Sighs in everyday life and in political communication

The work defines the sigh as a type of breath expressing or communicating specific mental or emotional states. To investigate the meanings of the sigh, after overviewing preliminary analyses of written and oral corpora, thepaper focuses on a peculiar use of it as a “discrediting body comment” often exploited in political debates to imply the opponent’s stupidity or obsessive repetition, by displaying frustration or boredom. In a perception study on someusesof thissigh, participants’ interpretations are not significantly shared, but agreement emerges when considering their perception of sighsin termsof valenceand arousal.