Anger in action: Socio-pragmatic analysis of verbal exchanges in UK parliamentary debates

Abstract

Abstract This article is an attempt to investigate theoretically and empirically how the emotion of anger is used in political discourse. The descriptive analysis is centred around the conversational analysis of anger, as present in the verbal exchanges in the UK parliamentary debates, correlated with the variables of power (P), social distance (D), and the concept of valence. The key idea underbracing this article is that affect permeates social communication. The central claims of this study focus on explaining how the socio-pragmatic variables of (P) and (D) weave the fabric of conflict talk and how they constitute the springboard for structuring the affective message in a tangible framework of social practice. The questions that inspire the current paper are the following: (1) How does anger determine the relationships of power and distance? (2) What is the reaction of the Offender and Defender in anger-driven interaction? (3) Are the roles of the ‘Emoter’ and ‘Receiver’ of anger evenly distributed in verbal communication? (4) Are valence and its strength indicators of anger experience? The paper concentrates on three theoretical problems including: (1) anger as an intrinsically threatening emotion, (2) anger as a constituent of context, and (3) anger as a gradable emotion. In addition, this study aims to explore how threats to positive face value in the form of unambiguous literal meaning that convey evaluative load (accusations, criticism, insult, irony, imposition etc.), explicitly provide information on P and D shifts in anger-driven discursive action.