Bilingualism in the real world: How proficiency, emotion, and personality in a second language impact communication in clinical and legal settings.

Abstract

The field of psycholinguistics has long documented how communicating in a second language (L2) can be more challenging than communicating in a first language (L1) because of factors such as low L2 proficiency, accent, and L1 versus L2 differences in the appreciation of semantic or pragmatic nuance (e.g., the emotional connotations or words). Moreover, given that language performance is a primary medium through which people both express their personality and evaluate the personality characteristics of others, these differences in bilingual language processing have important consequences for real-world social interaction. Accordingly, when bilinguals interact with others in their L2, they stand the chance of being misunderstood or misjudged partly because of L1 versus L2 communicative challenges, which can have high-stakes consequences depending on the particular social setting in question. In this article, we selectively review the psycholinguistic literature pertaining to L2 proficiency, emotion, and personality, and apply this knowledge to how communicative effectiveness may be reduced in real-world medical and legal settings. We conclude that increased awareness of these phenomena, and the reasons behind them, can help professionals in the health and legal systems more effectively interact with nonnative speakers. We hope that such increased awareness will lead to the provision of higher quality services to bilingual people. What is the significance of this article for the general public?The significance of this article to the general public is that it draws attention to several communication challenges that bilingual people face in real-world medical and legal settings. These challenges include low L2 proficiency, accent, and the appreciation of semantic or pragmatic nuance. Our ultimate goal is to increase awareness about these issues in a manner that will lead to the provision of higher quality medical and legal services to bilingual people.

Pain assessment in native and non-native language: difficulties in reporting the affective dimensions of pain

“…How could the observed difficulties of the patients with poor language concordance be explained and what might cause them? The connotation of words in the native and second language, especially those related to emotions, has been reported to differ among bilingual individuals [25]. Our findings demonstrated that this phenomenon also concerns culturally homologous and substantially bilingual minorities unquoted in any previous studies.…”

How are words felt in a second language: Norms for 2,628 English words for valence and arousal by L2 speakers

“…An equally intriguing question, which forms the topic of this paper, is whether word emotionality encountered in one's first language (L1) has a different impact on cognitive and linguistic processing compared to one's second language (L2), and if so, why. Here, the literature is somewhat less developed, though an emerging consensus is that emotional word processing is less intense for L2 compared to L1 language (reviewed in Itzhak, Vingron, Baum & Titone, 2017).…”

Habla Mi Idioma? An Exploratory Review of Working Systemically with People from Diverse Cultures: An Australian Perspective

“…The importance of language and its impact in working therapeutically with clients from CaLD backgrounds has been recognised for decades, both in the United Kingdom (Bager-Charleson, Dewaele, Costa, & Kasap, 2017;Bowker & Richards, 2004;Costa, 2010;Gulina & Dobrolioubova, 2018;Itzhak, Vingron, Baum, & Titone, 2017;de Zulueta, 1990) and the United States (Burck, 2004;Hodes, 1989;Marcos, 1976;Santiago-Rivera, 1995;Santiago-Rivera & Altarriba, 2002;Santiago-Rivera et al, 2009). Despite the frequency of bilingual and multilingual families presenting for therapy, limited research has addressed issues related to differences in language between therapist and the family, and there is less about the implications of family members speaking two or more languages, the major themes identified being: 'listening and understanding the client'; 'interventions and interpretations'; 'potential impact of language on the therapeutic encounter: therapist's point of view'; and 'therapist's experience of self' (Gulina & Dobrolioubova, 2018).…”