Negotiating Emotion and Gender through Dialogue: A Pragmatic Study of White Nights

Abstract

Based on the model of positive and negative politeness offered by Brown and Levinson and the ideas of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts presented by J. L. Austin, this study examines the process of communicating and managing emotions like love, loneliness, hope, and guilt through language. This novel ‘White Nights’ is replete with the emotional discourse, like many other works written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This research employs qualitative methodology to interpret the dialogues between the narrator and Nastenka.Selected dialogues are analyzed to understand how emotional meaning is organized through the careful use of language. The results indicate that emotions in White Nights are not expressed openly; rather, they are intermediated throug politeness strategies that minimize the threat posed by emotions expression and preserve social harmony. The study also indentifies gendered patterns of emotional expression, reflecting the social norms of the 19th century Russian- society. Future researchers, along with other aspects of this novel, may investigate the shifting patterns of politeness strategies in communication and managing emotions by comparing this novel with contemporary novels from Russian society.