Another important factor is high usage frequency ( Degner et al., 2011). In addition to early age of acquisition and high proficiency, emotional resonances are stronger when language is learned via immersion, rather than from classroom learning ( Dewaele, 2010). This suggests that L1/L2 emotionality differences are strongest when L1 is the native language and L2 is a less proficient, foreign language. A comparison group of bilinguals for whom L1-Spanish was both the first learned and most proficient language revealed higher skin conductance responses for childhood reprimands in L1 than in L2. If only proficiency mattered, then this group should have shown stronger emotionality responses to L2-English. That is, if only age of acquisition were sufficient to show heightened electodermal responses, then the heritage language learners should have shown stronger emotions to Spanish phrases. One implication (which needs additional empirical support) is that both early age of acquisition and high proficiency are required to show an emotionality advantage. They had similar electrodermal responses for emotional phrases in their two languages. For these bilinguals, their first language was not their most proficient language. An important qualification was obtained by studying early, sequential bilinguals, who learned Spanish first from their parents and English second from peers and schooling in American society ( Harris et al., 2006). Laboratory studies measuring skin conductance amplitudes have corroborated these findings ( Harris et al., 2003). In two studies by different research teams, bilingual speakers made slightly more rational decisions when evaluating vignettes written in a foreign language ( Keysar et al., 2012 Costa et al., 2014 see also findings about moral dilemmas, Costa et al., 2014). Other examples of improved performance because of reduced L2 emotionality have been found using decision making tasks. The native English speakers showed a strong blink following a taboo distractor, while Chinese speakers of English as a second language showed a blink that was reduced in size, consistent with being able to more easily ignore the taboo distractor. Colbeck and Bowers (2012) compared emotion word processing in native Chinese speakers and native English speakers using an English attentional-blink task. Reduced emotionality in the L2 has also been found in studies that use emotion words to interfere with processing. Anooshian and Hertel (1994) found emotion-memory effects for L1 but not L2 words, among Spanish-English bilinguals. For example, in a European study using a variety of L1-L2 pairings, advertising slogans were judged to be more emotional when the messages were written in the native language rather than respondents' L2 ( Puntoni et al., 2009). When and Why is a First Language more Emotional?Īn emotionality advantage for native languages has been documented using diverse techniques, as recently discussed in a comprehensive review paper ( Pavlenko, 2012). My goal is to highlight the relevance of this body of work for the theoretical assumptions regarding language-emotion independence. Bilingual speakers 1 frequently report that swearing, praying, lying, and saying I love you feel differently when using a native rather than a foreign language (see, e.g., Pavlenko, 2005 Dewaele, 2010). I describe here findings on the emotionality differences between a native and a foreign language. However, according to psychological constructivism, an emotional reaction can be influenced by any aspect of the on-going situation, such as the language being spoken, which is the topic of this commentary. In the modular view of mind, emotion and language should have little overlap in their processes and representations. On this view, mental abilities and mental states like emotions are constructed from the dynamic interaction of physiological states, situation-specific information, and conceptual knowledge. An alternative to faculty psychology is psychological construction ( Lindquist, 2013). Indeed, the classic emotion-cognition divide has been criticized in the past decades by theorists who are otherwise not natural allies (e.g., Damasio, 1994 Cromwell and Panksepp, 2011 Lindquist, 2013). Emotion had no role in information processing psychology, leading to its neglect in the cognitive sciences ( Cromwell and Panksepp, 2011). The mental modularity popularized by Chomsky (1965) and Fodor (1983) continued this view following the cognitive revolution of mid-century. The historical backdrop to this is the long reign of faculty psychology, which viewed the human mind as composed of discrete abilities (see discussion in Barrett, 2013). The topic editors, Cornelia Herbert and colleagues, have noted that language has historically been assumed to be independent from emotions.
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