Moving the language user - Affect and perspective in discourse processing

The relation between discourse and emotion is at the heart of several questions raised within the humanities. In literary theory, people have wondered about the paradox of fiction, about how a non-existing world created with words can evoke real emotion. Researchers in language and communication ask how we can use text to change peoples affective evaluations (attitudes), and how we can get readers to be interested in text in the first place. Linguists, psycholinguists, and philosophers ask about the fundamental goals and mechanisms behind linguistic communication, drawing attention to the fact that such communication is inherently social and argumentative, with speakers and authors always conveying their own affective or moral perspective and ideology (author stance). And cultural/cognitive anthropologists ask about the mechanisms by which interlocutors regulate emotion in a conversational exchange, e.g., via politeness and maintaining face. To make progress on these matters, we need an account of how readers are moved by language, at the level of actual processing. The aim of this proposal is to develop such an account. Using methods borrowed from cognitive neuroscience, we ask four questions about how language interfaces with affect. First, how do linguistic and affective representations interact as people read a simple sentence? Second, how do readers deal with the affective stance of the author, implied by the choice of words and expressions? Third, how do readers balance their own feelings, and the value systems beneath them, with those of protagonists, as narrative develops? And finally, where in the processing of language do involvement and perceived personal relevance make a difference? Results will shed new light on old questions, and can help us understand how affective factors relate to cold cognition. Also, with affect controlling so many of our day-to-day choices, the findings should have implications for the design of societally important messages.