Rezension zu Gesine Lenore Schiewer (2014): Studienbuch Emotionsforschung. Theorien - Anwendugsfelder - Perspektiven. Darmstadt: WBG (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), ISBN 978-3-534-26494-0, 216 S.
Die Emotionsforschung spielt in der gegenwärtigen Linguistik eine wichtige Rolle, wovon viele theoretische sowie empirische Studien mit verschiedenartigen Ansatzpunkten zeugen, die die Interdisziplinarität dieser Forschungsrichtung betonen. Die vorliegende Publikation stellt einen wichtigen Beitrag zu dieser Erforschung dar, vor allem wegen ihrer Komplexität und Übersichtlichkeit der theoretischen Ansatzpunkte.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of body developed by Luhmann's systems theory. Privileged places where one can look for the body will be the interpenetration between human beings and the concept of socialization. Another fundamental problem is the relationship between semantics and body, although the most explicit presence of the body in this theory comes with the concept of symbiotic mechanisms or symbols. The last place where this enquiry will look for a bodily reference are emotions, which were highly ignored by Luhmann. Alternative approaches explored in the paper are treating the body as a structure, as a medium or as an internal environment.
Stories can elicit powerful emotions. A key emotional response to narrative plots (e.g., novels, movies, etc.) is suspense. Suspense appears to build on basic aspects of human cognition such as processes of expectation, anticipation, and prediction. However, the neural processes underlying emotional experiences of suspense have not been previously investigated. We acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data while participants read a suspenseful literary text (E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman") subdivided into short text passages. Individual ratings of experienced suspense obtained after each text passage were found to be related to activation in the medial frontal cortex, bilateral frontal regions (along the inferior frontal sulcus), lateral premotor cortex, as well as posterior temporal and temporo-parietal areas. The results indicate that the emotional experience of suspense depends on brain areas associated with social cognition and predictive inference.