TOWARD A PRAGMATICS OF EMOTIVE COMMUNICATION

The task of developing a unified pragmatics of emotive communication p oses many interesting challenges for future research. This paper outli nes some areas in which more work could be done to help coordinate pre sent linguistic research. After briefly reviewing some pioneering hist orical work on language and affect, the paper discusses the following concepts, all of which seem to be in need of further clarification: 'e motive meaning', 'involvement', 'emotive markedness', 'degree of emoti ve 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 simplif ied 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 tha t only with consensual categories and objects of analysis can investig ators start focusing on, and comparing findings about, emotive linguis tic phenomena from a unified point of view. Finally, some distinctions between potential perspectives, units, and loci of emotive analysis a re proposed, and the paper concludes with a call for increased discuss ion of how research on language and affect might be better coordinated in the future.