Discourse and affect

This introductory article lays some theoretical ground that stimulated this special issue: first, the argument that affect is not “in”, or indeed “outside of” the individual or the social, but relates to the circulation of emotion between different sites, objects or bodies; and, second, that how this circulation of emotion works, in and through discourse, has not been sufficiently taken up and explored by semioticians, linguists and (critical) discourse analysts. Through adopting a range of theoretical and analytic insights, applied to a wide variety of discursive/empirical materials generated, produced and consumed in diverse geopolitical contexts, the articles in his special issue make a significant contribution to our understanding of the ways that affect “circulates” through semiosis.