Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labor, and English language teachers’ decision-making

Abstract

This article explores feeling rules and emotion labor as tools of language teachers' agency and decision-making. Grounded in a poststructural-discursive approach to emotions, one that considers the relationship between emotions and power, feeling rules and emotion labor are highlighted as possible areas of resistance and reform in language teaching. To illustrate emotions as agency, interview data about English language teachers’ responses to plagiarism is presented, including resistance to the feeling rules of a university plagiarism policy. Also discussed will be emotion labor revealed during interviews with these teachers about addressing plagiarism in student texts. The chapter ends with implications of feeling rules and emotion labor for future language-teacher education.