Guest editors:

Filippo Batisti, Catholic University of Portugal & Ca' Foscari University of Venice

Augusto Soares de Silva, Catholic University of Portugal

Marcos G. Vidal,  Catholic University of Portugal

Special issue information:

The focus of this special issue extends beyond merely examining the relationship between language and affectivity. It revolves around the fundamental premise that language is inherently situated—a claim that profoundly reshapes how emotions are conceptualized and approached in research. This perspective calls for a shift in methodology, urging scholars to consider emotions in tandem with the contextual, interactive nature of language.The selected papers collectively emphasize the multifaceted nature of language as a situated, multimodal phenomenon. While some contributions present original empirical findings (Cerqueglini, Uslu, Gillioz et al., Vandelanotte & Dancygier), others engage in theoretical exploration (Batisti et al., Dreon & Foolen, Hinojosa Poveda, Alba-Juez & Pérez González, Candiotto & Kiš, Diaz Vera). Together, they reject traditional notions of language as an abstract, disembodied entity or a biological faculty. Instead, language is conceptualized as primarily interactional and contextual.

This reconceptualization opens the door to exploring various dimensions of emotion and affectivity from a range of disciplinary perspectives. For instance, cognitive anthropological linguistics (Uslu, Cerqueglini) examines the cultural embedding of language and emotion; philosophy and linguistics (Batisti, Soares da Silva & Vidal, Dreon & Foolen, Diaz Vera, Candiotto & Kiš) delve into the philosophical underpinnings of affective communication; and psychology and linguistics (Gillioz et al., Vandelanotte & Dancygier, Hinojosa Poveda, Alba-Juez & Pérez González) investigate how emotional expressions manifest and function within cognitive frameworks. Such disciplinary diversity enriches our understanding of both language and emotion, offering new pathways for research and theoretical elaboration.

This collection represents a pivotal contribution to affective sciences by championing what can be termed a “situated turn” in the study of language and emotion. Despite the growing scholarly literature on the topic, much of it has adhered to a disembodied, hyper-textualist conception of language. Our aim is to transcend this outdated theoretical stance and acknowledge the intrinsic situatedness of linguistic phenomena. Few aspects of human experience are as deeply tied to our embodied presence in the world as emotion, making this shift both necessary and timely. Affective science must reconsider its understanding of language, aligning its theoretical frameworks with the fundamentally situated nature of both emotion and communication.