Processing emotionally charged words in the first and second language

This thesis presents an investigation on the emotional impact of bilingual speakers’ first (L1) and second language (L2). The key question addressed is whether L1 and L2 differ in the way the emotional content is processed at the level of single words. The research is motivated by the fact that bilinguals often find their mother tongue to be more potent in its emotional impact than later acquired languages (e.g. Dewaele, 2004). The present investigation demonstrated that emotional words in L2 can activate emotional meanings fast and automatically: The behavioural evidence from emotional and taboo Stroop tasks as well as lexical decision tasks revealed rapid access of emotional content in both LI and L2. Event-related potential recording further showed a reduced N400 for emotional words in L2 suggesting that emotional content of L2 can facilitate visual word recognition. Skin conductance recording, however, indicated that L2 may result in somewhat less physiological arousal than L1. Such reduced responsiveness may be contributing to the perceived lack of emotional immediacy in L2. Differences that were found in response to L1 and L2 may also be produced by the lack of knowledge of negative vocabulary in L2. Such a finding has important implications for language education, as effective communication in L2 requires the ability to understand emotional meanings communicated through language and the competence in expressing both positive and negative emotions.