Article published In:
Australian Review of Applied LinguisticsVol. 22:1 (1999) ► pp.97–120
Using affect to effect in Lebanese-Arabic and Australian-English pre-school interactions
The cross-linguistic research reported in this paper was designed to investigate language-specific and universal aspects of emotion display in teacher interactions with pre-school children. It assumes that communicative strategies are underpinned by beliefs about the appropriate and strategic use of emotion, and the different values given to emotion expression. Using data from Australian-English interactions and Australian Lebanese-Arabic interactions, the study uses semantic and conversation analysis to compare and contrast the coincidence of emotion expression and interactive intention. It explains the language-specific preferences for expres-sion of certain emotions; and how emotion display contributes to the teacher role. The study found language-specific preferences for expressing negative and positive emotion in feedback and encouragement strategies that reflect language-specific role expectations.
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