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Linguistic Approaches to Emotions in Context
Edited by Fabienne H. Baider and Georgeta Cislaru
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 241] 2014
► pp. 137–158

The expression of emotions in conditionals

A study of Modern Greek political speech

| School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

The aim of this paper is to examine the ways that emotions are communicated in conditionals employed in Greek political speeches. In particular, it is suggested that conditional constructions along with their conjunctions, such as the markers an (if) and ean (if) carry a particular emotional load in the Greek political context. Based on Athanasiadou and Dirven’ s (1996) typology of if-clauses, a sample of conditionals was analysed. The findings show a prevalence of the pragmatic conditional type; a conditional type with an intense conversational nature which carries specific illocutionary acts, such as warning, request or advice, accompanied most of the time by negative emotions, such as anger, dislike, contempt, irritation, alarm, intimidation and pride. In other words, the choice of the pragmatic type in combination with certain conjunctions is associated with specific negative emotions which consequently generate reactions such as sarcasm, irony, scaremongering, cajolery and fake politeness. Overall, the paper discusses devices through which conditional constructions reflect emotions.

Published online: 13 March 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.241.09lam
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