Emotions in specialised genres: Power, manipulation and persuasion from the Affect Spectrum Theory

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine professional genres from a novel perspective linking social constructivism and basic emotion theory, making the assumption that emotions are intrinsically social, and that social phenomena (such as professional communities) have an emotional nature (TenHouten, 2021). Thus, we aim to consider the constructive role of emotions in the creation and development of specialised texts (occasionally focusing specifically on the legal field), and, in turn, on the professional communities from which these texts emerge. Our work builds on the socio-evolutionary theory of emotions, or affect-spectrum theory (AST), which is developed in dissonance with other Cartesian and rational-choice models that set reason and emotion in opposition and assert that society only progresses to the extent that the former can control, suppress and triumph over the latter. Specifically, it is our underlying hypothesis that specialised and professional communication is articulated around emotions –and power, manipulation and persuasion, among other negative or positive emotional expressions. Thus, textual mechanisms or genres, as communicative instruments of specialised communities reveal the tensions that occur centripetally or centrifugally, i.e., inwards or outwards from that community. They do so from an agonistic relational model, in a centripetal tension that promotes agency through coercion and/or manipulation, or from a hedonistic relational model, in a centrifugal tension where interpersonal relationships of persuasion and dissemination are established in order to engage in communal relationships.

Studying Legal Persuasion and Emotion in Spanish and English: An Advocate General’s Dismissal of the Rule-of-law Challenge by Hungary and Poland

“…The reason for this is that there is no single way in which opinions are written, the authors choosing their own style [1: p. 1] The only common factor these opinions have is that (unlike judicial decisions by the Court) AGs customarily offer several interpretive stances before providing the final conclusion. Hence, we depart from the premise that the AG's opinion under scrutiny in our work-if not a generic instance per se-constitutes a relevant piece of judicial rhetoric at work, containing enough traces of the writer's dialogical position (i.e., the establishment of attitude and engagement between issuer and receiver) [2] to provide a veritable example of how interpersonality and, hence, persuasion, work in legal texts. The personal, not stereotypical character of AGs's advice, as compared to the rigid style and conventionality of judicial decisions emanating from the ECJ, is remarked upon by Myslinska [3: p. 282], who stresses the proclivity to display authoritativeness, impartiality and rationality in each and every instance of the latter, in contrast with the range of styles and variety of argumentative choices used by different AGs in each case in turn.…”

“…To achieve this objective, the Regulation allows to adopt protective measures such as the suspension of payments or approval of programs from the Union budget. In response to this measure, Hungary and Poland, two countries whose rule of law has been repeatedly questioned by the European Parliament for the dismantling of their Constitutions and/or their unconstitutional behaviour, 1 brought actions before the Court of Justice seeking the annulment of such regulation, basing their claims upon the lack of a proper legal basis in the EU and FEU Treaties, 2 upon the circumvention of the procedure laid down in Article 7 TEU, arguing that the Union exceeded its powers and infringed the principle of legal certainty.…”

“…org/ artic le/ 81C9E EC2-4F08-4227-817C-D188A 7CC73 F8. 2 Treaty on the European Union, (TEU), and Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). vision.…”