Sociolinguistics of unhappiness: the display of emotions in a multilingual migrants’ community

Abstract

This contribution aims at analyzing the communicative expression of emotions among Senegalese migrants settled in the city of Pescara, in Abruzzo, Southern Italy. These individuals find their own ‘selves’ at the junction of their subjective well-being and two cultures, creating a sort of intercultural and interlingual personal experience which shapes their relationships with their own community on the one hand and the host community on the other hand. Recent studies (Sevinç 2020) have argued that a better understanding of the concept of subjective ‘emotion’ (contra that of ‘attitude’) and its role in immigrant contexts is key to enlighten the connection between intercultural communication and possible outcomes of language contact settings. This qualitative study specifically considers the language of first-generation migrants that have been living in Pescara for a minimum of eight years, looking at their linguistic choices when it comes to expressing feelings of discontent (unhappiness, sadness, anger, disappointment) with respect to their role in the Italian social environment and their integration in the host community.