Languages of Emotion

The “Languages of Emotion” cluster aims to do research into the connections between emotions and representational practices. What we feel, and how we feel it, are shaped in large measure by the words and images we use to depict our emotions. Feelings aid or hinder our acquisition of language, and in turn, language skills affect our abilities to communicate on an emotional level. Research into emotions over the past 20 years has largely neglected the role of language, and linguistic research has largely done the same with the role played by emotions. The interdisciplinary approach taken by this cluster is aimed at changing that from both sides.

Our use of images and representations and our affective dispositions have various features in common, including reaching out into the realms of the possible, the fictitious, and the imaginary. The arts are therefore destined to be a subject of the cluster’s research.

There are four different areas of research within the cluster, studying the following topics: (1) the relationships between emotions and language, or sound and imagery; (2) the artistic practices and poetics of affective depiction; (3) the relationships between emotional and language skills and disorders in both areas; and (4) affective modeling at the level of cultural codes.

The cluster pools the expertise of researchers and scholars from more than 20 disciplines, each with its own traditions of affective thinking. Several outstanding research institutions unaffiliated with the university are participating in the project, including the Max Planck Institutes for Human Development (Berlin), Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Leipzig), and Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), and the Center for Literary and Cultural Research (Berlin).

Further information:

www.languages-of-emotion.de/en