Emotion and sincerity in Persian discourse: accomplishing the representation of inner states

This paper deals with the presentation and evocation of emotion in performative face-to-face linguistic communication in Iran. Performance in linguistic communication is shown to involve the speaker's need to convey an impression of his or her own inner states. Since a€ectivity is one of the most dicult things to convey in face-to-face interaction, it is posited that a person employing successful linguistic performance skills must have a series of strategies available for demonstrating that he or she is truly conveying a speci®c intended emotion. This involves a two-stage process in which the speaker ®rst signals that a message conveys an emotion, then signals the nature of the emotion being conveyed. In order to accomplish this, culturally prescribed symbolic elements are presented by the speaker that must be performed for others to ``read'' the emotional content of a communication. Added to the performative skills needed by the speaker is the requirement that the emotion conveyed be perceived as ``sincere.'' This paper continues earlier research (Beeman 1986) demonstrating the e€ectiveness of speakers in Iran in creating the contexts for the interpretation of their own strategic communication. Performance, emotion, and linguistics Formalist linguistics is greatly hampered in its ability to handle a€ectivity, because expressions that demonstrate states of human inner feeling are not merely cognitive in nature. They must be performed to be adequately communicated and understood. For this reason, performance is an essential component of emotion in language. A€ectivity is a communicative dimension in language that is by nature systemic. In order for it to be understood, it requires the active participation of both addresser and addressee. In other words, a€ectivity 0165±2516/01/0148±0031 Int'l. J. Soc. Lang. 148 (2001), pp. 31±57 # Walter de Gruyter must be performed by an actor, and accomplished in its e€ects on an addressee. Both must establish a common basis for understanding Ð a ``normal'' level for interaction in order to understand what constitutes ``marked'' communication Ð in this case ``marked'' for a€ectivity. This kind of explanation is dicult for much of standard linguistic theory to handle because it is not code-based, nor is it easily subjected to formal analysis. Many of the ``marking'' devices in the indication of a€ective dimensions are nonverbal. Moreover, this kind of explanation requires that the analyst take into consideration the ``state of mind'' of both the addressers and addressees Ð something that has not been easily treated even in pragmatic analysis. For anthropology the diculty lies in the fact that meaning in this kind of communication situation is a cocreation of actors, some of whom may be the ``active'' agents in presenting communicative material, while the other(s) is (are) largely receptive. The communication may be continually modi®ed in the course of its execution by all parties. The result is not a clear and unambiguous reading of easily analyzable symbolic materials, but rather a jostling and jockeying for meaning in which de®nitive understanding may be only an elusive goal. It is natural that a€ective expression should have this quality. After all we can never really know what another person is feeling. Furthermore, it seems to be a feature of human nature that one's true emotions be concealed from others from time to time for personal or for cultural reasons. Even when one has the fervent desire to reveal one's innermost feelings it may not be possible to put them into words or action. For this reason the expression of a€ectivity is a complex performance of culturally habituated interaction routines consisting of the performance of discourse routines of the kind detailed by Deborah Tannen and others (Tannen 1984, 1989): direct statements, metaphorical expression, nonverbal signals, and actions, all subject to modi®cation through registration in communication. Formalist domination of linguistics and sociolinguistics Linguistics emerged as a ``cognitive'' discipline lying somewhere in the vast territory between pure mathematics and experimental physiological psychology at the advent of transformational-generative theory in 1957. The subsequent drive to discover basic rule-governed structures and mathematical/logical principles underlying the production of linguistic forms left little space for discussion of soft, idiosyncratic things like a€ectivity. 32 W.O. Beeman