The expression of emotion in discourse (as defined in Alba-Juez and Mackenzie 2019) is treated from the perspective of intercultural pragmatics (as in, e.g, Kecskes 2004, 2011, 2014). Emotion is viewed as a pragmatic dynamical process that shows the interaction of brain-bodies-world (e.g. Van Gelder 1998, Gibbs 2010) and for that reason many aspects of its manifestation in different discourse systems/cultures are explored, taking into account not only the well-known fact that different languages and cultures may display differences in the expression of emotion at all linguistic levels (e.g. at the lexical level, a given language/culture may have a term to express an emotion that has not been conceptualized in another language (i.e. hypocognition, Levy 1973), being the cause of possible intercultural pragmalinguistic misunderstanding), but also the fact that different cultures may have different display rules (Ekman and Friesen 1975) and engage in different affective practices (Wetherell 2012), all of which may affect attempts to communicate when using a lingua franca. I argue in favor of a more comprehensive, socio-cognitive (e.g. Kecskes and Zhang 2009; Kecskes 2010) and sociopragmatic (Leech 1982, 2014) approach to the study of this kind of communication.

This chapter presents a sociopragmatic approach to the study of affect and emotion, taking into account the fact that human emotions are conceptualized and linguistically expressed by means of speech acts within different and various affective practices. Key theories addressing the topic from a linguistic and discourse-pragmatic perspective are outlined and critically discussed, arguing for the need to broaden the scope of research towards a more complex, multidisciplinary and multidimensional analysis of emotion. Thus, the main findings of approaches such as those of functional linguistics, cognitive linguistics, social and cultural theories, and sensory pragmatics are also outlined. The relationship between emotion and other discursive phenomena such as stance taking, (im)politeness, swearing, humor or irony is highlighted, as is the relationship between emotion and evaluation. Finally, an analysis of a videotaped narrative of personal experience is presented, emphasizing the importance of both deconstructing the different elements of discursive emotion and formulating appropriate research questions, in order to shed light on the crucial sociopragmatic aspects of affective relational practices.