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Chapter 2. Shock, twofold dynamics, cascade

Three signatures of surprise. The micro-time of the surprised body
  • Natalie Depraz
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Surprise at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Linguistics
This chapter is in the book Surprise at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Linguistics

Abstract

Surprise is commonly seen as a sudden instantaneous, intensively emotional, exclamative interjective, bodily startling “shock”. I would like to show that it would better be also understood as a processual dynamics, which presupposes a deep transformation of its commonly taken-for-granted experiential meaning as a shock. Such a dynamics unfolds along multifarious vectors, exemplarily time, emotion, cognition, language, inter-subjectivity and body. Since I already focused elsewhere on four of these vectors of the dynamics of surprise, namely time, emotion, cognition and language, I will deal here with the bodily time of surprise and reveal how the latter cannot be reduced to startle but refers to a multifaceted generative embodied process.

Abstract

Surprise is commonly seen as a sudden instantaneous, intensively emotional, exclamative interjective, bodily startling “shock”. I would like to show that it would better be also understood as a processual dynamics, which presupposes a deep transformation of its commonly taken-for-granted experiential meaning as a shock. Such a dynamics unfolds along multifarious vectors, exemplarily time, emotion, cognition, language, inter-subjectivity and body. Since I already focused elsewhere on four of these vectors of the dynamics of surprise, namely time, emotion, cognition and language, I will deal here with the bodily time of surprise and reveal how the latter cannot be reduced to startle but refers to a multifaceted generative embodied process.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. The temporality of surprise
  5. Chapter 1. Neurophenomenology of surprise 9
  6. Chapter 2. Shock, twofold dynamics, cascade 23
  7. Chapter 3. The representation of surprise in English and the retroactive construction of possible paths 43
  8. Part II. Verbal interaction and action
  9. Chapter 4. Encoding surprise in English novels 59
  10. Chapter 5. How implicit is surprise? 77
  11. Chapter 6. Surprise in native, bilingual and non-native spontaneous and stimulated recall speech 91
  12. Part III. Emotional experience, expression and description
  13. Chapter 7. Interrogatives in surprise contexts in English 117
  14. Chapter 8. Looking at ‘unexpectedness’ 139
  15. Chapter 9. Is surprise necessarily disappointing? 171
  16. Index 181
https://doi.org/10.1075/ceb.11.02dep

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. The temporality of surprise
  5. Chapter 1. Neurophenomenology of surprise 9
  6. Chapter 2. Shock, twofold dynamics, cascade 23
  7. Chapter 3. The representation of surprise in English and the retroactive construction of possible paths 43
  8. Part II. Verbal interaction and action
  9. Chapter 4. Encoding surprise in English novels 59
  10. Chapter 5. How implicit is surprise? 77
  11. Chapter 6. Surprise in native, bilingual and non-native spontaneous and stimulated recall speech 91
  12. Part III. Emotional experience, expression and description
  13. Chapter 7. Interrogatives in surprise contexts in English 117
  14. Chapter 8. Looking at ‘unexpectedness’ 139
  15. Chapter 9. Is surprise necessarily disappointing? 171
  16. Index 181
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