The Sociopragmatics of Emotion

Bringing together a team of renowned scholars, this book explores the fascinating topic of human emotion from a sociopragmatic perspective.

Laura Alba-Juez (Edited by), Michael Haugh (Edited by)

9781009368407, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 September 2025

328 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.4 cm, 0.63 kg

Emotion plays a critical role in every human interaction and permeates all social activity. Displaying, responding to, and talking about emotions is thus central to human language, communication, and social interaction. However, emotions are multidimensional, indeterminate, and inherently situated phenomena, which makes studying them in contextualised settings challenging for researchers. This groundbreaking book illustrates what a sociopragmatic perspective brings to the broader scholarly understanding of emotion and its role in social life, and sets out to lay the necessary foundations for a sociopragmatic theorisation of emotion. It brings together a renowned team of multidisciplinary scholars to demonstrate how evaluation, relationships, and morality are central to any account of emotions in discourse and interaction. It also exemplifies how a sociopragmatic approach to emotions pays more attention to the role that different discourse systems play in how emotions are expressed, interpreted, responded to, and talked about across different languages and cultures.

Introduction
1. The sociopragmatics of emotion in discourse and interaction Laura Alba-Juez and Michael Haugh
Part I. Emotion and Evaluation: 2. Invoked emotions in times of coronavirus: a sociopragmatic analysis of the narratives of healthcare workers and victims of covid19 in spain during the lockdown Laura Alba-Juez
3. The use of humour as an affiliative strategy in times of covid Carmen Maíz-Arévalo and Francisco Yus
4. Promoemotion in action: sci-tech marketing in university innovation portfolios Carmen Sancho Guinda
Part II. Emotion and Relationships: 5. Doing emotions and displaying empathy: the construction of online peer support Carolina Figueras Bates
6. Understanding affective aspects of Chinese relational practice: from the perspective of 'heart' and 'face' Yongping Ran and Linlin Fan
7. Emotive politeness and communication styles: leave-taking in British and Russian interpersonal interaction Tatiana Larina
8. Laughter and embarrassment in a complicated task Shelby R. Miller, Hilal Ergül and Salvatore Attardo
Part III. Emotion and Morality: 9. The Institutional relevance of emotions: moral-nexus effects in the courtroom Isolda E. Carranza
10. Displaying embarrassment as social action in business interactions Wei-Lin Melody Chang and Michael Haugh
11. 'I'm so angry!' taking offence in calls to an insurance company Carmen Santamaría-García
Epilogue: 12. Revisiting the sociopragmatics of emotions Miriam A. Locher.

Subject Areas: Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG]