First language, secondary languages and emotion

[thorbiorn]

There does not seem to be a thread about the relationship between native languages, foreign languages and emotions. However, I posted too early, so the next post should have more content. We will see.

 

[thorbiorn]

First language and second language(s)
Before moving on to include emotions in relation to language, there are some notes on first and second languages, and what they are.

A first language, L1, is the same as a mother tongue, native tongue or native language, we are exposed to it and learn from out parents or immediate caretakers, some call it a primary language. Here is the Wiki for first language. One does not go to school to learn the the first language, though one may have to go to school to learn the structure well, increase the vocabulary, and communicate easily also in writing.

Then there is second language(s). Looking at different descriptions, there is following from Collins Dictionary:

Someone's second language is a language which is not their native language but which they use at work or at school.

The Wiki has, and this extends into foreign language(s):

A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language.

There are some details:

A speaker's dominant language, which is the language a speaker uses most or is most comfortable with, is not necessarily the speaker's first language. For example, the Canadian census defines first language for its purposes as "What is the language that this person first learned at home in childhood and still understands?",[1] recognizing that for some, the earliest language may be lost, a process known as language attrition. This can happen when young children start school or move to a new language environment.

Another perspective with examples and some variation is from an article on ThoughtCo.

What Is a Second Language (L2)? by Richard Nordquist, Updated on January 06, 2020

Spoiler: Academic background.

English and Rhetoric Professor

• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Dr. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks.

The Number and Variety of L2 Users
"Using a second language is a commonplace activity. There are few places in the world where only one language is used. In London people speak over 300 languages and 32% of the children live in homes where English is not the main language (Baker & Eversley, 2000). In Australia 15.5% of the population speak a language other than English at home, amounting to 200 languages (Australian Government Census, 1996). In the Congo people speak 212 African languages, with French as the official language. In Pakistan they speak 66 languages, chiefly Punjabi, Sindhi, Siraiki, Pashtu and Urdu. . . .

"In a sense L2 users have no more in common than L1 users; the whole diversity of mankind is there. Some of them use the second language as skillfully as a monolingual native speaker, like [Vladimir] Nabokov writing whole novels in a second language; some of them can barely ask for a coffee in a restaurant. The concept of the L2 user is similar to Haugen's minimal definition of bilingualism as 'the point where a speaker can first produce meaningful utterances in the other language' (Haugen, 1953: 7) and to Bloomfield's comment 'To the extent that the learner can communicate, he may be ranked as a foreign speaker of a language' (Bloomfield, 1933: 54). Any use counts, however small or ineffective." (Vivian Cook, Portraits of the L2 User. Multilingual Matters, 2002)
[...]
Second Language Acquisition
"Whereas L1 development happens relatively fast, the rate of L2 acquisition is typically protracted, and contrary to the uniformity of L1 across children, one finds a broad range of variation in L2, across individuals and within learners over time. Invariant developmental sequences, on the other hand, have been discovered for L2 as well, but they are not the same as in L1. Most importantly, perhaps, it is obviously not the case that all L2 learners are successful--on the contrary, L2 acquisition typically leads to incomplete grammatical knowledge, even after many years of exposure to the target language. Whether it is in principle possible to acquire native competence in the L2 is a matter of much controversy, but if it should be possible, the 'perfect' learners undoubtedly represent an extremely small fraction of those who begin L2 acquisition . . .." (Jürgen M. Meisel, "Age of Onset in Successive Acquisition of Bilingualism: Effects on Grammatical Development." Language Acquisition Across Linguistic and Cognitive Systems, ed. by Michèle Kail and Maya Hickmann. John Benjamins, 2010)

This expression, "the 'perfect' learners undoubtedly represent an extremely small fraction of those who begin L2 acquisition" is worth keeping in mind in the following, because, although many papers note the differences on an emotional level between the use of L1 and L2, there are possibly also instances where there is not much difference. It would be interesting to know if and how some people can overcome the usual differences? With the scene set, next:

Languages and emotion

When Languages Change How You Feel
How the words you speak can shift your emotions and decisions
Tanner Languages
Nov 12, 2025

If you’ve ever switched languages mid-conversation and noticed your feelings change — your tone softening in one, or a strange detachment in another — you’re not imagining it.
Languages don’t just express emotion; they shape it.

The Spark Behind the Idea
This piece grew from moments when I realized I feel differently depending on the language I’m speaking. In English, I’m measured and careful; in Portuguese, emotion spills out more freely. That shift made me wonder — do languages simply give us new words, or do they actually rewire how we feel?

My multilingual background taught me that translation isn’t just about meaning; it’s about mood. Each language tunes the emotional frequency of thought. I hope readers take away a new kind of self-awareness: the language you speak can subtly guide how you experience emotion. Learning another language doesn’t just expand your vocabulary — it expands your emotional range.

Is there something to the idea that leaning another language can expand the emotional range? Or is it not so much the range that changes as the ability to describe it?

Lindquist, K.A. Language and Emotion: Introduction to the Special Issue. Affective Science 2, 91–98 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-021-00049-7
Abstract

What is the relationship between language and emotion? The work that fills the pages of this special issue draws from interdisciplinary domains to weigh in on the relationship between language and emotion in semantics, cross-linguistic experience, development, emotion perception, emotion experience and regulation, and neural representation. These important new findings chart an exciting path forward for future basic and translational work in affective science.

Among the articles, two can be related to the topic of the thread

Harris, C. L., Ayçiçeǧi, A., & Gleason, J. B. (2003).
Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first language than in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics., 24, 561-579. Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first language than in a second language | Applied Psycholinguistics | Cambridge Core.
Extract
Second language speakers commonly acknowledge that taboo terms can be uttered with greater ease in their second language (L2) than in their first language (L1). To investigate this phenomenon psychophysiologically, 32 Turkish–English bilinguals rated a variety of stimuli for pleasantness in Turkish (L1) and English (L2) while skin conductance was monitored via fingertip electrodes. Participants demonstrated greater autonomic arousal to taboo words and childhood reprimands (“Shame on you!”) in their L1 compared to their L2. This finding provides quantifiable support for the subjective experiences of L2 speakers.

Included was also the title of a book from 2020:

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Emotion (Routledge Handbooks in Linguistics)
by Sonya Pritzker (Editor), Janina Fenigsen (Editor), James Wilce (Editor)

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Emotion offers a variety of critical theoretical and methodological perspectives that interrogate the ways in which ideas about and experiences of emotion are shaped by linguistic encounters, and vice versa. Taking an interdisciplinary approach which incorporates disciplines such as linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, psychology, communication studies, education, sociology, folklore, religious studies, and literature, this book:

• explores and illustrates the relationship between language and emotion in the five key areas of language socialisation; culture, translation and transformation; poetry, pragmatics and power; the affective body-self; and emotion communities;
• situates our present-day thinking about language and emotion by providing a historical and cultural overview of distinctions and moral values that have traditionally dominated Western thought relating to emotions and their management;
• provides a unique insight into the multiple ways in which language incites emotion, and vice versa, especially in the context of culture.

[...]

In chapter 8 (124-131), there was:

Cultural variations in language and emotion by Debra J. Occhi

Emotion and its expression in language show wide variation cross-culturally, both in how emotion is conceptualized, and whether or how it may be expressed. Language forms create categories demarcating bodily behavior and sensation into mutually describable ways that exist in varying cultural contexts. Even with increasing homogeneity in global society, anthropologists are concerned with “how globalizing processes exist in the context of, and must come to terms with, the realities of particular societies, with their accumulated – that is to say, historical – cultures and ways of life” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008, 7). Existing among these realities, and in part constructing them, are the various emotion terms often found in language. While one might argue that the focus on emotion terms in research is itself reflective of globalizing EuroAmerican forces, the efforts of anthropologists and scholars in other fields who seek to understand other emotional worlds offers a range of perspectives that are worthy of understanding. This chapter examines examples and trends of such research. While anthropologists question the concept of“emotion terms” as a cross-cultural category (Wilce 2014), the notion that there are certain words that describe emotion undoubtedly constitutes a source domain in the English-language discourse from which comparison proceeds. The question of whether and how emotion terms change when undergoing cross-cultural flow, as do many other cultural items, is a crucial topic for further research as globalization proceeds. Research conducted thus far points to emerging trends, including the devalorization of meaningful but nonlexical utterances such as shouting or wailing in favor of referentiality or labeling (Wilce 1999). Another of the global trends discussed here consists of the mobile nature of lexical items that undergo reinterpretation abroad or force reinterpretation of terms that already exist in the target culture.

An excerpt:

Globalizing emotion
Shibamoto Smith found an entrenched example of globalization of emotion concepts in her comparison of Japanese heteronormative romance novels that were translated from American English romance novels, comparing them to novels written originally in Japanese (1999). She found that the translated novels contained happy-ending love scenarios that align to Kövecses’ findings, with love overcoming personal impediments and exploding from the container. In comparison, traditional Japanese novels that included explosive love did not end in marriage, for in order for a successful bond to form the couple had to be ensconced in a social container of family, workplace, and/or friendship networks. The fact that both types of novels are readily available in the Japanese marketplace, in the context of Occupation-driven legal changes resulting in a post-WWII reevaluation of marriage as a choice of individuals in a nuclear family registration system rather than an agreement between multigenerational households, is another factor in this globalizing scenario.

This Western-influenced modernization of Japanese love potentials is reflected in the love term ren’ai, mixing passion (ren/koi) with a form of love originally denoting vertical relationships between individuals across the rungs of social hierarchies, such as between parents and children, (ai) into a single lexeme (Shibamoto Smith 1999). Another Japanese term using “ai”and related to love sentiments, kawaii (“loveable,” also glossed as “cute”), seems to have spread in the opposite direction from Japanese to English and other languages through its boom in local popularity since the 1970s and the subsequent globalization of Japanese popular culturemedia mix entities, including fashion, and undergone multiple reanalyses (e.g., Dale 2016;Koma 2013).

Facing the incorporation of foreign concepts for such apparently “basic” emotions may lead translators towards selective interpretations or reanalyses of domestic emotion terms such as English “love.” A Pali concept for love, metta, is translated as “lovingkindness.” It is used as a label for the meditation practice now widely used in mindfulness meditation, a recent genre that attempts to decontextualize imported meditation practices of their cultural specifics and recontextualize them in English psychology frameworks that are adopted in research settings such as UCLA and Monash University. “Lovingkindness” is the preferred term reportedly because“love”—in contrast to lovingkindness—involves placing conditions on the other, according to Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, who says in an interview, “I will love myself…as long as I never make a mistake. I love you…as long as the following conditionsare met” (Salzberg in Michalopolous 2019, 76). It appears that her contextualized interpretation of love reflects a neoliberal orientation, another globalizing force that is frequently considered in contemporary research.

Returning to the special issue of Affect Science, there was this title:

Affect Sci. 2021 Apr 17;2(2):199–206. doi: 10.1007/s42761-021-00039-9
Foreign Language Processing Undermines Affect Labeling
Marc-Lluís Vives 1, Víctor Costumero 2,✉, César Ávila 2, Albert Costa 3
Identifying emotional states and explicitly putting them into words, known as affect labeling, reduces amygdala activation. Crucially, bilinguals do not only label emotions in their native language; they sometimes do it in their foreign language as well. However, one’s foreign languages are less emotional and more cognitively demanding than one’s native language. Because of these differences, it is unclear whether labeling emotions in a foreign language will also cause downregulation of affect. Here, 26 unbalanced bilinguals were scanned while labeling emotional faces either in their native or foreign languages. Results on affect labeling in a foreign language revealed that not only did it not reduce amygdala activation, but it also evoked higher activation than affect labeling in a native language. Overall, foreign language processing undermines affect labeling, and it suggests that the language in which people name their emotions has important consequences in how they experience them.

It is not clear to me what kind of unbalanced people the researchers worked with, in which way they were considered unbalanced, or whether they would have had a different result had they taken more balanced people. The discussion of the results is nevertheless insightful because it gives some mechanisms and explain how they might work. Based on them one can those who know more languages can reflect on what might be the case for them.

Discussion
If one could choose which language to express one’s feelings in a bilingual interaction, which language should they choose? If the goal is to reduce emotionality, according to the results we obtained, labeling emotions in a foreign language will fail to accomplish this regulative goal—in other words, it will not downregulate negative emotions. The native language seems to be the language in which people feel and, at the same time, regulate their emotions. We found that the amygdala activation was not different between affect labeling in a foreign language and affective matching. In contrast, amygdala activation during affect labeling in a native language was lower than during affective matching, replicating previous results (Lieberman et al., 2007). Furthermore, amygdala activation during affect labeling was higher in a foreign language than in a native language. Putting feelings into words in a foreign language does not help reduce arousal as indexed by amygdala activation.

Two opposing hypotheses were tested: the detrimental hypothesis, which stated that the higher cognitive demands of foreign language use would impair the downregulation of the amygdala, and the regulatory enhancement hypothesis, which stated that foreign language aloofness would cause more downregulation of the amygdala. Results supported the detrimental hypothesis. This casts doubts on the usefulness of foreign language in clinical settings to regulate emotional reactions, as has been previously suggested (García-Palacios et al., 2018; Morawetz et al., 2017). Future research should explore under which conditions a foreign language can be used in clinical settings. This might vary depending on a plethora of factors, such as the goal of the therapy or the foreign language proficiency of the patient. In addition, factors like age of acquisition or acculturation cause a foreign language to be more emotional and proficient (Harris et al., 2006) and, consequently, might affect the outcome of affect labeling.

Although we replicated the main finding that affect labeling in a native language does reduce amygdala activation (Hariri et al., 2000; Lieberman et al., 2007), we failed to replicate the effect when comparing affect labeling with a more restrictive condition: gender labeling (Lieberman et al., 2007). It is important to note, however, that the direction of the effect was the same, as amygdala activation was lower when identifying emotion than when identifying gender. Furthermore, by adding foreign language processing, the capacity to downregulate emotions even in the native language condition might have been affected. Although we cannot test such fatigue effects with the current design, further research should explore these as they have important implications: foreign language processing is not only failing to downregulate emotion, but it might also affect the capacity to do so when switching back to the native language.

Current results also shed light on the mechanisms that have been proposed to explain affect labeling (see Torre & Lieberman, 2018 for a review). Four different non-mutually exclusive theories exist: distraction, self-reflection, symbolic conversion, and reduction of uncertainty. The first mechanism, based on the idea that affect labeling distracts people from the emotional stimulus, will predict the opposite of the results we found since the distraction is arguably higher in a foreign language. The self-reflection mechanism is based on the idea that affect labeling reduces emotion because it promotes introspection. Although at first glance foreign language processing should promote the same degree of self-reflection than a native language, there is a way to reconcile our findings with this mechanism: foreign language processing might tax the cognitive system to such a degree that it blocks the introspection necessary for affect labeling to have an effect. Symbolic conversion, which states that downregulation emerges because of transforming stimuli into symbolic representation, is irreconcilable with the current findings since a foreign language transforms the stimulus into a symbol to the same degree as a native language, and yet, fails to reduce arousal.

Next in the discussion they mention a constructionist theory of emotion. There is a Wiki Theory of constructed emotion but better might the the writing of the leading proponent of the theory, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and the article from 2016: The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization. Here is the abstract of that article:

The science of emotion has been using folk psychology categories derived from philosophy to search for the brain basis of emotion. The last two decades of neuroscience research have brought us to the brink of a paradigm shift in understanding the workings of the brain, however, setting the stage to revolutionize our understanding of what emotions are and how they work. In this article, we begin with the structure and function of the brain, and from there deduce what the biological basis of emotions might be. The answer is a brain-based, computational account called the theory of constructed emotion.

Returning to discussion of the previous paper:

Lastly, the final mechanism proposed, reduction of uncertainty, which falls under a constructionist theory of emotion, can potentially account for the current findings. The basis of this mechanism is that identifying emotions through labeling automatically reduces the uncertainty associated with the situation (Brooks et al., 2017; Lindquist et al., 2015). In fact, amygdala activation tracks different levels of uncertainty (Whalen, 2007)2. In order to reduce uncertainty, however, categorization needs to retrieve the sensory information and conceptual knowledge that is used to make meaning (Barrett, 2017; Lindquist et al., 2015). Both conditions are likely weakened in foreign language processing. First, sensory information is strongly imbedded into one’s native language. Second, semantic processing takes a longer time (Opitz & Degner, 2012) and has less representational strength in a foreign language (Strijkers et al., 2013). Our results provide the first evidence that the language in which people name emotions has important consequences in how they experience them. The way you label it, thus, matters for the way you feel it.

One paper is about foreign languages and moral judgement:

The Foreign Language Effect on Moral Judgment: The Role of Emotions and Norms
Janet Geipel, Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
Constantinos Hadjichristidis, Department of Management and Economics, University of Trento, Trento, Italy, Research Centre for Decision Making, Leeds Business School, Leeds University, Leeds, United Kingdom
Luca Surian, Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
Published: July 15, 2015

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131529

The abstract is compact, the discussion more interesting:

General Discussion
The present studies provide strong evidence that the use of a foreign language influences the moral evaluation of complex moral dilemmas. In line with previous work [19, 20], foreign language increased the rate of consequentialist responses in the footbridge dilemma but not in the trolley dilemma (Studies 1–3, meta-analyses). However, in contrast to previous theorizing, the results do not support the claim that this effect is driven by reduced emotionality. Foreign language attenuated emotions in response to both the footbridge and trolley dilemmas, and this emotion attenuation did not mediate the effect of foreign language on moral judgment (Study 2). Furthermore, the foreign language effect was not constrained to personal dilemmas; it was also present in an impersonal dilemma (lost wallet; Study 3). Interestingly, the foreign language effect was absent in the crying baby dilemma, which we suggested might be due to that this dilemma had a distinctive feature that was absent in all other moral dilemmas: the negative outcome of the action (the baby’s death) would occur anyway, even if the action were not performed.

If the emotional attenuation is not a viable explanation for the foreign language effect on moral judgment then what drives this effect? Why was the effect absent from the trolley dilemma but present in the footbridge and lost wallet dilemmas? Perhaps the critical difference is that the trolley dilemma does not involve a “taboo” or prohibited action. Social and moral rules prohibit us from pushing people or keeping lost wallets. However, we have no general rules prohibiting flipping switches (see Cushman’s dual-system framework of morality [37]). We propose that foreign language may influence moral judgment by reducing the mental accessibility of social and moral rules. For this explanation to work, one has to assume that in the case of flipping the switch the categorization of the action at a more abstract level (killing the collateral innocent victim) is less automatic than the categorization of the other actions, such as keeping the wallet as a prototypical form of stealing.

Evidence that foreign language reduces the accessibility of social and moral rules comes from a study showing that foreign language promotes less condemnation of violations of everyday social and moral norms, such as cutting in line when in a hurry, or cheating in an exam [38]. Further evidence comes from a study in which participants were asked to translate swearwords either from a native to a foreign language or vice versa [39]. In the native to foreign language translations, participants used “stronger” words to translate politically incorrect swearwords which were directed against social groups, compared to other types of swearwords. The authors of this study argued that in a foreign language the social and cultural norms are less salient, which makes it easier for people to use inappropriate swearwords (for similar views see [29, 40]).

One way through which foreign language might reduce the activation of social and moral norms, is by limiting access to relevant autobiographical memories. Research suggests that memories are language specific, and therefore are more accessible when the language used at retrieval matches the one present at encoding [41–43], that is, the native language. Research suggests that several moral and social rules are learned through social communication [44], and that a great chunk of such rules concern prohibitions of specific actions [45]. An analysis of a large corpus of data demonstrated that 99% of child-directed speech about rules of conduct, referred to the prohibition of particular actions, such as “Don’t throw paper on the floor!”, but there were also many cases of parents just saying “No!” [45]. A foreign language might evoke memories related to such prohibitions to a lesser extent than the native language. Consistent with this claim, Harris and colleagues [46, 21] showed that the use of a foreign language reduced electrodermal activity in response to childhood reprimands (“Don’t do that!”).

The authors also describe the limitations to their study:

One limitation of the present research is that we employed a restricted number of moral dilemmas. Future research should examine a wider variety of moral scenarios [47, 48, 28]. A second limitation is that some of the scenarios we used (e.g., footbridge, trolley) are arguably “exotic” and distant from real life [49, 50]. Notice, however, that the foreign language effect extended to the more mundane lost wallet scenario. It would be worth investigating whether the effect generalizes to other realistic situations (see [38]) and actual behavior. A third limitation is that we measured emotional reactions by means of rating scales after the moral judgment was made. It could be that the higher emotion ratings in the trolley dilemma, as compared to the footbridge dilemma, are related to post-decisional processes. But note that previous studies have also measured emotions before the moral judgment was made and they failed to find support for the claim that the footbridge dilemma evokes more negative emotion than the trolley dilemma ([31]; see also [32]). Please note that we do not wish to claim that foreign language does not influence affect, Study 2 demonstrated that it does [23]. Furthermore, studies in the domain of risk and benefit perception have shown a foreign language effect that is mediated by affect [51]. Rather, the claim is that the foreign language effect on moral dilemmas might be more complex. A fourth limitation is that the increase in consequentialist responses found in the foreign language condition might be because participants assigned to that condition might have assumed that the situations involved foreign people in a foreign country. Research suggests that feelings of social connection to the characters involved in a dilemma influences moral evaluations [52–54]. But notice that the effect was present also in a study where participants were explicitly instructed to assume that the characters were co-nationals and that the situation took place in their country [38].

And they include reflections on what the findings might mean for international decision making:

The present findings have important societal implications. International decisions such as those taken by the Economic European Community and the United Nations often involve communication in a foreign language (mostly in English). A number of such decisions involve a tradeoff between causing intentional harm to a number of individuals in the near future (e.g., by imposing strict economic rules), to increase the prosperity of a greater number of individuals in a relatively more distant future. If the use of foreign language reduces access to knowledge of social norms and deontological moral principles, then international decisions may be swayed (for better or worse) towards a consequentialist choice.

The article does not distinguish between different kinds of people and their psychological makeup. Psychopaths do more harm no matter which language they speak, but would there also for this category be a difference depending on which language they use, not so much as a result of a moral core, as due to pressure from early programming?

J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2016 Mar; 42(3): 489-96. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000179. Epub 2015 Sep 7.
The emotional impact of being myself: Emotions and foreign-language processing
Lela Ivaz "Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language." 1,
Albert Costa "Center of Brain and Cognition, Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra." 2
Jon Andoni Duñabeitia "Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language." 1
Abstract
Native languages are acquired in emotionally rich contexts, whereas foreign languages are typically acquired in emotionally neutral academic environments. As a consequence of this difference, it has been suggested that bilinguals' emotional reactivity in foreign-language contexts is reduced as compared with native language contexts. In the current study, we investigated whether this emotional distance associated with foreign languages could modulate automatic responses to self-related linguistic stimuli. Self-related stimuli enhance performance by boosting memory, speed, and accuracy as compared with stimuli unrelated to the self (the so-called self-bias effect). We explored whether this effect depends on the language context by comparing self-biases in a native and a foreign language. Two experiments were conducted with native Spanish speakers with a high level of English proficiency in which they were asked to complete a perceptual matching task during which they associated simple geometric shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) with the labels "you," "friend," and "other" either in their native or foreign language. Results showed a robust asymmetry in the self-bias in the native- and foreign-language contexts: A larger self-bias was found in the native than in the foreign language. An additional control experiment demonstrated that the same materials administered to a group of native English speakers yielded robust self-bias effects that were comparable in magnitude to the ones obtained with the Spanish speakers when tested in their native language (but not in their foreign language). We suggest that the emotional distance evoked by the foreign-language contexts caused these differential effects across language contexts. These results demonstrate that the foreign-language effects are pervasive enough to affect automatic stages of emotional processing.

Like the previous, the last one is also from Spain

Your personality changes when you speak another language, but that’s not always a bad thing
Mari Mar Boillos Pereira, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education of Bilbao, University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
Ana Blanco Canales, Profesora Titular de Lengua Española, Universidad de Alcalá
Published: December 3, 2024, 13:18 CET

Have you ever wondered whether the language you speak influences the way you see the world? Well, according to a number of studies in psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology and linguistic anthropology, it does. Languages don’t just allow us to communicate – they also shape our perception of what surrounds us, and ourselves.

Over half of the world’s population uses two or more languages in their day to day lives. Whether this is because of education, immigration or family, being bilingual or multilingual is increasingly common in our globalised society.

So how does knowing two or more languages affect the way we process emotion? Recent research suggests that each language can make its speakers perceive reality in a different way, and people can even notice a change in themselves as they switch from one language to another.

Other studies have shown that bilingual people may behave differently depending on the language they use. The people talking to them also perceive them differently depending on which language they are speaking.
[...]

Apart form journaling being an aid to language learning, what are the advantages and disadvantage on an emotional level of journaling in the primary language as compared to journaling in a second language?

On the Forum there is the romance novel reading project. Could there be real differences on the emotional level for those who know English, but whose first language is not English, between reading the English original versus reading a translation into their first language?

If the above selection of articles has been biased toward speaking, and reading, what about viewing movies? The following article is from UniScienza&Ricerca is the blog of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, a private University in the Italien city of Milan.

Original language vs. dubbed movies: effects on our brain
Student Life 5 Feb, 2021

Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max… the future of audiovisual content gets (and will increasingly get) through streaming platforms. However, the on-demand streaming audience can be divided into two factions: most faithful of the original language movies vs. those who do not look down on dubbing (especially the Italian one, often considered among the best in the world).

From the point of view of neuroscience and cognitive psychology, what is the difference between watching movies in the original or dubbed language? Why do we prefer one over the other?

The advantages of the original language
In Italy we are used to watch normally foreign movies perfectly translated into Italian. In other countries the picture is quite different, since original English-speaking movies are usually not translated into the local language (in the worst-case scenario they are subtitled). The first advantage of not translating an English-speaking movie is that the viewer learns faster and better English (through passive exposure), especially if the viewers have started from early on in life to watch English speaking movies such as cartoons.

In young infants/children the brain is still plastic and, thus, open to receive and accommodate the correct phonology of a foreign language: if a child grows up by listening often to the phonemes of a foreign language, it will later in life have a better pronunciation of that given language. This phenomenon is not limited only to phonology but may be generalized to grammar and to some extent also to the lexicon of the foreign language.

An example from abroad
Take as a simple example, the case of Albania. It is well known that Albanian immigrants to Italy usually master somehow Italian despite no formal schooling in Italian since they were passively exposed early on in life to Italian television (which is normally received over the Adriatic Sea in Albania).

So, on one hand watching a movie in the original language will help us to increase our proficiency of that given language. Interestingly, on the other hand, it may make us also familiar with cultural expressions that are difficult to express in a foreign language. Each culture has its own fashion of making jokes, of using irony, of conveying emotions which are not always simply translatable in a foreign language. In other words, watching movies in an original language will allow us also to become familiar with cultural subtleties.

Some downsides of original language movies
However, there are also some negative aspects of watching movies in the original foreign language.

Recent evidence from neuroscience and cognitive psychology has shown that emotions are deeper processed when they are expressed in our native language, while more rational decisions are usually made when using a foreign language. In cognitive psychology this phenomenon is labeled as the so-called “foreign language effect”.

Following prominent psychologists, listening to a foreign language does not interfere with our emotions as much as our native language does. Our native language has tighter links to our emotions since we made our first emotions by using that language.

Hence, watching a romantic movie in our native language may touch our hearts deeper as compared to watching that romantic in a foreign language. However, this should not stop us from watching movies in the original language since the cultural and linguistic gains may be enormous.

Why do we
One interesting question is actually why do some people prefer watching movies in the original language and why instead some strictly do not want to “make the effort” and watch them by preferring the translation.

Many everyday factors may contribute to this personal decision such as:

• wanting to improve knowledge and proficiency of English;
• the curiosity of learning habits and cultural expressions in English or American;
• on the other hand, the fear of not perfectly understanding the movie if we choose the original language.

My personal recommendation? Since we live in a globalized world, deserve the original movie since it is never too late for our brain to adapt and learn. And always keep in mind that some linguistic and gestural expressions are never translatable in a foreign language.


Jubin Abutalebi [The author]

Spoiler: Biography

Jubin Abutalebi, MD, is a Cognitive Neurologist and Associate Professor of Neuropsychology at UniSR, where he directs the Center for Neurolinguistics and Psycholinguistics. He is the editor-in-chief of the prestigious international journal “Bilingualism: Language and Cognition” (Cambridge University Press). Born in Vienna, MD in Italy and PhD in Hong Kong, Prof. Abutalebi is a polyglot, hence his passion for the study of languages and cultural differences. He devours history books and is a cat lover, not just Persians.

The above article appeared to me to be directed toward students who could benefit from or need better English. At the same time he also makes the reader aware of the advantages and disadvantages of watching a movie through the first language versus a second language.

Language is a tool through which we are taught, instructed, some times programmed. It is also a tool through which we learn, express ourselves, bond with others, and share our experiences. And what does it mean for the communication among people, when one party communicates in their second language while the other party moves along in their first language? Judging from some of the research mentioned already, there could be implications. On a more practical and personal level, would finding out if and how the language(s) affect(s) ones own experience and expression of emotion be worthwhile?

 

[thorbiorn]

In the studies above some claimed there was a differences in brain activity between using the first language and second language. Below is a study which does not include emotions, but is still interesting. It was reported by the British Psychology Association and indicated the brain activity of second language users showed more similarity with that of first language users the more proficient they were in the second language and if they had become second language users at a young age rather than later in life.

Language proficiency can determine how similarly first and second languages are represented in the brain
Researchers widely agree that first and second languages are handled similarly in the brain.
06 October 2021
By Emma Barratt

According to previous research, proficient bilinguals' brain activity is broadly quite similar when accessing their first and second languages.

However, the literature exploring this until now has relied on imaging methods that can tell us where in the brain there is activity, but not how languages are represented in those areas. Distinct patterns of activation may have differentiated first and second languages in those same regions all this time, and by relying on traditional forms of imaging analysis alone, we could have been none the wiser.

Thanks to new imaging methods, however, we're finally able to take a look at activation in these areas in a much more detailed way. Now, newly published work from Emily Nichols at The University of Western Ontario and colleagues suggests that languages are represented more distinctly than we thought.

For this study, the researchers gathered a sample of 32 bilingual English and Mandarin speakers living in Beijing. All participants spoke English as their first language, and Mandarin as their second. As might be expected, the age of acquisition (AoA) and proficiency of Mandarin — as measured by self-report and pre-testing, respectively — varied from person to person.

During their fMRI scans, participants were presented with a picture-word matching task in both English and Mandarin. For each trial of this task, they were shown a picture for 2.5 seconds, while an audio clip of a common two-syllable word, which either matched or didn't match the image shown, was played. These audio clips alternated between English and Mandarin for all 160 trials, and participants were asked to indicate as quickly as possible via button press whether or not the audio given matched the contents of the image.

The team then used a technique known as representational similarity analysis (RSA) on imaging data collected during correct trials, in order to see which brain areas reliably showed different patterns of activation between languages. This fMRI technique is relatively new, and can reveal differences in similar activation patterns which were previously unmeasurable.

For example, a previous study looking at reading in bilingual individuals used RSA to show distinct activation patterns in regions which handle visual word recognition when participants read text in each language. Here, the team hoped to apply this same method to probe brain activity during auditory, rather than visual, word recognition.

As expected, both English and Mandarin produced activity in an extensive network of language-related regions. When the team looked within those regions that were active for both languages, there were no overall significant differences in activation depending on language. However, the story changed when the team looked in more detail at the effects of AoA and proficiency on the levels of activation.

These analyses revealed that there were differences in how the two languages were represented, which could be predicted by AoA and proficiency. For example, people with a wider difference in first and second language proficiency showed more dissimilar patterns of activation in areas such as the left inferior fusiform gyrus and bilateral supramarginal gyrus, which are involved in articulation and auditory-motor integration, respectively.

The more similar the proficiency between the two languages, the more similar the activation pattern. Likewise, the older the AoA, the more distinct the patterns of activation between first and second languages were.

In addition, results showed several areas that were more active in those with younger AoAs — the right insula, the left anterior intraparietal sulcus, and the area prostriata of the calcarine sulcus. However, the relationship between these regions and bilingual auditory word recognition is less clear. It's likely that differences in activation in these areas, at least in part, represent differences in the ability to inhibit other language responses. But, further research is needed to disentangle exactly what these differences mean, and how they relate to AoA.

Interestingly, there was also a distinct dissimilarity between participants with lower second language proficiency and those who acquired their second language later in ventral visual areas, which handle object recognition and concept representation. This, the authors suggest, is indicative that language can likely affect our perceptions of what we're looking at. This idea isn't totally unheard of, either — previous research outlining the label-feedback hypothesis also highlighted that variations in language can alter our ability to categorise, discriminate between, and even detect objects.

These findings not only support the current model of an integrated language system in bilinguals, but they extend our understanding of how individual differences dictate language representations within the brain.

Future research to verify that these patterns are consistent across languages, or whether they vary by language similarity, are likely to give us a greater understanding of whether these results are in part due to the large differences between English and Mandarin.

Research using RSA which looks into the effect grammar may have on differences in brain activation is also a topic for investigation. As it stands, this study represents a new and exciting approach for disentangling finer differences in how the brain represents and utilises first and second languages.

English and Mandarin are very different. A language closer to English is Frisian (though few people speak that, Dutch, Afrikaans, Norwegian are other German languages that are related. What might studies show done with those languages?

 

[thorbiorn]

Elaborating and expanding on ideas presented before, below is an article and a study.

A Polish language school promoting language courses in English, German and Spanish has an article for prospective students that make it a selling point that people who communicate in a foreign language will make more rational decisions.

The influence of a foreign language – how does thinking in another language affect our decisions?
[...]
4. How does language influence our decisions?
4.1. Moral and ethical decisions
One of the most famous studies of the effect of a foreign language is the experiment "dilemma of the car" (trolley problem), conducted by psychologists from the University of Chicago. The study participants made moral decisions in their native and foreign languages. The results showed that those who analyze the dilemma in a foreign language are more likely to choose the option of saving more people at the expense of one person. This means that a foreign language helps you make less emotional, more logical decisions.

Źródło: Scientific American – Thinking in a Foreign Language Improves Decision-Making

4.2. Financial decisions and risks
A Harvard Business Review study found that people who make financial decisions in a foreign language are less likely to make risky choices. The influence of language on emotion control can help you avoid impulsive purchases and manage your finances more strategically.

Źródło: Harvard Business Review – Why Speaking a Foreign Language Makes You More Rational

4.3. Influence of language on business negotiations
People who negotiate in a foreign language are more likely to focus on facts than emotions, which makes them more effective. Many managers consciously analyze strategies in English to avoid subjective interpretations. Research shows that communicating in a foreign language can reduce the effect of fear of failure and increase confidence in the conversation.

4.4. Emotions and interpersonal relationships
Is it easier for people to acknowledge feelings in a foreign language? Research shows that emotions expressed in a foreign language are less intense. This may mean that people are less likely to react aggressively in conflicts conducted in a foreign language. This may also explain why some people feel more comfortable expressing their feelings in a foreign language than in their native language.

Regarding point four, when research shows emotions expressed in a foreign language tend to be less intense, and there is a tendency for people to feel more comfortable expressing their feelings in a foreign language than in their native language, is that in part because "Comprehension of L2 is only partially somatically grounded."?

To explain the last question, here are excerpts from the study where the quoted part was used.

Do we embody second language? Evidence for ‘partial’ simulation during processing of a second language

Francesco Foroni, 2015
Highlights

• Somatic bases of emotion language processing in second language (L2) are explored.
• Facial EMG data were recorded during readings of affirmative and negative sentences.
• Affirmation in L2 elicits lower muscle activation than in first language (L1).
• Differently from L1, negation in L2 does not inhibit relevant muscle.
• Comprehension of L2 is only partially somatically grounded.

Abstract
The present paper investigates whether the processing of emotion language in the context of a second language (L2) entails motor simulations and whether simulation models extend to negation also for L2. Participants were exposed to sentences in L2 describing emotional expressions while facial muscle activity was continuously measured. Sentences mapped either directly upon the zygomatic muscle (e.g., “I am smiling”) or did not (e.g., “I am frowning”), and were presented in the affirmative and negative form. Similarly to studies involving first language (L1), the zygomatic muscle was activated when reading affirmative sentences relevant to the muscle. In contrast, and differently from what previously observed in L1, reading sentences in the negative form (“I am not smiling”) did not lead to relaxation/inhibition of the zygomatic muscle. These results extend the simulation models to the comprehension of L2 but they also provide important constraints and contribute to the debate about grounding of the abstract and concrete concepts.

[.]
A fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience concerns the role of sensory and motor information in representing conceptual knowledge in the brain and in understanding objects, actions and words (see Tomasino & Rumiati, 2013).
The investigation of the neural system underpinning language processing has identified a network of brain areas including frontal and temporal left-hemisphere regions that, together with subcortical structures, are differentially involved in specific aspects of linguistic computation, from word level to sentence processing (Friederici, 2002, Ojemann, 1991, Poeppel and Hickok, 2004). The neurobiological models suggesting that these areas operate autonomously from other brain areas (e.g., modality-specific ones; Pylyshyn, 1980) largely fall into the traditional linguistic notions that language operates on abstract representations via formal rules (cf. Vukovic & Shtyrov, 2014) and does not benefit from the functional contributions of the sensorimotor system (e.g., Fodor, 1983).

However, recent theoretical arguments and an increasingly rich set of converging research findings together suggest that the processing of language may entail also the automatic recruitment of sensorimotor systems (Baumeister et al., 2015, Boulenger et al., 2006, Buccino et al., 2005, De Grauwe et al., 2014, Filimon et al., 2007, Fischer and Zwaan, 2008, Foroni and Semin, 2009, Gentilucci and Gangitano, 1998, Glenberg and Kaschak, 2002, Glover and Dixon, 2002, Hauk et al., 2008, Quené et al., 2012, Meteyard et al., 2012, Moseley et al., 2011, Pulvermuller, 2005, Winkielman et al., 2008, Zwaan and Taylor, 2006). In general, neuroimaging research shows the involvement of the primary motor cortex (BA 4) in the processing of action verbs (e.g. Hauk et al., 2004, Kemmerer et al., 2008, Pulvermüller et al., 2005, Pulvermüller et al., 2005). Studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) find that motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from hand muscles change when stimulation is applied on the hand motor area following action language presentation (e.g., Buccino et al., 2005). Additionally, several studies report involvement of the premotor cortex (BA 6) in action language comprehension (Aziz-Zadeh et al., 2006, Hauk et al., 2004, Tettamanti et al., 2005).

These findings are regarded as evidence in support of embodiment theories, which claim that conceptual knowledge is grounded in sensory–motor systems (Barsalou, 1999, Barsalou, 2008, Gallese and Lakoff, 2005; but see Mahon & Caramazza, 2008). Researchers holding this opinion claim that language processing is mediated by implicit motor simulations (Barsalou, 1999, Barsalou, 2008, Simmons et al., 2008, Willems and Casasanto, 2011) and shares a common neural substrate with actual motor processing (Gallese & Lakoff, 2005). Namely, understanding a sentence like “I am smiling” entails in the comprehender the embodied sensorimotor simulations of the content described by linguistic utterances (e.g., de Zubicaray, Arciuli, & McMahon, 2013). That is, the re-enactment of a smile (i.e., simulation: activation of the zygomatic muscle; Foroni and Semin, 2009, Winkielman et al., 2008).

There is more, as they gradually arrive at the uninvestigated question and the design of their study:

No investigation so far tested whether L2 is somatically grounded implementing sentence processing (instead of word processing) and testing this hypothesis measuring directly muscle simulation instead of inferring from compatibility paradigms (e.g., Dudschig et al., 2014). The present work tries to fill this gap by focusing on the somatic muscle correlates of emotion language processing in L2, and testing directly whether the comprehension of emotion language in a L2 entails the same somatic simulations as in L1.

In the present experiment it was examined whether the processing of a L2 (i.e., English for Dutch native speakers) in its affirmative and negative forms relies on the same somatic bases as that of L1 (Foroni and Semin, 2009, Foroni and Semin, 2013). When participants read affirmative sentences in L1 (e.g., ‘I am smiling’) the relevant muscle (i.e., zygomatic major) activates; however, when they read negative sentences in L1 (e.g., ‘I am not smiling’), the relevant muscle is inhibited. These results demonstrate the somatic base for L1 and a distinct grounding of linguistic markers such as negation (Foroni & Semin, 2013).

Stimulus material consisted of English sentences (participants’ L2) either relevant (e.g., I am smiling) or irrelevant (e.g., I am frowning) to the target muscle under examination (zygomatic major). Sentences were constructed both in their affirmative (e.g., ‘I am smiling’) or negative form (e.g., ‘I am not smiling’), and shown on a computer screen. Activation of facial muscles was measured throughout using facial electromyography (EMG; see also Stins & Beek, 2013).

If the simulation argument of language processing generalizes to L2, then one could expect L2 affirmative sentences (e.g., I am smiling) to induce zygomatic activation, and their sentential negation (e.g., I am not smiling) to induce reduce activation as was reported for L1 (see Foroni & Semin, 2013; cf. Dudschig et al., 2014, Tettamanti et al., 2008, Tomasino et al., 2010).

However, if the simulation hypothesis does not fully apply to L2, then a different pattern of data should be found. The absence of any muscle activation for negative sentences is also conceivable, similarly to the one reported by Aravena et al. (2012). However, previous research suggests that words in L2 do not simply inherit the semantic representation of their L1 translation equivalent: rather, words seem to be associated with the aspects of semantics afforded by the learning situations (Williams & Cheung, 2011), which can lead to different semantic representations in L2 compared to L1 (Eilola & Havelka, 2010).

If, as they say, "Comprehension of L2 is only partially somatically grounded." is generally true, this could be an indication that, generally speaking, the body language of a person conversing with another would be different in L1 as compared to L2, when sending or receiving the same verbal content, and when variations in the circumstances of communication are accounted for.