Emotion Vocabulary in Interlanguage

Abstract

Recent research in linguistics singles out emotion words as different from other abstract words. The goal of this article is to examine five factors that may impact the use of L2 emotion vocabulary. The first study considers the impact of language proficiency, gender, and extraversion on the use of emotion words in the advanced French interlanguage of 29 Dutch L1 speakers. The second examines the influence of sociocultural competence, gender, and type of linguistic material on the use of emotion vocabulary in the advanced English IL of 34 Russian L1 speakers. Combined, the results of the two studies demonstrate that the use of emotion words in IL is linked to proficiency level, type of A previous version of this work was presented at the Third International Symposium on Bilingualism in Bristol in April 2001. We are very grateful to Jeannette Altarriba, Eric Kellerman, and Scott Jarvis for their insightful comments and valuable feedback on the earlier versions of this work. We also thank Moira Courtman for her help in the preparation of the manuscript. To create a larger picture of bilinguals' own perceptions of the relationship between their languages and emotions, we developed two web questionnaires that we invite the reader to fill out. They are based at the following address:

Self-reported use and perception of the L1 and L2 among maximally proficient bi- and multilinguals: a quantitative and qualitative investigation

“…Statistical analyses revealed that emotional force was significantly higher in the L1 and was gradually reduced in languages learned later in life. This confirmed earlier research showing higher emotionality of the L1 compared to languages acquired later (see Dewaele and Pavlenko 2002;Pavlenko 2005;Harris et al 2003). Participants who learned their language(s) in a naturalistic -or mixed -context rated the emotional force of swear words in that language higher than participants who had learned a language only through classroom instruction.…”

“…Emotional words in a less frequently used language may have fewer associations and thus be less deeply encoded. This could explain why the L2 has often been described as being more detached or distant than the L1 (Dewaele and Pavlenko 2002).…”

The emotional weight of I love you in multilinguals’ languages

“…A group of late EnglishSpanish bilinguals, who had lived in Spain for three or more years, consistently achieved higher correlations with the associations provided by NS of Spanish than American L2 learners of Spanish in a study abroad program and foreign language learners enrolled in Spanish courses in an American university. Dewaele and Pavlenko (2002) examined the frequency of use of emotion vocabulary in the speech of 29 Flemish learners of French and 34 Russian learners of English. The researchers found that the use of emotion vocabulary was linked to language proficiency, gender, extraversion, and the type of linguistic material.…”

Processing advantage for emotional words in bilingual speakers.

“…According to this view, in balanced early bilinguals both L1 and L2 may be closely attuned to the emotional content associated with each language, whereas in late sequential bilinguals the L2 is associated with greater emotional distance (Altarriba, 2008;Dewaele & Pavlenko, 2002), as it is typically learned in formal contexts (e.g. school, university, or workplace), where "the same opportunities for affective linguistic conditioning" are missing compared to childhood (Pavlenko, 2008, p.156).…”