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The current work focuses on emotional aspects of language. Foreign language speakers report that they experience their second language as less emotionally laden than their mother tongue.

There are a lot of anecdotal examples and studies in the literature that claim the same difference in feeling two languages. A brief overview is given below.

(1. Empirical findings)

In summary, past literature provides good support that lessened emotionality in the second language is a common experience shared by many bilinguals. However, there is still little information about the underlying specific processes. The current work attempts to go further on this issue. Because, in order to draw conclusions about how bilinguals feel in a foreign country, one should find out /what is different about bilingual's feeling a language. The important question is, which specific, emotion-related processes are involved in feeling a language and tend to be less developed in proficient foreign language speakers. These processes could be thus responsible for the difference bilinguals talk about.

The current study focuses exactly on this point. It attempts to spot the diverging processes that lead to the phenomenon of interest. It seems that two aspects of language processing - /understanding a language and /feeling a language, don’t function equally well on proficient bilinguals’ second language. So, what is equal – and what is divergent – in first and second language processing? Why should such a difference in the feeling in the second language occur? Which cognitive processes are responsible for that? These are some questions that the current work tries to provide answers to.

As the current work investigates (a) emotional aspects of (b) second language processing by using (c) paradigms from the cognitive science, there are as a logical consequence at least three separate research fields coming together in this study: emotional aspects, second language processing, and paradigms. We will begin with theories about language processing and specifically about second language processing; then, emotional aspects of language will be discussed; least, the paradigms of cognitive psychology used in this study will be revealed and related to current study's hypothesis.

(2. Some models and theories about language processing)

Some psycholinguistic models and theories about (1) processing a language in general and (2) processing a second language, are discussed and related to the current research questions in the following chapter. As will be seen, this line of research could give us some valuable hints for our work, but it regards language as a purely cognitive matter and therefore gives no account for its emotional sides.

Chapter Modelle
1. Accessing concepts: theories of language processing
2. L1, L2 and concepts: Hierarchical models
2.1. Overview of hierarchical models
2.2. Implications for the current study


(Chapter Emotional Aspects of language)

The models and theories discussed above provide relevant knowledge about second language processing. However, past bilingual research concentrated on a rather cognitive view on second language processing, i.e. emotional aspects were not attended to (Harris, 2006). As the current study concentrates on the subjective "feeling a language", different approaches shall be reveal below that could explain how emotions are linked to language and why this should not be the case in a second language.

1. A context-of-use approach
Harris et al. (2006) discuss different theories about the mechanisms that could be responsible for the L2's not developing the same emotionality as L1. Overall, almost all theories discussed by Harris (2006) have in common that emotionality of language is gained through experience. There are some slight differences, because some models focus more on memory as the basis of emotion, leading to fewer emotional associations in L2 (Conway & Haque, 1999, Altarriba, 2000, 2003, 2006), and other stress more on the context in which the language has been learned (Harris, 2006), but taken toghether, all models imply that the reason why bilinguals don't feel the second language so strong is that they haven't practiced it so much in emotional contexts, as they did in their first language.
Indeed, many bilinguals studied their L2 in a classroom setting and have seldom used it for non-formal communication. By contrast, they have experienced their mother tongue in a rich variety of emotional contexts from early childhood on. However, the reverse is also possible - i.e. not only few emotional practice could lead to weaker emotionalization of the second language, but also the lessened emotionality experienced by bilinguals in their L2 could make them feel emotionally distant in the communication situation, i.e. they would be less emotionally involved because they use their L2. A circulus virtuosus is probably operating, in that emotionality of language and emotioanlity of social situations influence each other.

2. An information-processing approach
Another line of research may also give valuable account about the process of linking language and emotions. Bloom (Bloom, 1998, Bloom & Beckwith 1989) investigates language development and emotional expression in early childhood. Learning words and expressing emotion are seen as two distinct processes that compete for the limited cognitive resources of the young language-learning child. Especially newly-learned words are used primarily in an affective neutral tone; respectively, what children said with emotional expression are either among their most frequent words or were "old" words that were easiest for them to recall and say.
This theory regards primarily language production rather than language perception. However, may provides another hint in the discussion of the possible reasons why a language could be less emotional, stressing the importance of cognitive capacities. From an information-processing perspective, second language acquisition is seen as mastering complex cognitive skills by concentrating processing energy on to-be-mastered subtasks, which, once mastered, require relatively little processing capacity, thereby freeing up the system to work on the mastery of other subtasks (McLeod & McLaughlin, 1990). Practice can lead to improvement in performance as sub-skills become automated or restructured (McLaughlin, 1990, McLeod & McLaughlin, 1986). However, as pointed out by Favreau & Segalowitz (1983), being "fluent" in a second language means a first-language-like performance only under normal communication conditions, without implying that first- and second-language skills are equal in all aspects and under all conditions. Some aspects of a specific skill may be relatively weaker in one of the languages (Favreau & Segalowitz, 1983).

Hence, lack of automaticity and cognitive resources may be another possible explanation about bilinguals' experiencing fewer emotions in their L2. It may be, for example, that learning a second language is a too complicated cognitive process that blocks too much ressources. One should remember the word form, pronunciation, meaning ways of use, grammatical particularities etc and it is conceivable that in this difficult situation, the learner is not able to remember the emotional contents corresponding to the words he or she encounters. Another possibility is, that L2, though proficient, still requires more cognitive ressources than l2 for some specific skills, so that less capacites are free for experiencing emotions during second language processing.

3. A physiological aproach
Looking at brain correlates and brain maturation is another approach to the same topic which could also yield some explaanations about the mechanisms that could cause the first language to be experienced as more emotional than subsequent languages. For example, Johnson & Newport (1989) posited a maturational mechanism, such as a set of genes for easily acquiring language, that would be most strongly expressed in early childhood.
Another speculation can be derived from the neuronal and functional difference between cognition and emotion. LeDoux (1989) postulates that affect and cognition are separate information processing functions mediated by different brain systems. The amygdala is the core of the affective system, whereas cognition ooccurs mainly in the hippocampus. LeDoux (1989) distinguishes these two processes not only in respect of the different brain structures involved, but also on the basis of their computational consequences: "For example, the computations that determine that a snake is a vertebrate that it is biologically closer to an alligator than to a cow, and that its skin can be used to make belts and shoes, have very different consequences than the computation that determine that a snake is likely to be dangerous. The former, called here cognitive computations, yield information about the stimulus itself and its relationship to other stimuli... The latter, called here affective computations, yield information about the relation of the stimulus to the individual. These often lead directly to motor responses (behavioral, autonomic, and humoral responses) rather than to more elaborate processing of the stimulus and its semantic associations." (p.272). This discource is an impessive visualization of the difference between cognitions and emotions. It would imply that in a bilingual, second language processing wouldn't involve the amygdala so strong as first language processing.
One can also speculate on a maturational mechanism involved, because hippocampus matures later in infants, providing that affective (amygdaloid) learning is the major
form of learning in infancy (Ledoux, 1989).

Summary
The three aproaches discussed above provide three different mechanisms that could be responsible for the bilinguals' experiencing their second language less emotional:

1. Fewer experience of L2 in emotional contexts
2. Fewer free cognitive capacities in the L2
3. Genuine specific characteristics of language learning during childhood

It is also conceivable that two and even all three factors stated above could be involved to some extent. Leaving the question "How it happens to be...?" still open for debate, the current study asks another one: "What is virtually different?". In other words, the present study explores the phenomenon itself.

posted by gargichka @ 9:25 AM