Sentimenti e parole. Le emozioni nel lessico penalistico

What does criminal law really communicate when it defines an offence and prescribes its punishment? Although it employs a highly formalized technical and specialized language, criminal law is not emotionally neutral: its words embody emotional resonances that shape both the definition of offences and the construction of their legal and symbolic meaning.

This volume examines the language of criminal law as a point of intersection between normative rationality and human experience, with particular attention to the formative stage of legal norms. Through a re-reading of the provisions of the criminal code in the light of the six basic emotions identified by Paul Ekman—anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise—the Authors show how the emotional dimension contributes to the characterization of the wrongfulness of criminal offences and to the very communicability of criminal prohibitions.

The result is an original perspective on criminal law, one that restores to legal words their symbolic and anthropological depth and opens up new avenues for understanding the relationship between language, justice, and the care of the law.