The importance of emotion in everyday interactions has been acknowledged by researchers in a wide variety of disciplines, including linguistics, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and communication. This book offers a collection of original studies that explore emotion in naturally occurring spoken interaction. The chapters examine both the verbal and non-verbal resources for expressing emotional stance (lexicon, syntax, prosody, laughter, crying, facial expression), the emotional aspects of action sequences (e.g. news delivery and conflicts), and the role of emotions in institutional ... More

The importance of emotion in everyday interactions has been acknowledged by researchers in a wide variety of disciplines, including linguistics, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and communication. This book offers a collection of original studies that explore emotion in naturally occurring spoken interaction. The chapters examine both the verbal and non-verbal resources for expressing emotional stance (lexicon, syntax, prosody, laughter, crying, facial expression), the emotional aspects of action sequences (e.g. news delivery and conflicts), and the role of emotions in institutional interaction (museums and galleries, psychotherapy, medical interaction and helpline calls). What unites the chapters is an understanding of the expression of emotion and the construction of emotional stances as a process that both shapes and is shaped by the interactional context. The chapters analyze how emotion is expressed and how its expression is responsive to the interactional context and embedded in sequences of action and structures of social interaction. The expression of emotion is constructed and managed as a collaborative process by the participants in interaction. The chapters here demonstrate how the sequential organization of action forms the key relevant unit for analyzing emotion in interaction: displays of emotion are located at specific sequential positions in interaction, and they are interpreted and responded to by reference to that context of occurrence.