@inproceedings{shankaran-etal-2026-emotion,
title = "From Emotion to Expression: Theoretical Foundations and Resources for Fear Speech",
author = "Shankaran, Vigneshwaran and
Lapesa, Gabriella and
Wagner, Claudia",
editor = "Demberg, Vera and
Inui, Kentaro and
Marquez, Llu{\'i}s",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 19th Conference of the {E}uropean Chapter of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)",
month = mar,
year = "2026",
address = "Rabat, Morocco",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.eacl-long.118/",
pages = "2587--2606",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-380-7",
abstract = "Few forces rival fear in their ability to mobilize societies, distort communication, and reshape collective behavior. In computational linguistics, fear is primarily studied as an emotion, but not as a distinct form of speech. Fear speech content is widespread and growing, and often outperforms hate-speech content in reach and engagement because it appears ``civiler'' and evades moderation. Yet the computational study of fear speech remains fragmented and under-resourced. This can be understood by recognizing that fear speech is a phenomenon shaped by contributions from multiple disciplines. In this paper, we bridge cross-disciplinary perspectives by comparing theories of fear from Psychology, Political science, Communication science, and Linguistics. Building on this, we review existing definitions. We follow up with a survey of datasets from related research areas and propose a taxonomy that consolidates different dimensions of fear for studying fear speech. By reviewing current datasets and defining core concepts, our work offers both theoretical and practical guidance for creating datasets and advancing fear speech research."
}<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<modsCollection xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3">
<mods ID="shankaran-etal-2026-emotion">
<titleInfo>
<title>From Emotion to Expression: Theoretical Foundations and Resources for Fear Speech</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Vigneshwaran</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Shankaran</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Gabriella</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Lapesa</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Claudia</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Wagner</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<dateIssued>2026-03</dateIssued>
</originInfo>
<typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource>
<relatedItem type="host">
<titleInfo>
<title>Proceedings of the 19th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Vera</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Demberg</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Kentaro</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Inui</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Lluís</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Marquez</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<publisher>Association for Computational Linguistics</publisher>
<place>
<placeTerm type="text">Rabat, Morocco</placeTerm>
</place>
</originInfo>
<genre authority="marcgt">conference publication</genre>
<identifier type="isbn">979-8-89176-380-7</identifier>
</relatedItem>
<abstract>Few forces rival fear in their ability to mobilize societies, distort communication, and reshape collective behavior. In computational linguistics, fear is primarily studied as an emotion, but not as a distinct form of speech. Fear speech content is widespread and growing, and often outperforms hate-speech content in reach and engagement because it appears “civiler” and evades moderation. Yet the computational study of fear speech remains fragmented and under-resourced. This can be understood by recognizing that fear speech is a phenomenon shaped by contributions from multiple disciplines. In this paper, we bridge cross-disciplinary perspectives by comparing theories of fear from Psychology, Political science, Communication science, and Linguistics. Building on this, we review existing definitions. We follow up with a survey of datasets from related research areas and propose a taxonomy that consolidates different dimensions of fear for studying fear speech. By reviewing current datasets and defining core concepts, our work offers both theoretical and practical guidance for creating datasets and advancing fear speech research.</abstract>
<identifier type="citekey">shankaran-etal-2026-emotion</identifier>
<location>
<url>https://aclanthology.org/2026.eacl-long.118/</url>
</location>
<part>
<date>2026-03</date>
<extent unit="page">
<start>2587</start>
<end>2606</end>
</extent>
</part>
</mods>
</modsCollection>
%0 Conference Proceedings
%T From Emotion to Expression: Theoretical Foundations and Resources for Fear Speech
%A Shankaran, Vigneshwaran
%A Lapesa, Gabriella
%A Wagner, Claudia
%Y Demberg, Vera
%Y Inui, Kentaro
%Y Marquez, Lluís
%S Proceedings of the 19th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
%D 2026
%8 March
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Rabat, Morocco
%@ 979-8-89176-380-7
%F shankaran-etal-2026-emotion
%X Few forces rival fear in their ability to mobilize societies, distort communication, and reshape collective behavior. In computational linguistics, fear is primarily studied as an emotion, but not as a distinct form of speech. Fear speech content is widespread and growing, and often outperforms hate-speech content in reach and engagement because it appears “civiler” and evades moderation. Yet the computational study of fear speech remains fragmented and under-resourced. This can be understood by recognizing that fear speech is a phenomenon shaped by contributions from multiple disciplines. In this paper, we bridge cross-disciplinary perspectives by comparing theories of fear from Psychology, Political science, Communication science, and Linguistics. Building on this, we review existing definitions. We follow up with a survey of datasets from related research areas and propose a taxonomy that consolidates different dimensions of fear for studying fear speech. By reviewing current datasets and defining core concepts, our work offers both theoretical and practical guidance for creating datasets and advancing fear speech research.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.eacl-long.118/
%P 2587-2606
Markdown (Informal)
[From Emotion to Expression: Theoretical Foundations and Resources for Fear Speech](https://aclanthology.org/2026.eacl-long.118/) (Shankaran et al., EACL 2026)
ACL