In the last decade, the human factor has become one of the most progressive in linguistic science. Linguists pay more and more attention to the analysis of emotional phenomena from an anthropological point of view. Surprise in this manuscript is studied as an emotional pragmatic-linguistic category, which is actualized in speech situations and written texts. An analysis is made of the actualization of this category of feelings in literary texts and speech situations. The theoretical part of the manuscript is supported by examples.