Affectual Language in Teachers' Talk

In 2003, Sutton and Wheatly reported that there was scant research on the role(s) of emotion in teachers' work, the impact of emotions on teaching and learning, and the effect(s) of the sociocultural context on teachers' emotions. Since then, however, there has been an increase in research interest and outputs in this area (Keller, Frenzel, Goetz, Pekrun, & Hensley, 2011). This paper briefly outlines major foci within the growing research corpus. The paper then introduces a new research perspective by analysing the integration of emotion-referenced language in teachers' talk. Specifically, the analysis examines the talk of fourteen teachers working in rural and regional schools in New South Wales, Australia. The teachers' talk was collected in interviews conducted as part of Bush Tracks Research Project.