Communication and internal states: What is their relationship?

Abstract

Common folks “have” emotions and talk to others; and sometimes they make “their” emotions the topic of such talk. The emotions seem to be “theirs,” since they can be conceived of as private states (or events); and they can be topicalized, because we seem to be able to attribute or lend a conventionalized public form (such as a linguistic label or name) to some inner (and therefore nonpublic) state or event. This is the way much of our folk-talk and folk-thinking about emotions, the expression thereof, the role of language in these expressions, and communication in general are organized. However, as we have shown (Bamberg & Lindenberger 1984), such talk serves the purpose of communicating effectively and reaching mutual understanding.