The Expression of Emotions in the Letters of Isabel Pardo de Figueroa (1700

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to analyze the linguistic expression of emotion and feelings in five letters written by Isabel Pardo de Figueroa, an upper-class woman living in Santiago de Chile in the mid-eighteenth century. The letters under study belong to the private sphere, as they were addressed to two of her children, and therefore display a more spontaneous language, further removed from the formalities of other types of documents. This allows for a closer approach to the author’s affective world. The study begins by introducing the female correspondent and her recipients, in order to establish the basic characteristics of the communicative act. Subsequently, drawing on the concept of “emotion,” the emotional content of Isabel’s letters is examined, followed by a linguistic analysis highlighting various mechanisms: structural, present in greetings and closings; linguistic, corresponding to the morphosyntactic, lexico-semantic, and, briefly, pragmatic levels; and stylistic, such as the use of hyperboles and metaphors. Isabel employs all of these mechanisms to convey her main concerns. This análisis builds on previous research on affectivity and intensification in women’s writings and provides examples of the emotions most frequently expressed in the author’s letters. The aim is to offer an overview of the main linguistic mechanisms used by a woman writing in an overseas context and, tangentially, to shed light on the concerns of women in the past.