subject to the most rigorous empirical testing.

are used to organize the list in

terms in recent decades, and

C. CafJi, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

339

Table 1
Basic psychological dimensions of affect
Authors

(+/-) Evaluation

(+/-) Potency

(+/-) Activity

Wundt (1912)
Osgood et al. (1957)
Leary (1957)
Gough (1957)
Brown and Gilman (1960)
Davitz (1964)
Averill ( 1975)
Russell (1978)
Amdt and Janney (1983)
Daly et al. (1983)
Amdt and Janney (1987)
Russell (1991)

(+/-) pleasantness
(+/-) evaluation
(+/-) like
(+/-) affiliation
(+/-) solidarity
(+/-) valence
(+/-) affect
(+/-) affect
(+/-) ego-threat
(+/-) affect
(+/-) affect
(+/-) pleasure
(or affiliation)

(+/-) relaxation
(+/-) potency
(+/-) dominance
(+/-) power
(+/-) power
(+/-) strength
(+/-) control
(+/-) agressiveness
(+/-) ego-nearness
(+/-) control
(+/-) assertiveness
(+/-) dominance
(or power)

(+/-) arousal
(+/-) activity

(+/-) activity
(+/-) intensity
(+/-) intensity
(+/-) ego-involvement
(+/-) intensity
(+/-) intensity
(+/-) arousal
(or activity)

4. Emotive categories in linguistics

An important question that naturally arises in connection with psychological
notions such as those represented in Table 1 is whether they might be useful as
underlying interpretive categories for a pragmatics of emotive communication. It
would seem that their usefulness depends on the degree of fit that can be established
between them and present linguistic emotive categories. Are psychological and linguistic emotive categories compatible? The issue of degree of fit is relevant for three
reasons: first, naturally, because it invites us to consider where present linguistic
findings fit into the vast body of findings about emotive phenomena in other
branches of science (cf. Buck, Gallois, this issue); second, because it invites us to
consider the extent to which linguists presently agree about the underlying nature of
emotive phenomena per se (cf. Dane& 1989, and this issue); and third, because it
invites us to consider the extent to which linguists are presently focusing on the same
- or at least related - phenomena as objects of investigation. The present section
addresses these issues.
Table 2 lists some categories that have been used in recent decades in linguistic
studies of emotive communication. The terms are organized according to Osgood et
al.s (1957) original psycholinguistic categories (evaluation, potency, and activity) in
order to facilitate a comparison of notions of affect in linguistics and psychology.
Assuming that at least some degree of conceptual fit between linguistic and psychological categories is desirable if we wish to argue that the emotive capacity, however we ultimately define it, is psychologically (in addition to socially and linguistically) grounded, what is the present situation in linguistics?

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C. Cani, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

Table 2
Linguistic emotive categories
Authors

(+/-) Evaluation

(+/-) Potency

(+/-) Activity
intensifiers

Labov and Waletzky

(1967)

_~~ affectkeys_----___---____----__-

Hymes (1972)
Gumperz (1977)

intensifying keys

specifying keys
involvement/detachment

Chafe (1982)

emphatic particles

focus: indices of
linguistic distancing
from concrete events
Irvine (1982)

emphatic particles

loaded terms

intensity maximizers
intensity minimizers

Labov (1984)

_-_-involvement

Tannen (1984)

___~____~_____~~_____

focus: indices of
emotional interest in, or
identification with, the
topic, the needs of the
partner, or the
interaction itself
Ochs (1986)

affect specifiers

distance from the

proposition

affect intensifiers

commitment or
position with respect
to the message

Schiffrin (1987)

focus: indices of
confidence or
uncertainty
involvement:
attachment or
detachment vis-a-vis
the speech act

Hiibler (1987)

focus: indices of an
emotive identification
with the speech act
Volek (1987)

evaluative excitizers

emphasizers and particularizers

unspecific excitizers and

intensifiers

C. Ca@, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

341

Table 2 (cont.)
Authors

(+/-) Evaluation

(+/-) Activity

(+/-) Potency

Fairclough (1988)

Biber and Finegan

(1989)

affect minimizers
affect maximizers
-------------stancemarkers--_---------affect markers evidentiality markers
focus: indices of
positive or negative
affect

@hs~dSchieffelin

focus: indices of
certainty or doubt

-------_---------___---affectkey~-----------------------

(1989)
affect specifiers

affect intensifiers

Wowk (1989)

intensity of affect

Katriel and Dascal

commitment
(1989)
focus: indices of
cognitive commitment to
the belief, state, etc.
expressed by the
utterance
__________----involvement

__

topical involvement
focus: indices of
weak/strong attentional
orientation to the topic
interactional
involvement
focus: indices of
weak/strong attentional
orientation to the speech
situation and/or the
participants
Besnier (1990)

positive/negative

affect

directionality of affect
focus: indices of self
vs. outside focus of a
message

intensity of affect

C. Caffi, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

342

Table 2 (cont.)
Authors

(+/-)

Evaluation

Lutz (1990)

(+/-)

(+/-)

Potency

personalization

Activity

of affect

focus: indices of
personal distance vs.
nondistance
Amdt and Janney

(1991)

value-ladenness

assertiveness

intensity

focus: indices of positive

or negative affect

focus: indices of
confidence or uncertainty

focus:
weak
ment

indices of strong or
affective
involve-

Table 2 shows that there are currently many competing emotive categories in linguistics, and these do not always refer to exactly the same things (cf. Besnier, this
issue). This lack of consensus at the categorical level, it can be assumed, reflects a
corresponding lack of consensus at the epistemological level. Which broad categories of phenomena are currently being studied, and how are these being conceptualized and labeled for analytical purposes (see section 7)?
Linguists presently appear to distinguish most clearly between emotive categories
related to the psycholinguistic dimensions of evaluation and activity in Table 1:
that is, between (1) categories related to positivelnegative orientations, e.g.,
notions of affect specifying keys (Hymes, 1972; Gumperz, 1977), loaded terms
(Irvine, 1982), affect specifiers (Ochs, 1986; Ochs and Schieffelin, 1989), evaluative excitizers (Volek, 1987), positive/negative affect markers (Biber and Finegan, 1989; Besnier, 1990), value-ladenness choices (Amdt and Janney, 1991), etc.,
and (2) categories related to morelless intense orientations, e.g., notions of intensifiers (Labov and Waletzky, 1967), affect intensifying keys (Hymes, 1972;
Gumperz, 1978), emphatic particles (Chafe, 1982; Irvine, 1982), intensity maximizers and minimizers (Labov, 1984), affect intensifiers (Ochs, 1986; Ochs and
Schieffelin, 1989), unspecific excitizers and intensifiers (Volek, 1987), affect
maximizers and minimizers (Fairclough, 1988), the intensity of affect (Wowk,
1989; Besnier, 1990; Arndt and Janney, 1991), etc.
With respect to the potency dimension, however, which is the central psycholinguistic motivational category in Table 1,I there seems to be less agreement. Here, a
variety of phenomena are presently being studied, and it is not clear whether all of
them can, or even should, be included within a single category. From a psychological standpoint, at any rate, it can be said that most of these phenomena are related in
some sense to approach and avoidance behavior. Leaving current linguistic notions
of involvement temporarily out of consideration (see section 5), we can outline four
broad linguistic categories that are commonly associated with the potency dimenI According
phenomenon,
connections.

to Volek (1987: 249), the motivational

structure of emotive signs appears as a crucial
since their semantics
is not based on representation,
but rather on direct associative

C. Cafh R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

343

sion: (1) categories related to near/far orientations, e.g., notions of the distancing of language from concrete events (Chafe, 1982), the speakers distance from
the truth of the proposition conveyed (Ochs, 1986), the speakers position with
respect to the message (Schiffrin, 1987), the speakers degree of personal distance
from the message (Lutz, 1990), the directionality of affect (Besnier, 1990), etc.; (2)
categories related to clearlvague orientations, e.g., notions of clear/vague signals
(Wiener and Mehrabian, 1968), clear vs. fuzzy uses of words (G. Lakoff, 1972),
particulizers (Volek, 1987), linguistic specificity phenomena (Arndt and Janney,
1991), etc.; (3) categories related to confdentldoubtjhl orientations, e.g., notions
of the speakers cognitive commitment to the message (Schriffrin, 1987; Katriel
and Dascal, 1989), modality markers (Chafe and Nichols, 1986), evidential certainty and doubt markers (Biber and Finegan, 1989), etc.; and (4) categories related
to self-assertivelunassertive orientations, e.g., notions of politeness principles
(Leech, 1983), supportive strategies (Amdt and Janney, 1985), indirectness
(Blum-Kulka, 1987), face saving strategies (Brown and Levinson, 1987), relational work (Watts, 1989), self vs. outside focus of the message (Besnier, 1990),
linguistic assertiveness (Arndt and Janney, 1991), and so forth.
In Table 3, the categories above are compared with the psychological categories
discussed earlier. Are they finally compatible? The answer to this question seems to
be a qualified yes, but only in a general sense. In order to analyze specific
instances of emotive communication in terms of categories such as those listed in
Table 3, a pragmatics of emotive communication seems to need various conceptual
and methodological bridges: first, from a linguistic standpoint, it would seem that
investigators need to agree in principle about how emotively significant linguistic
contrasts are recognized as such in natural discourse (see section 6); second, emotive
categories like positive/negative, near/far, clear/vague, confident/doubtful,
self-assertive/unassertive, more/less intense, etc., need to be connected with specific types of linguistic choices (see section 7); and third - and an issue of deepest
concern from a pragmatic point of view - a systematic interpretive account of linguistic emotive choices and their inferred objects and objectives must be devised
(see section 8). Although each of these problems is naturally too complex to be adequately discussed in a paper of this length, later, we will make some modest preliminary suggestions about how these might be addressed. But before doing this, we
would like to briefly discuss the present status of the central notion of involvement
in linguistics.

5. Involvement: An entangled notion

As said in the preceding section, the lack of agreement in linguistics about emotive categories is particularly evident in the middle column of Table 2, in the categories associated with the psycholinguistic motivational notion of potency (cf.
Osgood et al., 1957). If we look more closely at this middle column, we notice one
term that has been used so often in pragmatics in connection with emotive communication that it deserves special consideration: the term involvement. Here, we will

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Table 3
A comparison

Psychological
categories

of psychological

and linguistic

emotive

categories

Evaluation

Activity

Potency

Main

positive/

powerful/

contrasts

negative

unpo werful

Linguistic
categories

Evaluation

Proximity

Specificity

Evidentiality

Main

positive/

near/far

clear/vague

contrasts

negative

unaroused

Volitonality

Quantity

confident/

assertive/

more/less

doubtful

unassertive

intense

present a sketchy overview of some current notions of involvement in pragmatics,

making no claim to completeness, and attempt to clarify a few basic distinctions. The
discussion will focus on: (a) what involvement is; (b) what involvement is opposed
to; and (c) what linguistic units are pertinent to different studies of involvement.
5.1. The notion of involvement
The folk-psychological notion of involvement is sometimes used in pragmatics
as a sort of bridging category between the broad psychological categories discussed
in section 3, and the narrower linguistic ones discussed in section 4. Involvement
comes from the Latin involvere (in + volvere), meaning literally to roll, to wrap
up. Still present in its etimology, is the idea of movement, with the mildly negative
connotation of danger of potential entanglement. Understood in this sense, the term
nicely encapsulates the idea that getting involved in the dynamics of human emotive communication can be a risky move.* Unlike traditional linguistic notions of
expressive language, expressive derivations, and so forth (see the discussion of
Jakobson and Stankiewicz in section 2.4), which tend, in their code-centeredness,
to presuppose a person not in a WITH, as Goffman (1981: 78) puts it, the folkpsychological notion of involvement suggests immediately that emotive communication has an interpersonal relational dimension. Here it is worth mentioning that in
well-known psychiatric research, the parameter of involvement has been used to
* In the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971), involved
and the substantive
involvement
is paraphrased
implicated,
entangled, engaged,
. entangled condition . . . complicated
state of affairs, imbroglio.

is paraphrased
by
by embarassment

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345

assess expressed emotion (EE) in schizophrenics relatives discourse (cf. Vaughn

and Leff, 1976).13
5.2. Linguistic definitions of involvement
In linguistic literature, we find that the term involvement is used in widely different ways: for example, (1) with reference to speakers inner states as preconditions of interaction: unlike commitment, involvement is not a social but a mental
state and, as such, it is not rule-governed (cf. Katriel and Dascal, 1989: 291); (2)
with reference to speakers emotive identifications with speech acts, as a sort of addition or complement to the Gricean sincerity condition (cf. Htibler, 1987: 371); (3)
with reference to uses of linguistic techniques and strategies as conventionalized
ways of establishing rapport (cf. Tannen, 1984: 30): conversation, like literature,
seeks primarily to MOVE an audience by means of involvement (cf. Tannen, 1984:
153); (4) with reference to overall rhetorical effects, or senses of vividness evoked
by the strategic use of narratives, reported speech, imagery, and so on (cf. Tannen,
1989);i4 (5) with reference to speakers cognitive orientations to shared discourse
topics (cf. Katriel and Dascal (1987: 285) on topical involvement), which, in some
other approaches, are associated with notions of saliency and fore- and backgrounded information in thematic organization: and finally (6) with reference to
metamessages of rapport, successful communication, shared feelings, etc., as means
of enhancing social cohesion (cf. Tannen, 1989: 13).
In the list above, we could say that there is a movement from an individual psychological orientation to an interpersonal social orientation, via a rhetorical-stylistic
orientation. Clearly, these three orientations call for different theoretical standpoints,
rely on different assumptions, and refer to different designated realities (cf. Caffi,
1992). Echoing Besnier (this issue), we can say that linguistic notions of involvement are presently heterogeneous. Involvement is a pre-theoretical, intuitive, rather
vague, unfocused notion, which has not yet been employed in a technical way, and
whose present use, even within individual frameworks, is inconsistent. As is shown
above, the term is used variously to refer to preconditions (inner states), techniques
(rhetorical-stylistic strategies), messages (messages of rapport, shared feelings), and
effects (the result of happy or cohesive interaction) of communication. Deborah
Tannen alone uses it in three different senses (see above).
In view of this, it seems reasonable to ask which uses of involvement are most
helpful from a pragmatic standpoint. As to the usefulness of employing involvement to refer to emotive techniques, we have already pointed out the difficulty of
attempting to distinguish clearly between emotive features of language assumed to
be embedded in the code and features that are contextually or cotextually conditioned (cf. also Stankiewicz, 1964: 266). The root of this problem is simply that in
I3 We are indebted to Giuseppe Car& Dipartimento di Psichiatria, Universiti3 di Pavia, for having
brought this to our attention.
I4 It may be worth mentioning here that such strategies are called figures of presentation in rhetoric
(cf. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1958: $42).

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studying emotive communication, we deal not simply with signs, but with indices, in
Peircean terms: that is, we investigate signs which point to, or are associated with,
things that may be emotively significant, but whose significance ultimately can only
be decided on external contextual or cotextual grounds. The hypothetical, conjectural
nature of indices of affect tends to make it difficult to avoid constructing correspondingly hypothetical, conjectural typologies of emotive devices (see section 7).
As to the usefulness of employing involvement to refer to inner states, we can
note that this practice has a history in psychology, where the notion of ego-involvement has sometimes been contrasted to notions of ego-threat and ego-nearness,
and has been interpreted as a dimension of inner affect somewhat similar to Osgood
et al.s (1957) activity (cf. Amdt and Janney, 1987: 135ff.). One problem with this
idea from a pragmatic standpoint, however, is that the notion of involvement as an
inner state, like the notion of involvement as a message, is viable only as long as we
can establish inferrable connections between emotive activities and their observable
external effects. In a pragmatics analysis, as in everyday interaction, we do not usually deal with remote causes or slippery and fathomless inner states, but with
effects. A partners hypothetical inner state is a projected reality, a sort of implicature, hence defeasible, which can only be assigned by an act of inference (cf.
Sbisa, 1990). Precisely because of the potential confusion between observable outer
effects and inferrable inner states, the notion of involvement lends itself easily to a
sort of circularity. As Besnier (this issue: p. 285) points out, some linguists
presently seem to assume that involvement is the result of the .. . use of involvement strategies, and the ... use of involvement strategies is the result of involvement. An ancient rhetorical notion lurks behind this critical remark: the notion of
emphasis (cf. Lausberg, 1960), to which modem treatments of involvement add little
additional insight.i5
In order to escape this circularity, it would perhaps be helpful to shift from a taxonomic point of view (focused on developing lists of signs of involvement), to a
functional, inferential point of view that concentrates on investigating the mechanisms involved in the construction of shared presuppositions and background expectations about others feelings and attitudes. From such a viewpoint, involvement
would be regarded as a kind of unsaid. The question would then become: what entitles hearers to abductively assign feelings of involvement to speakers? What types of
assumptions, display rules, and inferences are required?
If we were to start from this end of the problem, perhaps we could begin to provide - more than ad hoc lists of signs of involvement - lists of pragmatic constraints linked to different types of interactions and different types of texts, which
account for variations in the ways in which (and extents to which) speakers express
involvement under different conditions. Rather than starting with definitions of the
emotive meanings of signs of involvement, that is, we would simply start with
choices of words, syntactic arrangements, discourse patterns, and so forth that are
Later (see section 8.2), we suggest that in order to add anything new to ancient rhetorical treatments
of emphasis, modem approaches to involvement
will have to open up and incorporate the relevant findings of empirical social psychological
work such as Wiener and Mehrabians
(1968).

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341

hypothesized to be of potential emotive significance (see section 7.7.2 on micro- vs.

macro-choices), and then, using these choices as independent variables, we would
investigate their uses and effects in different types of contexts and cotexts, looking
for variations that confirm or contradict these hypotheses.
5.3. What is involvement opposed to?
As said, in psychology, the notion of ego-involvement is sometimes opposed to
notions of ego-nearness and ego-threat (cf. Amdt and Jarmey, 1987). In order to
clarify linguists understandings of the concept of involvement, it may be useful to
look at the paradigmatic oppositions to this notion in the literature. Glancing through
some random examples, we find that in linguistics, involvement is opposed to the
following concepts: (1) detachment (Chafe, 1983); (2) integration (Chafe, 1983);16
(3) considerateness (Tannen, 1984); (4) commitment (Katriel and Dascal, 1989); and
(5) sincerity, in the Gricean sense, as presupposed in unmarked utterances in
Ballys mode pur (see section 2.3) (Hiibler, 1987).
Again, these oppositions, like the definitions listed in the preceding section, are
rooted in different conceptual frameworks, and are based on different (to a certain
extent, incompatible) assumptions, whose discussion is beyond our aims. Here, we
will just mention an interesting line of reasoning in Htiblers (1987) discussion of
involvement, which points to how we perhaps might conceptualize oppositions to
this notion. Htibler argues that if the concept of involvement is to be analytically
useful, it must be regarded a continuum: that is, we must regard both detachment
and attachment as modes of involvement (1987: 373):
Either mode can be said to represent the speakers involvement equally . They just represent different solutions to the methodological question of how to externalize ones involvement in terms of linguistic behaviour. The mode of attachment represents the mode of living ones involvement. The mode
of detachment is a mode of suppressing it . the attempt not to appear involved is too obvious not to be
communicatively relevant.

From a pragmatic analytical point of view, this is something of an improvement

over the present situation, because it breaks with the simple equation of involvement
with emphasis (cf. Lausberg, 1960), and makes it possible to consider detached communicative behavior as also potentially emotively relevant. Within this more dynamic
notion, the rhetorical forms of subtraction, for example (reticence, ellipsis, preterition, understatement, silence, etc.), can be regarded as cold means of emotive expression. This adds rich new possibilities for the analysis of emotive communication.
5.4. Linguistic units in studies of involvement
In present studies of involvement, it seems to be recognized - although not always
foregrounded, as in ancient rhetoric (see section 2.1) and in Ballys linguistic stylisI6 Chafe (1983) speaks of the involvement and fragmentation of oral discourse, as opposed to the
detachment and integration of written discourse.

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tics (see section 2.3) - that impressions of involvement result from clusters of linguistic, prosodic, and other features. Many studies mention (but few actually analyze) the importance of prosodic and other vocal activities as signals of involvement
(e.g., speech rate, frequency, rhythm; pitch prominence, contour, gradience, etc.)
(for a review, see Selting, this issue); and a few recognize the importance of kinesic
activities (e.g., gaze, facial expression, body posture) (for a review, see Arndt and
Janney, 1987). But most studies tend to focus mainly on linguistic units such as the
following: (1) channel (oral/written) (Chafe, 1983); (2) conversation (Tannen,
1984; Katriel and Dascal, 1989); (3) narrative style (Tannen, 1989); (4) utterance
(Katriel and Dascal, 1989); (5) speech act (Hubler, 1987).
The list shows that the linguistic units presently being chosen as relevant to the
study of involvement - like present definitions of involvement (see section 5.2) and
present notions of conceptual oppositions to involvement (see section 5.3) - are not
homogeneous, and share no common theoretical framework. So far so good. But if
the notion of involvement is to be incorporated into an integrative pragmatics of
emotive communication - for example, an approach like the one advocated here,
which takes psychological, linguistic, and rhetorical stylistic findings into account it is clear that precisely from a theoretical standpoint, some crucial problems need to
be clarified both at the local utterance level and at the global discourse level (see
section 7.7.2).
In particular, at the utterance level, it is important to clarify the relation between
notions of involvement and modality, on the one hand, and between notions of
involvement and felicity conditions (especially the sincerity condition of a speech
act), on the other. Also, the relation between involvement and commitment needs to
be clarified (cf. Katriel and Dascal, 1987). As is well known, the main linguistic
means of commitment in the epistemic modality are Urmsons (1952) parenthetical
verbs, and modal adverbs like probably, which modify the claim to truth of an
assertion. These are called evidentials in another tradition. If commitment is
defined as a sign of subscription (neustic in Hares terms) (cf. Hare, 1970; Lyons,
1977), then involvement, it seems, could be defined as the emotive subscription to
the utterance. However, such a definition, which is to some extent plausible, would
first have to be grounded on an empirical basis (see section 8).
At the discourse level, it is important to clarify the relation between involvement
and interaction-types and text-types, since these latter put constraints on the kind and
amount of involvement allowed. A solution might start from an emit definition of
contexts, as in sociological and anthropological work (cf. Besnier, 1990). Once
again, however, here, we face the problem of the margins of freedom: we can start
making inferences about partners behavior and about their involvement only when
partners can choose among different, equally possible, communicative alternatives.
Clearly, choice is much reduced, at times approximating zero, in highly ritualized
types of interaction (e.g., institutional interaction). It seems evident that there is an
inverse relation between the strictness of the conventions that are expected to be met
in any given interaction-type, and the speakers freedom of emotive choice: the
more ritualized the interaction is, the less apparent the choices will be that trigger
emotive interpretations.

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349

6. Emotive contrasts
Another step toward developing a unified pragmatics of emotive communication
is to agree about how emotive activities are recognized and interpreted as such to
begin with. What constitutes an emotively significant linguistic contrast? The way
this question is answered has important implications for how we finally represent
emotive contrasts as objects of analysis, and how we explain them from a systematic
point of view.
6.1.

Divergence

Following a line of rhetorical reasoning that goes back beyond Montesquieus

(1758) Plaisirs de la surprise to Ciceros (55 B.C.) concept of praeter expectationem and Aristotles (330 ca. B.C.) concept of &poo66~qzov,
and which figures
prominently in studies of style shift in sociolinguistics (cf. Gumperz, 1982;
Labov and Fanshel, 1977) and literary stylistics (cf. Riffaterre, 1960), we can
hypothesize that emotive significance is associated mainly with features of discourse that strike interpreters as being in some sense unusual, unexpected, or
surprising in the situation. The figures and tropes of classical rhetoric are essentially techniques for producing discourse patterns that diverge from the matter-offact . .. presentation of thoughts (Baily, 1981: 30).18 The notion that surprising
divergence is emotively significant is very much in keeping with modem homeostatic views of language perception and cognitive appraisal. At the most reduced
level, it is sometimes said, interpreters project something like hypothetical further
courses of events, which are either confirmed or disconfirmed by partners subsequent behavior. Unexpected events tend automatically to call attention to themselves (cf. Sperber and Wilsons (1986) notion of relevance) by destabilizing
interpreters situational assumptions (cf. Amdt and Janney, 1987: 55-63). In homeostatic terms, unexpected behavior leads to a sort of interactive destabilization,
which triggers a post-destabilization reorganization of interpretive assumptions,

I7 Selting (1985: 180) defines a style shift as the alternation of one speech style with another speech
style in the context of the same communicative event.
s Such activities are dealt with in rhetoric under the concept of style (L. elocutio, utterance, expression; G. lexis, speech, diction, word; G. phrasis, way of speaking). The categories of classical
rhetorical stylistics - (1) position, (2) repetition, (3) quantity, (4) appel, and (5) substitution, as Plett
(1991: 28) says, are essentially categories of linguistic divergence: that is, categories of variational possibilities in utterances or sentences, in which different grammatically definable elements are respectively
(1) rearranged, (2) repeated (3), expanded or compressed, (4) adjusted in some sense, and/or (5)
replaced in order to create different persuasive emotive effects. The first four categories, usually referred
to as the figures, consist mainly of variational possibilities in which words preserve what Lanham calls
their ordinary meanings, but are placed in significant arrangements of some kind (1969: 116). The
last category, usually referred to as the tropes, consists mainly of uses of words to suggest things
other than their ordinary meanings, as in metaphor (1969: 116). Rhetorical stylistics could thus be
regarded, in the present connection, as an early approach to studying techniques for producing emotively
marked, surprising or divergent patterns in discourse (cf. Fraser, 1980: 349).

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22 (1994) 325-373

and leads to fresh interpretive hypotheses based on new assumptions (cf. Janney,
1992: 470-473).19
6.2. Markedness
A methodological problem that has never been fully resolved in studies of divergent uses of language (whether in rhetorical stylistics, linguistic stylistics, sociolinguistics, or modem discourse analysis), is the problem of the unmarked, neutral form:
the standard of comparison against which a linguistic activity can be said to constitute an emotively significant contrast (cf. Caffi, 1992: 273-275). Assuming, with
Kasher (1984: 68), that what we are looking for, from a descriptive point of view,
are contrasts between linguistic alternatives that are in some sense diRerent while
essentially similar, we must specify what such linguistic choices vary in relation to.
Sapirs (1927: 893) solution to this problem, which has greatly influenced American functional linguists, but which also has a long, independent tradition in the
Prague School concept of markedness (see section 2.4),20 was to suggest that the
analysis of emotive features of discourse must begin by focusing on variations, however minimal, from what he called nuclear patterns of behavior.2 Sapir claimed that
we cannot adequately represent emotive contrasts without first, in every instance,
assigning some type of baseline or background to the activities in question, and then
noting degrees, or positing scales, of divergence or markedness in relation to this
background.22 In Sapirs view, in order for a description of an emotive contrast to
represent what really matters emotively - that is, the emotively relevant variation in
the perceived situation, as opposed to the individual token activity per se - a form of
representation must be developed that focuses on, or somehow captures, the relaIn this connection, Van Dijk and Kintsch (1983: 93) remark that the divergent characteristics of
unexpected utterances also have important implications for their semantic organization, their influence
on memory, and their interactive effects. It is also worth mentioning that from a literary semiotic perspective - for example, Lotmans (1970) - an artistic text is defined as informative precisely because
it surprises, escaping routines.
* The typological notion of markedness was originally developed by the Prague School linguists,
who first used it to assign marked and unmarked values to categories of phenomena in phonological
systems (cf. Trubetzkoy, 193 l), and later used it to describe categories of morphosyntactic and semantic
phenomena (cf. Jakobson, 1932).
? The notion of nuclear patterns has a long history in linguistics, which cannot be dealt with in detail
here. It may be noted, however, that in prosodies, nuclear patterning has been used as a metaphor for
certain core features of intonation (cf. Trager and Smith, 1949; Chomsky and Halle, 1968). In linguistic
stylistics, it has been used as a logical or statistical norm for identifying so-called deviations among
pre-selected linguistic features of texts (cf. Darbyshire, 1971; Akhmanova, 1976). In the Prague School
tradition, it has sometimes been used as a metaphor for unmarked syntactic patterns against which
distinctive features or disruptions of normal word order are identified (cf. Jakobson, 1960; Stankiewicz,
1964; Volek, 1987). And in some sociolinguistic work, it provides the unmarked, neutral baseline
condition against which emotive features of speech like emphasis and intensity are said to be defined
as marked for affect (cf. Labov, 1984).
22 Sapir regarded this as essentially a conventional linguistic background (1927: 893). The following
discussion attempts to show that emotive contrasts can be defined in relation to contextual and cotextual
backgrounds as well.

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351

tionship between a hypothetical nuclear pattern, and a certain range of potential

choices that vary significantly in relation to this pattern, and can hence be regarded
as marked choices. It is always the implicit variation against some type of anticipatory schema (cf. Atkinson and Allen, 1983) that matters emotively, he said, not the
individual activity itself (Sapir, 1949: 542).23
Assuming that the recognition of emotive markedness, at the most reduced level,
involves anticipatory schemata and divergent activities,24 it becomes appropriate to
ask what types of anticipatory schemata are involved in the marking of emotive
contrasts. The following are some potential candidates:
6.2.1. Linguistic anticipatory schemata
Linguistic anticipatory schemata, we might say, consist of common assumptions
about language, its vocal, kinesic, graphological, and other supporting systems, and
their usual manifestations and meanings in everyday discourse. Implied here are
general expectations about words and meanings, pronunciations, syntactic arrangeand syntactically/semantically
appropriate
ments, graphological
conventions,
accompanying prosodic behavior and kinesic activities. In some modem syntactically oriented approaches to emotive communication,
linguistic anticipatory
schemata are tacitly assumed to provide the tertium comparationis for recognizing
emotively marked divergence in individual utterances or sentences independently
from other contextual and cotextual factors .25For example, if we assume that a syntactic question requires a rising intonation (Is that right P), a syntactic question
with a falling intonation represents a divergence (Is that right L); if we assume
that in a syntactic statement, the predicate follows the subject (Id like to know
what happened), a statement in which the predicate precedes the subject represents a divergence (What happened, Id like to know); if we assume that the pronunciation of good is [gud], a pronunciation like [gu: : : :d] represents a divergence,
and so forth.

23 Pilot experiments with students reported in Garfinkel (1967) provide many examples of the importance of this point. In one experiment, Garfinkel sent students home with the instruction to be more
polite than usual with their parents, and note the results. The students reports overwhelmingly showed
that their polite behavior was interpreted in the intimate, family context, as an attack. The parents consensus responses, in cases where it did not stop, were, in this order, and with increasing intensity: (1) is
something wrong?, (2) why are you doing this?, (3) youre trying to make me mad! [breaking off
contact]. In these cases, it was not the polite behavior itself that caused the problem, but the divergence
from the parents contextual behavioral expectations (see the discussion of contextual schemata in section 3.2.1).
24 Here, for lack of space, we will not go into the interesting motivational and attitudinal processes
involved in the perception of emotive contrasts. These are discussed, however, in Amdt and Janney
(1987: 63-70).
25 For example, many techniques dealt with in classical rhetorical stylistics under the term dispositio
(cf. Plett, 1991), and some phenomena dealt with in modem discourse studies of foregrounding, topicalization, left/right dislocation, etc., depend indirectly on linguistic anticipatory schemata for their
tertium comparationis (cf. Prince, 1981; Given, 1984; Horn, 1991). Without notions of normal syntactic patterning, that is, they could not be defined as objects of analysis. The same is true of many modem studies of emotive prosody (see Selting, this issue).

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6.2.2. Contextual anticipatory schemata

Contextual anticipatory schemata, we might say, consist mainly of expectations
about kinds of communicative behavior that different types of speakers or writers are
likely to produce in different discourse situations. Implied here are both (1) relatively nonnegotiable global assumptions about human values, feelings, desires, motivations, interpersonal attitudes, and social affiliations in ones culture, and assumptions about how these are typically communicated in different situations;26 and (2)
relatively fragile, hypothetical, predictive situational assumptions about how specific
partners may be likely to act in the immediate situation (cf. Amdt and Janney, 1987:
109-l 13).27 In much sociolinguistic research, contextual anticipatory schemata are
assumed to provide the tertium comparationis for recognizing instances of emotively
marked divergence from expected communicative styles, strategies, or speech
choices in different situations. Here, the standard of comparison is less closely connected with specific linguistic forms than with general expectations about broad patterns of linguistic behavior in different hypothesized contexts.28 For example, if we
assume that parents usually call their children by first name (mother admonishing
son: Johnny, stop that), a parent who does not do this tends to generate notice
(John James Smith, stop that); if we assume that new employees are not usually
intimate with their bosses (new employee thanking boss: Thank you, Mr. Jones),
a new employee who is very informal or personal tends to generate notice (Thanks,
Frank); if we assume that married partners do not talk like strangers (man asking
his wife for the butter at the breakfast table: The butter), a married partner who is
unexpectedly formal or polite tends to generate notice (Marge, would you mind if
I asked you to pass me the butter ?); if we assume that academic advisors are there
to help students (advisor, on seeing a troubled-looking student walk into the office:
Can I help you?), an advisor who does not sufficiently emphasize his or her willingness to help tends to generate notice (What do you want.), and so forth.
6.2.3. Cotextual anticipatory schemata
Cotextual anticipatory schemata, we might say, consist mainly of expectations
about types or successions of verbal and/or nonverbal activities that are likely to
occur in particular stretches of discourse, given the communicative events preceding
them (cf. Prince, 1988). Here, the unit of analysis is extended discourse, and anticipatory schemata based on perceptions of prior speech activities or prior texts provide

x6 Many anthropological
linguists, most recently Besnier (1990, and in this issue), have pointed out that
global assumptions
are highly culture-bound.
Hence, any approach based on assumptions
such as those
described here must be especially careful about making claims to universal applicability.
This has been
a source of recent criticism of Brown and Levinsons
(1987) theory of universals of politeness (cf. Janney and Amdt, 1993).
* Situational assumptions
may be based on knowledge
of generalized
others and how they might be
expected to act in different situations (see global assumptions),
or on knowledge
of specific partners
and their previous behavior in similar situations.
28 The lack of a direct connection
to specific linguistic forms is viewed with suspicion by many conversation analysts, who sometimes tend to regard studies of these types of contrasts as methodologically
questionable
(see Selting, this issue).

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353

the tertium comparutionis for recognizing features of discourse that are emotively
marked. The analysis focuses mainly on linguistic or other patterns that diverge from
previously established patterns (cf. Selting, in this issue). For example, against a
background of informal speech, formal speech forms a contrast; against a background of formal speech, informal speech forms a contrast; against a background of
neutral, nonevaluative language, a strongly evaluative lexical choice forms a contrast; against a background of smooth, evenly accentuated speech, unexpected
pauses, repetitions, unusually emphatic prosodic markers, etc. form contrasts, and
so on.
4.3. Degree
In addition to specifying what emotive contrasts diverge from, we must also specify how they diverge. This latter issue is complicated by the fact, pointed out by
Ruesch and Bateson (195 l), Stankiewicz (1964), Watzlawick et al. (1967), and others
long ago, that emotive contrasts are analogic, more/less phenomena, and require a
descriptive approach based on notions of gradient relationships. The issue of gradient
descriptive frameworks is discussed in passing by Labov (1984: 44), and is dealt
with in detail by Brown and Levinson (1987: 85ff.) and Given (1989). The original
discussion of gradient contrasts, however, goes back to Aristotles reflections on the
representation of rhetorical strategies in Rhetoric (330 ca. B.C.). Aristotle recognized
that different ways of expressing things often involve choices of degree rather than
of type, and he emphasized, like Sapir (1927) and the Prague functionalists later, that
the notion of variation presupposes some kind of standard - an assumptive steady
state, which is regulated by considerations of metapragmatic appropriateness, which
Latin rhetoricians called aptum and Greek rhetoricians called rrp&rov (cf. Lausberg, 1960: $1078; Mortara Garavelli, 1988: 1 15)29 - against which variations can
be recognized as distinctive features, and in terms of which they can be explained as
functional, goal-directed aspects of discourse (see the discussion in section 6.1). His
solution to this problem was to introduce the notion of matters of degree, which he
defined as follows (Rhetoric I (A), 7,1363b):
When one thing x exceeds another, y, x may be regarded as y plus something more; and the thing
exceeded, y, may be regarded as that which is included in X. Also the terms greater and more are always
relative to a less, while great and small, [and] much and little are relative to the average magnitude
of things.

Following this line of reasoning, the contrastive significance of an emotive speech

activity lies mainly in its capacity to be regarded as standing in some type of direct or
indirect relation to more or less of x, where x is regarded as an implicitly neutral,
unmarked midpoint on an emotive continuum such as positive/negative, near/far,
29 Classical rhetoric offers many interesting insights and solutions to problems of emotive language. Its
main shortcomings are its static, taxonomic tendency, and its lack of an empirical, psychologically
grounded basis. But we should not forget its lessons. An important future task would be to redefine its
intuitions within an integrated approach.

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clear/vague, confident/doubtful, assertive/unassertive, or intense/unintense (see

section 4). The degree of divergence in the direction of greater or less X, from this
standpoint, becomes a measure of the emotive markedness of the speech activity in
question.30 On the basis of this assumption, it is possible to conceive of potential
ranges of emotive choice as existing on more/less scales analogous to those in
Table 4.

7. Types of emotive devices

In specifying phenomena that can be analyzed in a pragmatics of emotive communication, it helps to shift the focus of analysis somewhat away from propositional
content, and redirect it toward what we might call the emotive identifications or
global affective tonality of the units analyzed. Notions of emotive identification
and affective tonality are historically related to Martys (1908) idea of emotive coloring (emotive Farbe), Ballys (1909) idea of evocative effects (e#ets par evocation), and Buhlers (1934) idea of communicative valence (kommunikative Valenz).
Common to all these ideas is the classical rhetorical notion that uses of language are
capable of coloring, or casting a type of emotive valence, over situations that evokes
different moods in partners (cf. Marty, 1908: 525), and influences their feelings and
behavior (cf. Biihler, 1934: 31). Bally characterized this as the ambient, relational,
affective impression indirectly evoked by the utterance in the social and interpersonal context in which it is produced (1909, I: 221).
Following these writers, we might hypothesize that the phenomena to be investigated in a pragmatics of emotive communication are those related to the evocative
effects of the units analyzed. In keeping with present terminology, we could think of
these broadly as emotive framing devices, indices, or markers. Six broad ranges
of devices would seem to qualify as likely candidates for analysis: (1) evaluation
devices, (2) proximity devices, (3) specificity devices, (4) evidential@ devices, (5)
volitionality devices, and (6) quantity devices.
7.1. Evaluation devices [central distinction: positive/negative]
This category potentially includes all types of verbal and nonverbal choices that
suggest an inferrable positive or negative evaluative stance on the part of the speaker
with respect to a topic, part of a topic, a partner, or partners in discourse. Currently
often studied in work on morphological word-formation devices (cf. Volek, 1987;

3 Labov (1984) employs a similar line of reasoning as underpinning for the descriptions used in his
analysis of intensity markers in American black city street-talk: Intensity operates on a scale centered
about the zero, or unmarked expression, with both positive (aggravated or intensified) and negative (mitigated or minimized) poles. A feature notation with [+/-I intensity is therefore not appropriate. Instead,
1 will refer to position on an ordinal scale where features marked for intensity raise an expression to a
value greater than zero, and those marked for deintensification lower expressions to values less than
zero (1984: 44).

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355

Table 4
Token features, emotive categories, and degrees of emotive markedness
Token feature

Emotive category

Morphological
choices

Evaluation
(positive)

Lexical
substitutions

Evaluation
(negative)

Terms of address

Choices of
determiners

Less +-------_---------------______-f

More

[context: buying a watermelon]

This ones better
This ones good

This ones best

[context: describing a politician]

Hes conservative
Hes reactionary

Hes fascistic

Proximity (social)

[context: introducing someone]

Id like you to
Id like you to
meet Dr. Jones
meet Robert Jones

Id like you to
meet Bob

Proximity (spatial)

[context: commenting on a proposal]

The idea is
That idea is
interesting
interesting

This idea is
interesting

Choices of verb
tense/aspect

Proximity
(temporal)

Choices of
pronouns

Specificity

[context: asking someone who has just

visited an ill acquaintance about the
condition of the acquaintance]
How did she feel? How does she feel? How is she feeling?

[context: asking for help in a group]

Can anyone help
Can someone help
me?
me?

Can you help me?

[said to a specific
person]

Choices of modal
verbs

Modality
(confidence)

[context: responding to a request for an

opinion]
I hope it will turn I think it will turn I know it will turn
out well
out well
out well

Choices of agent/
object status

Volitionality
(self-assertiveness)

[context: suggesting its time to leave]

Do you think its
Should we leave
time to leave?
now?

Sound duration

Quantity

[context: commenting on a new dress]

Its nice
Its ni:ce

Prosodic stress

Quantity

[context: calling the dog]

come
come

Lexical repetition

Quantity

I want to leave now

Its ni: :ce

COME!

[context: replying to a repeated request]

OK, Ill do it
OK OK, Ill do it OK OK OK, Ill
do it!

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Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi, 1994), the emotional lexicon (cf. Lutz, 1982; Jefferson, 1984), lexical substitutions,
and so forth, it potentially
includes all discourse
activities that can be interpreted as indices of pleasure or displeasure,
agreement or
disagreement,
like or dislike, and so forth, e.g.: smiling vs. frowning facial expressions, friendly vs. hostile voice qualities, choices of emotion terms, evaluative vocatives, diminutives,
gradable evaluative adjectives, evaluative predicative adjectives,
antonymic
adjective pairs, valence verbs, evaluative viewpoint adverbs, adverbs of
manner, and various types of stylistic substitutions.
7.2. Proximity devices [central distinction:

nearlfar]

This category potentially

includes all types of verbal and nonverbal choices that
vary metaphorical
distances
between speakers and topics, topics and partners,
and/or speakers and partners in discourse space or time (cf. Levinson,
1983: 54ff.)
(see also section 8.3). Proximity is essentially a subjectively
experienced
spatiotemporal dimension
of linguistic emotive experience. One reason for varying distances
in discourse, it is sometimes said, is to identify with (approach) or mitigate (avoid)
the potential effects of expressed messages (cf. Fraser, 1980; Haverkate, 1992).
Proximity
phenomena
are generally
discussed
in connection
with notions of
deixis: e.g., person deixis, place deixis, time deixis, social deixis, emphatic
deixis, and so forth (cf. Fillmore,
1975; Lyons, 1977: 667ff.; Levinson,
1983:
54ff.; Haverkate, 1992). The main categories of proximity phenomena
are: (1) spatial proximity markers, which regulate metaphorical
distances between inner and
outer events (demonstratives:
This/That is a good idea), or between events near at
hand versus events at a distance (See here/there!); (2) temporal proximity markers,
which regulate metaphorical
distances between now and then events (present vs.
other tenses: I am/was very sorry I said it), or between immediate and nonimmediate events (simple vs. progressive
aspect: How are you doing/do you do); (3)
social proximity markers, which regulate metaphorical
social or interpersonal
distances (terms of address: Id like you to meet Bob/Dr. Robert Adams); and (4)
selective order proximity markers (often discussed in the literature under terms such
as order of reference,
foregrounding,
topicalization,
given vs. new information, left/right dislocation,
etc.), which regulate distances between concepts in discourse, e.g.: initial referent versus subsequent referents (Judy was there, and Tom
and Janet), agent status versus object status (Steffi beat Martina vs. Martina lost to
Steffi), adjacent referents versus nonadjacent
referents, active versus passive constructions, etc. (cf. Li, 1976; Li and Thompson,
1976; Gundel, 1977; Hopper, 1979;
Given, 1984; Prince, 1981, 1988; Horn, 1991). We will return to this important category of emotive devices in section 8.
7.3. Specificity devices [central distinction:

clearhague]

This category potentially

includes all choices of words, parts of speech, word
organization
patterns, conversational
techniques,
and/or discourse
strategies that
vary the inferred particularity,
clarity, or pointedness
of references to topics, parts

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357

of topics, the speakers self, or partners in discourse. It also includes choices that
focus more narrowly or broadly on referents. Specificity can be regarded here as the
extent to which a conceptualized object of communication is referred to directly by
name, so to speak, as opposed to only implied, suggested, alluded to, generalized,
genericized, or otherwise hedged or indirectly hinted at.
Specificity phenomena include choices of particular versus generic referents (e.g.,
definite vs. indefinite articles: I left my/a book in your office), whole referents versus parts of referents (e.g., The dinner/salad was great), ones self versus hedged
selves (e.g., I/One doubt[s] if thats right), particular vs. habitual actions (viewpoint
adverbs: I [generally] agree with that), particularized others versus generalized
others (definite vs. indefinite pronouns: Can you/someone help me?), particular vs.
general reference (e.g., I like that/things like that), and various rhetorical brevity,
amplification, and substitution techniques.
7.4. Evidential@ devices [central distinction: confidentldoubtjiil]
This category potentially includes all choices that regulate the inferrable reliability, correctness, authority, validity, or truth value of what is expressed (cf. Chafe and
Nichols, 1986). It is one of the most ideationally oriented emotive categories, which
explains why it has been given relatively much attention in linguistics in comparison
with some other categories of emotive phenomena. The uses of evidentiality devices
that are of main interest in an emotive approach are those that suggest attitudes of
confidence or doubtfulness with respect to expressed information (e.g., judgement:
That is/might be right) or intentions (e.g., prediction: I will/could come tomorrow).
Often discussed in the literature under notions of hedging (G. Lakoff, 1972;
Brown and Levinson, 1987), commitment to the proposition (Lyons, 1977;
Schiffrin, 1987), evidentiality (Chafe, 1986; Biber and Finegan, 1989; Haviland,
1989), and identification with the topic (Tannen, 1989), this category includes various epistemic modality phenomena:
uses of evidential modal auxiliaries
(may/might), objective vs. subjective epistemic verbs (know/believe), linking verbs
(is/seems), parenthetical verbs, and modal adverbs (obviously/possibly). It encompasses signs of certainty vs. doubt, things known vs. things thought, and things
that are vs. things that seem. Modality can also be inferred from kinesic activities
(shoulder shrugs, puzzled or doubtful facial expressions), from intonation (fallingrising pitch curves), and from various types of extended discourse strategies.
7.5. Volitionality devices [central distinction: self-assertive vs. unassertive]
This category potentially includes all speech choices, sentence framing techniques, and discourse strategies used to vary levels of inferred self-identification or
self-assertiveness vis-a-vis partners, and all choices used to cast selves or partners in
active versus passive discourse roles. The study of interpersonal volitionality phenomena is one of the central pursuits of modern Western politeness research (cf.
Blum-Kulka, 1987; Brown and Levinson, 1987; Janney and Arndt, 1993). Selfassertiveness is indexed in discourse, for example, by choices of self vs. other pro-

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358

noun agents (I/do you want to leave), active vs. passive voice (I/it was decided that
we wont go), declarative vs. interrogative vs. imperative mood (I want/can I
have/give me the book), and assertive negation (Youre not going), and by some
forms of inversion (Right you are/youre right), self-oriented appellative techniques
(Did I agree? No, I said I might agree) and partner-oriented appellative techniques
(Youll think Im crazy, but I said yes).
7.6.

Quantity

devices [central distinction morelless]

This category potentially includes all intensifying and deintensifying speech choices
(cf. Labov, 1984): that is, all choices of quantity, degree, measure, duration, or amount
of a given speech phenomenon. Following Volek (1987), quantity can be of almost any
imaginable kind: intensity of activity, length of performance, quantity of an object,
intensity of an adverb. Quantity phenomena include phonological elongations (Its
huge/hu:ge/hu: :ge), unexpected prosodic stress or loudness (Im not/NOT excited),
uses of interrogative pronouns as intensifiers (What a day!), emphasizing adjectives
(It was a real/complete/total catastrophe), adverbs of degree (Im hardly/very/
absolutely happy about it), and stylistic choices such as repetition (Were happy, really
happy, that you came) and intensifying appellative techniques (NO! Did she really say
that?).
7.7. Analytical approaches: Some basic distinctions
In order to develop a unified, systematic investigation
those listed above, we need some basic distinctions
approaches. Some potentially useful distinctions between
tives, units, and loci of analysis are summarized in the
simplified form.

of emotive devices such as

about possible analytical
different possible perspecfollowing paragraphs in a

7.7.1. Perspective of analysis

Emotive communication, we might say, can be studied from two different general
perspectives :
(1) as a process: from this perspective, emotive communication is viewed as an
interactive achievement (cf. Selting, 1989, and this issue), and the use of emotive devices in conversation is considered a crucial parameter in assessing different types and/or degrees of emotive involvement in interaction. From this perspective, which is eminently dialogical, the significance of emotive signals is
regarded as a matter of negotiation between the participants.
(2) as a product: from this perspective, discourse, text, or interaction are viewed as
givens, or as data. When this perspective is adopted, the emotive profile of discourse appears as a quality, and typically becomes of interest for stylistics.
We could call the former perspective dynamic, and the latter static: the former
perspective deals with discourse as an ongoing process, and the latter deals with it as
an outcome or a result; the former, we could say, deals with tnonciations, the latter
with enonces.An example of the difference between the two perspectives is perhaps

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359

that between the rhetorical notion of emphasis and Seltings (this issue) notion of
emphatic speech style.
7.7.2. Units of analysis
It is useful to keep the problem of perspectives of analysis distinct from the problem of units of analysis. Possible units of emotive analysis could be, for example, the
utterance, the speech-act, the turn, the stretch of discourse, the text, and so forth.
While shorter units of analysis (utterance, speech-act) might seem to be better
approached from a static perspective, and longer ones (turn, discourse, text) might
seem to be better approached from a dynamic perspective, this must not necessarily
be the case. In fact, emotive phenomena at the utterance level can be studied as
belonging to dynamic, interactional processes, and conversely, phenomena at the
discourse level can be studied as static data, givens, or results. The choice of the
unit of analysis is obviously linked to a different theoretical framework. At any rate,
depending on which type of unit is selected as relevant to study, the analysis of emotive phenomena will tend to be centered at either the micro- or macro-level; and it
should be mentioned that there are also various emotive devices between the microand macro-levels: for example, cohesion phenomena such as empathetic anaphora
(cf. Conte, 1993).
7.7.3. Loci of analysis
The study of emotive devices must further focus on .units of analysis in relation to
specific loci of emotive communication. In current research, emotive communication
is interpreted as having mainly the following loci, any of which could serve as a
starting point for pragmatic analysis (see also section 8):
(1) the speaker: e.g., in studies of formal phenomena such as emphatic particles
(just, really) and distancing devices (indirect speech acts, agentless passive,
modal verbs, hedging), and in studies of content-related phenomena such as egofocused discourse, self-disclosures, references to personal experiences and feelings, etc.;
(2) the addressee: e.g., in studies of mitigating strategies, supportive moves (preventive and therapeutic), backchannels, and so forth;
(3) the content: e.g., in studies, at the local utterance level, of marked lexemes,
word-order, attitudinal operators on propositional content (evidentials, modal
adverbs, evaluative expressions), etc., and in studies, at the global discourse
level, of phenomena related to textual construction, such as anaphora, thematic organization, topic repetition, topic shifts, digressions, code-switching,
etc.:
(4) discourse management: e.g., in studies of quantitative phenomena such as the
number of turns held; and in studies of qualitative phenomena such as interruptions, overlaps, hesitation phenomena, silences, etc.
It should be noted that choice of the locus of analysis is not essentially a matter of
exclusion, but a matter of creating a focused object. The use of the first person pronoun can, for example, from a stylistic standpoint, be analyzed with respect to different loci, e.g., the speaker, the addressee, the text.

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7.7.4. Form and content

There is also one final analytical distinction that crosscuts the three distinctions
just mentioned: this is the distinction between form and content. In the same, oversimplified fashion as above, we can add that emotive choices can be analyzed from
either a formal viewpoint (e.g., repetitions, rhetorical devices, etc.) or a contenutistic
one (e.g., disclosures, personal topics, sudden digressions, topic changes, etc.). This
distinction, incidentally, is paralleled in rhetoric by the distinction between figures
of speech and figures of thought.

8. Objects and objectives of emotive choices

In the previous section, seven broad categories of linguistic devices which have a
bearing on emotive communication were listed; and others might have been mentioned. It is easy to see that these devices cover a wide range of heterogeneous phenomena, all of which are in need of pragmatic investigation which clarifies their
roles in emotive communication, and which takes the different perspectives, units,
and loci of analysis referred to in section 7.7 into account.
In order to start devising a systematic interpretive account of emotivity in language (as opposed to simply a description of isolated emotive contrasts), it is necessary to posit objects of emotive choice. Emotive choices cannot be analyzed without
reference to their inferred objects and objectives. Actually, the very fact that they
have objects and objectives is what distinguished them conceptually from spontaneous, cathartic emotional displays (see Martys Entladung, section 2.2), and it is
precisely this that makes the analysis of their different forms and strategic functions
in speech relevant from a pragmatic point of view.
8.1. The discourse triad again: Biihlers objects
As said earlier, Btihlers Organon Model of language functions provides a means
of identifying three broad ranges of potential objects of emotive choice: the speaker,
the hearer, and the content. Following Btihler, these three elements may be regarded
as constitutive of discourse. The loci of emotive communication inductively distinguished in section 7.7.3 can be redefined at a more abstract level within such a
model, and it is possible to connect different types of emotive devices with them.
8.1 .l. Emotive choices and foregrounded discourse relations
For each category of emotive devices listed in section 7, an abstract representation
can be imagined, in which each of Btihlers three constitutive elements stands in a
different relation with respect to the other two, according to the privileged direction
of the relation at issue: i.e., according to which combination of elements is foregrounded or backgrounded. This makes it possible to distinguish different discourserelational Gestalten. For example, in connection with evaluation, specificity, and
evidentiality markers, the speaker-content relation tends to be foregrounded, while
the speaker-partner relation tends to be backgrounded. In connection with volition-

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361

ality markers, the speaker-hearer relation tends to be backgrounded. Quantity

devices tend to crosscut the other categories, being related to expressive choices,
which are directed toward an intensification whose scope can include different
aspects of the speech act: the propositional content, the illocutionary force, or the act
of utterance itself. Finally, and significantly, proximity markers can signal distance
with respect either to what is said or to the addressee. Hence, in connection with
proximity markers, both the speaker-content relation and the speaker-hearer relation
can be foregrounded.
8.1.2. Emotive choices and foregrounded loci of interest
The focus of emotive choices can also be seen from the viewpoint of which needs
and requirements of which of Buhlers constitutive elements implicitly stand in the
foreground. This concept can be extended to characterize different general emotive
communicative styles (cf. Bartsch, 1991a,b), in which content-related emotive
choices are seen mainly as reflecting the needs or requirement of the foregrounded
locus of interest: the speakers, the hearers, or that of the content itself. Emotive
choices, that is, can be predominantly speaker-centered, hearer-centered, or contentcentered:
(i) speaker-centered:
In speaker-centered discourse, the speakers (real or projected) personal feelings, attitudes, or desires stand implicitly in the foreground, and
the speaker tends to determine the emotive profiles of communicative events. Here,
the relevant strategies involve emotive self-disclosures (emotive Kundgabe), or the
intentional declaring or making known of personal affective information for different purposes (cf. Kainz, 1941: 188; Fiehler, 1990). The topics chosen tend to be
of immediate interest or importance to the speaker, who places her- or himself
clearly in the actor role. Some related linguistic and rhetorical phenomena are autobiographical narratives, self-disclosures, and different kinds of emphasis.
(ii) hearer-centered:
In hearer-centered discourse, the partners well-being
stands implicitly in the foreground, and the partners inferred needs or requirements
tend to determine the emotive profiles of communicative events. The relevant strategies here, from the speakers standpoint, mainly involve displays of low assertiveness, and displays of positive evaluation of the partner and/or of topics or parts of
topics inferred to be positively evaluated by the partner; also, proximity strategies
are used that place the partner in the actor role and in close connection to positively
evaluated topics. Some related linguistic and rhetorical phenomena include feedback
requests, supportive back-channel activity, floor-yielding, positive face-saving techniques, mitigating strategies, and attuning strategies.
(iii) content-centered:
In content-centered discourse, content requirements stand
implicitly in the foreground, and the topic tends to determine the course of conversational events and the selection of register. The relevant emotive strategies here are
mainly transactional, and are focused on the anticipated reactions of the partner to
the content expressed; the partners anticipated reactions influence the local and
global thematic and argumentative structure of the speakers discourse. Some related
linguistic and rhetorical phenomena include choices of content organization and
presentation (e.g., backgrounding/foregrounding,
theme/rheme progression, etc.),

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choices of types of argumentation (e.g., use of examples, narratives, reported

speech), shifts in formality, and, at a micro-level, choices of evaluation, specificity,
and evidentiality markers, etc.
It may be observed that the distinctions above potentially supply criteria for individuating text types, and could conceivably be used in text-typology research (cf.
Schroder, 1991) to take emotive features beyond Jakobsons original functions into
account. In some cases, emotive features alone might suffice to individuate certain
types of texts. For instance, the general emotive profile of category (1) could perhaps
be used to characterize narcissistic texts, e.g., confessions, preliminary phases of
doctor-patient interactions, memoirs, diaries, etc.; the emotive profile of category
(2) might help characterize altruistic-supportive texts, e.g., certain therapeutic
interactions, interviews, consultations, etc.; and the emotive profile of category (3)
may help to characterize certain types of persuasive and/or informational-scientific
texts.
It may also be observed that within a given text-type - e.g., a scientific text some parts or sections, codified in rhetorical stylistic tradition, typically focus on different loci. For example, in scientific texts, there tend to be speaker-centered parts,
e.g. opening declarations of aims, goals, desires, and various kinds of captatio
benevolentiae; and hearer-centered parts, e.g., closing statements expressing hopes,
reliance on hearer-reader benevolence, and so forth. Even in texts where emotive
strategies are perhaps not usually expected, such as in scientific texts, there are conventional ways of conciliating la voix des faits et la voix du ccw- (cf. Caffi, 1991),
enhancing impressions of scientific detachment, while at the same time meeting personal needs for self-expression and self-promotion. The voices of scientific expression vary across disciplines and cultures.3
8.2. tmmedicacy:

Wiener and Mehrabians objects

Interpretations of most of the categories of emotive devices listed in section 7

have already been studied in a systematic, empirical fashion by two American social
psychologists, Albert Wiener and Morton Mehrabian. Their stimulating book Language Within Language: Immediacy, a Channel in Verbal Communication (1968)
represents an interesting exception to the trend of much social psychological
research during the 1960s and the early 1970s, which concentrated on emotive
communication mainly in nonverbal channels. 32 Wiener and Mehrabian define their

3 It might be noted in passing that in Jakobsons definition of the expressive-emotive

function, as well
as in Mathesius definition of emphasis (see section 2.4). emotive choices are viewed as being centered
around Satzinhalt, and are equated with speakers attitudes toward what they are speaking about. Emotive choices in these classic functionalist
models, that is, are mainly content-centered.
32 Another exception to this trend was the famous work of Roger Brown and his colleagues in the early
1960s (e.g., Brown and Gilman, 1960, on pronouns of solidarity;
Brown and Ford, 1961, on forms of
address, etc.). But nevertheless,
as Amdt and Janney (1987) point out, an adequate account of emotive
communication
needs to pay equal attention to verbal, nonverbal vocal, and kinesic aspects of conversation. Verbal and nonverbal
features of speech complement,
and more importantly,
often modi

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363

central notion of immediacy as the relationship between the speaker and the
objects he communicates about, the addressee of his communication, or the communication itself (1968: 3). Their main concern is the analysis of verbal forms which
reflect changes in the degree of separation or nonidentity of a speaker with respect
to these three objects (1968: 23).
In Wiener and Mehrabians experiments, variations in verbal degrees of separation between speakers and objects were associated by untrained raters in experimental groups with positive and negative affect. A high consensus scoring of different degrees of verbal immediacy was obtained by these raters. In the experiments,
immediacy was basically studied ex-negative: that is, what raters actually detected
and measured were nonimmediate communications. In Wiener and Mehrabians
approach, the term nonimmediacy refers to any indication of separation, nonidentity, attenuation of directness, or change in intensity of interaction among the communicator, the addressee, the object of communication, or the communication
(1968: 32). The primary nonimmediacy categories are the following: (1) spatiotempot-al categories, e.g., demonstratives, adverbials denoting spatial distance, uses of
tenses where the relation between interactants is temporally displaced either into the
past or into the future; (2) denotative specificity categories, e.g., over-inclusive reference (A: How was the party? B: Everything was wonderful ! ); (3) agentaction-object categories, e.g., the passivity category for instances in which the subject or the object or both are literally stated as being acted upon or driven to act by
external forces (1968: 93); and finally, a category which the authors label (4) qualification and objectification, which includes mainly uses of modal adverbs and
modal operators by which, according to the authors, the communicator, through his
qualification, indicates the possibility that his statements may not be consensually
shared (1968: 94).
Although Wiener and Mehrabian did not use their designated objects (topic,
addressee, communication) to distinguish systematically between their linguistic
examples, it is important in the present connection to stress the high degree of fit
between their categories of nonimmediacy phenomena and the categories of emotive
devices listed in section 7.33 Wiener and Mehrabians experimental findings clearly
suggest that (non)immediate linguistic choices are one important basis, at least, from
which addressees begin making interpretive inferences about communicators affective experience. Emotive choices are learned, but not taught explicitly; nevertheless,
as Wiener and Mehrabian show, they are ... responded to consistently by the members of a group (1968: 28). This strongly supports the hypothesis, expressed at the
beginning of the paper (see section l.l), that speakers are endowed with a highly

each others effects, leading to complex interpretive inferences. This fact deserves more attention in
pragmatics.
33 It may be noted that Wiener and Mehrabians spatio-temporal category is partly similar to the
proximity category discussed in section 7, their denotative specificity category is partly similar to the
specificity category, their agent-action-object category is partly similar to the vofitionality category,
and their qualification and objectification category is partly similar to the evidentiality category.
Wiener and Mehrabians categories, however, do not correspond with these others on all counts.

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refined, expressive and interpretive emotive capacity that needs to be accounted for
in pragmatics.34 Wiener and Mehrabians work is an important contribution to the
experimental, empirical clarification of how linguistic choices are interpreted systematically from an emotive point of view.
8.3. The deictic triad
From the preceding remarks, and from the earlier discussion, it seems that distances in general, in the broadest sense, are of considerable importance in emotive
communication. Now, before concluding the paper, we would like to consider the
implications of this observation a bit more closely. Linguistically, as we said, distance seems to be regulated by different kinds of deictic proximity devices, or
near/far markers (see section 7.2), which are all related in some way or other to
what might be regarded as the egocentric orientation of the act of utterance. The
proximity category hence appears to be basic, inasmuch as it constitutes a sort of
bridging category between indexicality and emotivity. That is, speakers near/far
attitudes are inferred on the basis of their choices of particular deictic references.
8.3.1. Outer versus inner deixis
Let us dwell a bit on the zero-point of the deictic reference in such cases. In every
act of utterance, according to Btihler (1934), the speaker is the deictic origo, or the
deictic source of the system of spatiotemporal coordinates called into being by the
utterance. Biihler calls this system the Zeigfeld, adding that the Zeigfeld can either be
the real perceptual space shared by the partners, or an imagined perceptual space.
The same chrono- or topodeictic cues can be used to make reference to a real
Zeigfeld (e.g., Its here in the drawer) or to an imagined Zeigfeld (e.g., Here you
will turn to the left). The former phenomenon is Btihlers demonstratio ad oculos;
the latter phenomenon is Biihlers Deixis am Phantasma, where the speaker tacitly
guides the hearers imagination (Phantasiesteuerung) (cf. Conte, 1988), in a sense
inviting the hearer to join him or her, through an act of conceptual transposition
(Versetzung), in an imagined space.
It could be hypothesized that, in addition to Biihlers classic phantasmatic deixis,
which evokes an intersubjectively shared, imagined, external world or outer space,
there is a second kind of phantasmatic transposition: this is the Versetzung from different metaphorical places in what we might call inner space, where the speakers
self or position within his or her own inner affective world becomes the deictic
origo, the zero point of the act of reference, and objects of emotive communication
are represented as being nearer to, or farther from, the speaker in this inner world.
Versetzungen toward or away from the self in inner affective space (ones feelings,
fantasies, attitudes, wishes, etc.) are sometimes implied by emotive uses of demonstratives. For instance, if a speaker uses an utterance like Those people who say X
34 It is worth noticing, incidentally,
that Wiener and Mehrabian speak of variations,
which is a more
objectively
detectable concept than the notion of choices, and one which fits very well into the interpretive category of emotive cotextual contrasts introduced in section 6.

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to refer to people in the same room, there is potentially a discrepancy between the
outer and the inner Zeigfeld: that is, what is near outwardly (the people physically in
the room with the speaker who say x), seems to be far away inwardly (those people).
If the hearer is to interpret such an utterance correctly, he or she must infer, for example, that: (1) a metaphorical Verserzung from the speakers and hearers shared outer
world to the speakers private inner world has occurred; (2) the zero point of deictic reference is now in the speakers emotional space; and (3) some type of complementary symmetrical Versetzung on the hearers part is necessary if she or he wishes
to keep attuned with the speaker and correctly understand the speakers utterance.
From such examples, we can conclude that the so-called inner world is not only
something that we typically refer to in self-disclosures, when we explicitly talk about
our feelings or attitudes; it can also be the deictic frame from which we refer to objects
in a shared communicative setting.
Throughout this paper, emotive devices have been associated indirectly with attitudes. One of the basic action tendencies connected with positive and negative attitudes, and the starting point of much emotive communication, is the tendency to
approach or withdraw from attitudinal objects: the tendency, in other words, to
establish emotive operating distances (nearer/farther) with respect to things. We are
now in a position to make Frijdas (1982: 112) statement about peoples capacity to
perceive each others approaching or withdrawing gestures (quoted in section 1.1.3)
more precise. From a linguistic standpoint, establishing distance seems to be logically and chronologically prior to all other emotive activities. Before we can evaluate things, commit ourselves to things in different ways, or become more or less
assertive with respect to things, that is, we must first point them out; and in this initial act of pointing to things, we plot our metaphorical positions or distances with
respect to them. In this sense, proximity devices are fundamental features of emotive
communication: they enable us to shift the deictic origo of utterances from points in
outer perceptual space to points in inner subjective space, and they allow us to
express subtle variations of inner distance with respect to our topics, our partners,
and our own acts of communication.
As said above, the linguistic devices (i.e., chrono- and topo-deictics) for outer and
inner deixis - the latter of which is sometimes referred to as empathetic deixis (cf.
Lyons, 1977: 677), emotional deixis (cf. R. Lakoff, 1974), or impure deixis (cf.
Lyons, 1981: 232ff.) - are the same. This suggests that there is a certain isomorphism between the outer Zeigfeld and the inner Zeigfeld: a parallelism, that is, in the
structuration of the intersubjectively shared external world of social processes, and
the subjective internal world of individual affective processes, which can also be
partly shared by partners in linguistic interaction. While the sharing is almost a given
in the former case, it seems to be a product of highly complex, empathic inferential
processes in the latter.35

3s We are not sure if the nature of the shift between the so-called primary meanings of deictic expressions, e.g., locatives and demonstratives, and their derived, so-called symbolic meanings is metaphorical, as is usually said. It could be argued that this shift is actually metonymic, since it is of the part

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8.3.2. Indexicality, egocentricity, and expressions of affect

So far, the relation between indexicality, egocentricity, and expressions of affect
has not been fully clarified. Here it might suffice to recall that, according to Btihler
(1934), the deictic center of an utterance act comprises three elements: the ego-hicnunc. These are the I-here-now coordinates of the utterance (cf. also Rommetveit,
1974; Kamio, 1994). Many of Wiener and Mehrabians (1968) data (see section 8.2)
tend to cluster about this deictic triad. Wiener and Mehrabians findings, as well as
the findings of further research,36 seem to confirm that linguistic choices related to a
non ego, lzon hit, or lzon lzu~lcperspective in an utterance (that is, a non-I, non-here,
or non-now perspective) are systematically interpreted as signs of distance, nonimmediacy, or nonidentity: in other words, as signs of some type of withdrawal or
separation of the self from the attitudinal object of communication. Non ego choices
often involve impersonal constructions, passive or generic references, uses of the
inclusive we, instances of hedging, and uses of modal adverbs that serve distancing functions. Non hit choices, on the other hand, tend to involve different kinds of
indirect constructions and displacements, e.g., narratives of affective experience
instead of direct expressions of affect, reported speech whose implicit message is
this has not happend to me, but to others, and so forth. And non nunc choices,
finally, tend to involve, for example, choices of the past tense, or the polite past
tense (as in the Italian imperfetto), and hypothetical constructions that shift events
into the future. The main recurrent features of all these emotive strategies are: (1)
self de-responsabilization (as in the use of evidentiality markers to suggest uncertainty), (2) de-emphasis on the speaker or hearer as agents in connection with negatively evaluated things, events, or concepts, and (3) distance or vagueness with
respect to either the content or the addressee of the utterance (via markers of low
proximity, low specificity, and/or low volitionality).

9. Conclusions and implications

At the beginning of this paper, we mentioned the lack of coordination in present
research on language and affect, and suggested that it is perhaps now time for linguists to begin cooperating in developing a more unified pragmatic approach to emotive communication (see section 1). The conceptual foundations of a pragmatics of
emotive communication, we suggested, can be reconstructed from earlier contributions of scholars such as Aristotle (330 ca. B.C.) in rhetoric, Marty (1908) in the philosophy of language, Bally (1909) in linguistic stylistics, Sapir (1927), the Prague
Circle linguists (1929), Btihler (1934), and others in linguistics, Osgood et al. (1957)

instead of the whole type (pars pro toto); and Mohamed and the mountain, after all, to use Btihlers
famous metaphor, are in these cases (different parts of) the same person.
36 Haverkate (1992) also uses the deictic origo of the utterance as the starting point for an explanation
of mitigating
strategies (cf. Fraser, 1980), although he does not quote Btihler. We share the point that
choices related to the ego-hit-nunc can be strategically
employed for mitigation purposes, but we do not
think that a full account of the nature of these uses has yet been provided in pragmatics.

C. Cafl, R.W. Janney I Journal of Pragmatics 22 (1994) 325-373

361

in psycholinguistics, Watzlawick et al. (1967) in interactional psychology, Wiener

and Mehrabian (1968) in social psychology, and many others. Regarded from a historical point of view, it seems that present interest in language and affect is not simply another emerging linguistic fad, but a natural extension of a long line of rhetorical, stylistic, and functional linguistic inquiry that has in fact never stopped, although
it has sometimes been regarded by linguists interested in other aspects of language
as rather outside the scope of the discipline.
We suggested that the task of developing a unified pragmatics of emotive communication poses a number of interesting and challenging problems for future
research. The issue of what emotive signs are indices of, and how they operate as
substitutes for what they stand for, needs to be dealt with in more detail (see section
3). Notions of emotive contrasts need to be further clarified (e.g., contrasts like positive/negative, near/far, clear/vague, confident/doubtful, self-assertive/unassertive,
more/less intense, etc.) (see section 4), and a more adequate account of emotive
marking is required, which specifies what emotive contrasts diverge with respect to,
how they diverge, and what types of anticipatory schemata (e.g., linguistic, contextual, cotextual, etc.) are involved in recognizing and interpreting them. Also, techniques for representing emotive contrasts need to be refined, so that the relevant contrasts can be dealt with more systematically in future analyses (see section 6).
With respect to the coordination of analytical approaches, we suggested that the
issue of the many currently competing emotive categories in linguistics needs to be
resolved, so that investigators can start focusing on, and comparing findings about,
the same types of phenomena from a unified point of view (see section 4). In this
connection, the status of the notion of involvement especially seems to require
more thought; if this term is to be employed in the future in an analytically useful
way, investigators will have to start agreeing about how to conceptualize it and how
to define the linguistic units pertinent to investigating it (see section 5). These issues
naturally go hand in hand with the problem of isolating categories of emotive
devices for investigation (e.g. evaluation devices, proximity devices, specificity
devices, evidentiality devices, volitionality devices, quantity devices, etc.). Also,
clearer distinctions between analytical approaches seem to be needed, including definitions of potentially relevant perspectives (e.g., process oriented vs. product oriented), units (e.g., utterance, speech-act, turn, discourse, text), and loci of analysis
(e.g., speaker, addressee, content, discourse management) (see section 7). And
finally, in order to develop systematic interpretive accounts of emotive communication, we will need to have clearer concepts about the possible objects and objectives
of emotive choices in speech and writing (see section 8). From this sketchy list
of problems for further research, it appears that much indeed could be
done if linguists were interested in developing a more unified approach to emotive
communication.
The underlying implication of our discussion has been that the impetus for a more
unified approach could possibly come from a pragmatics of emotive communication
focused on two interfaces that seem of central relevance in explaining the emotive
capacity: first, the interface between ideational and relational aspects of emotive
choices (the what/how interface); and second, the interface between subjective and

368

C. Cuffi. R.W. Junney I Journal

ofPrugmatics22

(1994) 325-373

intersubjective
aspects of emotive choices (the intrapersonal/interpersonal
interface). The first perspective
would connect the approach broadly with rhetoric and
stylistics, and could be useful in developing
more adequate descriptive accounts of
emotive choices per se; and the second perspective
would connect the approach
broadly with psychological
and social interactional
research, and could be useful in
developing more adequate interpretive accounts of emotive choices in different communicative contexts. It seems to us that a major goal of future pragmatic research on
emotive communication
will be to show that there are systematic,
empirically
grounded correlations between emotive devices (as described from the former standpoint) and their interpretations
in different situations (as analyzed from the latter
standpoint)
that should not be taken for granted. Reaching this goal, we feel, will
require a unified, coordinated
interdisciplinary
effort. We hope that the proposals
advanced in this paper will help encourage further discussion about how this effort
might best continue.

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