Languages of Emotion
The subject of the Languages of Emotion research cluster, which receives funding under the Excellence Initiative sponsored by the German federal government and the governments of the German Federal States, and of the graduate school based within the cluster is the many internal connections between language and emotion. The most frequently discussed models of emotion in recent psychology and neurosciences do not grant language or other cultural semiotic systems roles of any theoretical importance at all. For their part, the language models espoused by modern linguistics say little to nothing about emotional processes. The body of theory established following Chomsky’s “generative grammar” is just one of many examples of the dominant trend of separating language and affective theories from each other. The goal of the Languages of Emotion research projects is to change this very trend.
This graduate school encompasses the disciplines of anthropology, education, Arabic language and literature, biology, film studies, Japanese studies, art history, literature, music studies, philosophy, political science, psychology and neuropsychology, psychiatry, religious studies, sociology, linguistics, and theater studies.