Glimpses of semantic restructuring of English emotion-laden words of American English L1 users residing outside the USA

Abstract

The present exploratory study focuses on the effect of living outside the USA on the understanding of the meaning, the perceived offensiveness and the self-reported frequency of use of four English emotion-laden words of British origin and four English emotion-laden words of American origin among 556 first (L1) language users of American English. Statistical analyses revealed that the scores of the Americans living in the UK or in non-English-speaking countries differed significantly from those of compatriots living in the USA. Positive relationships emerged between multilingualism and scores on the dependent variables for the four British words, but no link emerged between languages known and the dependent variables for the American words. This is interpreted as an indication that semantic representations of emotion-laden words originating from another variety of the L1 are relatively weaker and are more likely to shift as a result of exposure to their use in other varieties, and the knowledge of other languages.

“We are not amused”. The appreciation of British humour by British and American English L1 users

“…Besides, the liberating effect of the emotion-laden word "bloody" in humour is in line with Dewaele's (2013) finding that decreased emotionality of emotion-laden words has helped LX users overcome cultural restrictions. The findings in this study showed that this liberating effect also exists among L1 users of different variants, or bi-dialectal or bi-varietal monolinguals (Dewaele, 2015(Dewaele, , 2018b. Lastly, the American English L1 users had not yet become entirely bicultural, as they failed to perceive or appreciate the class-related humour that is a constant source of British humour (Fox, 2004).…”

“…Dewaele (2015) found significant differences in the semantic and conceptual representations of negative emotion-laden English words of American and British origin among British and American English L1 users 1 . In a follow-up study focusing on the American English L1 users, Dewaele (2018b) found that the semantic and conceptual representations of the words of British origin ("daft", "bollocks", "bugger", "wanker") had shifted significantly in the group of Americans who had lived outside the US. No change was observed in the representations of the words of American origin.…”

“Cunt”: On the perception and handling of verbal dynamite by L1 and LX users of English

“…(3) How frequently do you use it?". We have argued that the feedback on the three questions offers a glimpse of semantic and -possibly-also of conceptual representations (Dewaele 2017a). Participants' responses about the meaning of a word might give a subjective general indication, but it is impossible to conclude that those who reported complete understanding of the word actually had an accurate representation.…”

A Crosslinguistic Study of the Perception of Emotional Intonation

“…The differences in the semantic representations of emotion words were also studied amongst three different types of English L1 users (Dewaele, 2018b). The three groups of Americans living in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and in non-Englishspeaking countries participated in an online survey about the perceived offensiveness of four offensive words of American origin and another four of British origin.…”