Abstract
The present paper aims to define the linguistic status of surprise, in comparison with other more prototypical emotions. Based on a sample of American spoken English (In Treatment), we argue that surprise entails an epistemic judgment whereby a specific event is connected to the speaker’s set of expectations. Our contention is that surprise can be characterized as a disconnection between emotive and emotional communication (Marty A: Untersuchungen Zur Grundlegung Der Allgemeinen Grammatik Und Sprachphilosophie. Olms, Hildesheim/New York, 1976), identified linguistically as a disconnection between expression and communication (Bally C: Le Langage et La Vie. Payot, Paris, 1926). Emotional reactions of surprise are thus expressed by the speaker’s intonation in mirative utterances, and by non-sentential elements in constructions. The second part of our study focuses on surprise lexemes (surprise (N) and surprised (Adj)). Surprise (N) cannot be classified as an epistemic state noun, nor as a prototypical psychological noun, as its prototypical sense is actually what we call its source reading. The state reading of the noun is thus identified as a metonymic extension of that prototypical sense, thereby reversing the expected structure of its semantic network. Similarly, the adjective surprised does not fall into prototypical scenarios, but rather rich and complex ones, pragmatically speaking. We show that the use of surprised (Adj) implies a comment on or an explanation of the initial emotional reaction, not the expression of it.
Previous version of this chapter appeared in a work entitled “Expressing and describing surprise” – Celle, A. et al – pp. 215–244 in: “Expressing and Describing Surprise”, Celle, A. and Lansari, L. eds. – (2017). Published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. Amsterdam/Philadelphia. https://benjamins.com/catalog/bct.92
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Notes
- 1.
Ortony et al. (1988, 13) define emotions as “valenced reactions to events, agents or objects, with their particular nature being determined by the way in which the eliciting situation is construed.”
- 2.
Michaelis (2001, 1039) argues that surprise entails a non-canonicity judgment and rightly points out that a physical startle may not be evidence of surprise: “For example, I might not have predicted a hallway encounter with a colleague, but I would not necessarily find that encounter surprising (even if my colleague startled me).”
- 3.
Bergson’s intellectual legacy in Bally’s stylistics is pointed out by Legallois and François (2012, 198). These authors also highlight Bally’s pioneering research on the relation between syntax and expressivity long before the role of emotion in discourse started being explored in cognitive linguistics as well as in construction grammar. Given the social nature of affective language in Bally’s research, Caffi and Janney (1994, 335) even regard it as a first landmark in modern pragmatics.
- 4.
Searle (1969) distinguishes between assertive and expressive speech acts. In his theory, assertives aim to describe a state of affairs and may be judged true or false; expressives, on the other hand, express the sincerity condition of the speech act.
- 5.
Croft (2009, 412) argues that recognition of the speaker’s intention by the addressee is a prerequisite for any successful linguistic communicative act, a concern that is not addressed in speech act theory: “the identification of construal as an essential part of symbolic meaning, and relating it to cognitive psychological processes, is a major contribution of cognitive semantics. But it must be situated in the larger model of language, communication and joint action in order to understand why it exists and how it is used by speaker and listener.”
- 6.
“L’expressivité se montre, elle ne se signifie pas” (Legallois and François 2012, 209). Our translation.
- 7.
- 8.
Rett (2011, 413) defines sentence exclamations as both assertive and expressive: “The utterance of a sentence exclamation counts as an assertion of the denoted proposition p […] and an expression that p violates the speaker’s expectation.”
- 9.
Potts gives the following definitions for these properties. Lexicality: “expressive meaning is part of the lexical meaning of certain expressions, a semantic quality of words and phrases (Löbner 2002, 32). Entailment: “the aspects of meaning under discussion, in particular, the semantic information displayed by expressive, can have consequences for the notion of logical validity” (Kaplan 1999, 13). Speaker orientation: “another characteristic distinguishing expressive meaning from propositional meaning is that it is valid only for the utterer, at the time and place of utterance. This limitation it shares with, for instance, a smile, a frown, a gesture of impatience […]” (Cruse 1986, 272). Independence: “Expressive meaning carried by a lexical item in a statement plays no role in determining its truth-conditions.” (Cruse 1986, 272)
- 10.
Lambrecht (1990, 220) distinguishes between the context proposition, i.e. the proposition that precedes in the immediate context, and the context sentence in which the argument and the predicate of the context proposition are quoted and called into question. We use the same terminology for the sake of clarity. However, the term “context sentence” is not well-chosen since it designates a non sentential utterance.
- 11.
Our analysis of the emotional contribution of this construction differs from Lambrecht’s. Lambrecht regards the follow-up judgment as emotional. We argue that the expression of the speaker’s point of view in the follow-up proposition is emotive rather than emotional. By contrast, no point of view is associated with the context sentence, which conveys a spontaneous emotional reaction.
- 12.
This conclusion corroborates the findings of a previous study of 200 occurrences of the noun surprise in the COCAs.
- 13.
“dissonance entre l’émotif et l’émotionnel.” Our translation.
- 14.
See Ortony et al. (1999, 32), who point out that “surprise can arise in the absence of a valenced reaction.”
- 15.
See Van Dijk and Zeelenberg (2002) on the distinction between outcome-related disappointment and person-related disappointment. These authors contend that anger is always person-related.
- 16.
Contrary to epistemic modality, root modality is concerned with the relationship between the speaker and another subject. It involves modal uses such as obligation, permission, ability.
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Acknowledgement
This study was funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche as part of the Emphiline Project – EMCO (Emotion(s), Cognition, Comportement) programme under contract number ANR-11–EMCO-0005.
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Celle, A., Jugnet, A., Lansari, L., L’Hôte, E. (2018). Describing and Expressing Surprise. In: Depraz, N., Steinbock, A. (eds) Surprise: An Emotion?. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 97. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98657-9_11
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