The Vitality of Emotional Background Knowledge in Court

Anna Rostomyan,

doi:10.1515/pol-2012-0017

Article

The Vitality of Emotional Background Knowledge in Court

Anna Rostomyan,
Anna Rostomyan is a PhD candidate and lecturer at Yerevan State University. Her PhD research is devoted to the analysis of verbal and non-verbal means of the manifestation of emotions in speech and their actual expression management techniques from a linguo-cognitive perspective. Currently she is mainly concerned with inter-/multidisciplinary perspectives on such topics and her research interests include Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Psycholinguistics, Neurolonguistics, Sociolinguistics, Cross-cultural Communication, Business Communication, and Communication Management. She is member of the following associations: AIDEL (Associazione Italiana Diritto e Letteratura), AASE (Armenian Association for the Study of English, which is a branch of the European Association for the Study of English – ESSE). She has published essays on communication and conflict and on Law, Language and Culture.

Published/Copyright: September 11, 2012

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal Pólemos Volume 6 Issue 2

Abstract

Generally human essence comprises a huge number of facets which shape our verbal and non-verbal behaviour. As an explicit form of social behaviour, speech is largely based on a number of indispensable elements which altogether shape the general framework of the given communicative context. The aim of the present paper is to discuss one of the ingredients of the communicative context – the speakers' mental world; it is mainly devoted to the analysis of emotional memory and its impact on interpersonal relations. The speakers' past emotional experience is also part of mutually shared background knowledge which determines their choice of language data on a particular occasion of speech event. To ensure a better understanding of the multifaceted nature of emotions, the problem will be reviewed from the pragmatic perspective, taking the essence of the supreme cognitive processes into account. The role of emotional background knowledge alongside with verbal and non-verbal means of manifesting emotions will be studied on the main judicial actors. The illustrating examples represent extracts taken from crime fiction and in particular from Mark Gimenez's The Colour of Law.

Keywords: background knowledge; emotion management; verbal and non-verbal means of communication

About the author

Ph.D. Anna Rostomyan,

Anna Rostomyan is a PhD candidate and lecturer at Yerevan State University. Her PhD research is devoted to the analysis of verbal and non-verbal means of the manifestation of emotions in speech and their actual expression management techniques from a linguo-cognitive perspective. Currently she is mainly concerned with inter-/multidisciplinary perspectives on such topics and her research interests include Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Psycholinguistics, Neurolonguistics, Sociolinguistics, Cross-cultural Communication, Business Communication, and Communication Management. She is member of the following associations: AIDEL (Associazione Italiana Diritto e Letteratura), AASE (Armenian Association for the Study of English, which is a branch of the European Association for the Study of English – ESSE). She has published essays on communication and conflict and on Law, Language and Culture.

Published Online: 2012-09-11

Published in Print: 2012-09-20

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/pol-2012-0017

Keywords for this article

background knowledge; emotion management; verbal and non-verbal means of communication