Some things are always under construction.

Abstract

It means the same but still feels like something else: Does affective processing differ in the first and second language?

Language does not only evoke a notion of its corresponding meaning, but is also charged with emotional and affective content. However, bilinguals often tell that they would not "feel" the meaning of words in the second language, although they understand their semantic denotation very well. The present study was designed to test whether semantic and affective processing actually differs in the native and a proficient second language.
Participants were native speakers of German or French with a high level of proficiency in the second language (i.e., French and German, respectively). To assess automatic activation of valence, they underwent an affective priming procedure, separately with French and German materials. To test for language proficiency, a semantic priming paradigm with a lexical decision task was added (again in French and in German).
Semantic priming (i.e., shorter latencies for related prime-target pairs) was found in the native language as well as in the second language. However, affective priming (i.e., shorter latencies for valence-congruent prime-target pairs) was only found in the native, but not in the second language. The pattern of priming effects suggests that the automatic activation of valence of words in the second language is relatively weak although words are already well integrated in the semantic network. Probable social causes and consequences of this dissociation are discussed.

posted by gargichka @ 9:18 AM