Emotion Disclosure in Spanish and English Bilinguals

Previous literature has identified a difference in emotion comprehension and production of bilinguals. This study aimed to explore differences in emotion expression in the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) among Spanish and English bilinguals. The bilingual participants were interviewed and asked to recount two frustrating events, one in their L1 and one in their L2. These interviews were analyzed for the occurrence of four semantic categories: emotion words (with a subcategory of negative emotion words), emotion-laden words, expressive interjections, and intensifiers that strengthen content words. The data indicated that Spanish and English bilinguals both used more emotion words and emotion-laden words in English than in Spanish. For negative emotion, native English speakers again used this feature more in their L1 than their L2, whereas native Spanish speakers showed no difference between languages. Expressive interjections and intensifiers that strengthen content words were not significantly different across the predictor variables. I propose several explanations for the results: that participants may have differed in their L2 proficiency, where native Spanish speakers had a better command of their L2 than native English speakers with their L2. Additionally, it is possible that native Spanish speakers showed a large percentage of their emotions in their body language (e.g., facial expressions, hand gestures). These findings may contribute to areas where emotion is often expressed, such as the realm of mental health. In particular, insight into the relationship to language and emotion could better inform therapy-based interventions for bilingual clients. For instance, strategic language switching during a session could facilitate clients’ emotion regulations and their disclosures. Future research is needed to explore these avenues of inquiry. EMOTION DISCLOSURE IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH BILINGUALS 3 Language and emotion are inextricably linked. We as humans use various facets of language to both express and perceive emotion. Emotion is conveyed by the semantics of language, as well as suprasegmental features, such as loudness, pitch, or stress, and expressive interjections (e.g., ​wow! ​) or intensifiers (e.g., ​very much​), to name a few (Pavlenko, 2006; Pérez-García & Sánchez, 2019). Body language and facial expressions also help convey these feelings (Keltner et al., 2019; Martinez et al., 2016). Previous work in psycholinguistics indicates that there may be differences in how we express emotion in our native or first language (L1) versus our second language (L2). With a growing population of multilingual speakers in the United States, now 20% of the total population (Ziegler & Camarota, 2019), it is important that mental health practices in the U.S. reflect the challenges and complexities of a linguistically and culturally heterogeneous society. More concretely, a deeper understanding of bilinguals and their relationship to language and emotion can help to better mental health services and therapy training for bilingual therapy interventions. For instance, there is evidence that individuals can be more objective or detached in their L2 than in their L1 (Byford, 2015; Greenson, 1950; Keysar et al., 2012). In turn, we often have more emotional reactions (e.g., skin conductance reaction) to words in our first language (L1) than our second language (L2; Harris et al., 2003; Kazanas & Altarriba, 2016). Understanding a person’s L1 and L2 as they relate to emotion may serve to better inform social interactions and services that benefit our multilingual communities. L1, L2, and Emotion A significant subset of the research on language and emotion focuses on the comprehension of emotion among bilinguals. These studies produce consistent results: L1 input triggers more intense and faster emotional responses in an individual than the same input in L2 (Bhatara et al., 2016; Harris et al., 2003; Kazanas & Altarriba, 2016). However, less consistent EMOTION DISCLOSURE IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH BILINGUALS 4 patterns emerge with respect to language production. While production results tend to align with comprehension studies, they are less common and often qualitative in their design, making it difficult to generalize their findings. Despite this gap in the literature, the investigation of the relationship between speech production and emotion has various implications for understanding and improving our socioemotional interactions. Considering this, the central question of this study is as follows: Do bilingual individuals use less emotional language when they are talking in their L2? More specifically, are Spanish-English bilinguals less likely to use emotional language (operationalized using a set of linguistic features) when discussing negative emotional topics in their L2? Comprehension studies are primarily interested in how a linguistic stimulus affects a participant and how the participant processes the emotion-related information. Research on language production and emotion, contrastingly, focuses on the content of what participants do or say. As comprehension studies are more abundant, they will be discussed first in order to best capture the scope of the existing literature. Bilingual language comprehension and emotion. ​Numerous studies on comprehension illustrate the differences in L1 and L2. In Harris et al.’s (2003) study, the researchers monitored skin conductance (higher skin conductance correlate with more emotional responses) of 32 Turkish-English bilinguals, while presented with four word-type categories: positive (e.g., ​bride, joy​), aversive (e.g., ​disease, kill​), taboo (e.g., ​asshole, breast​), and reprimands (e.g., ​Don’t do that! ​and ​Go to your room! ​). All categories produced stronger skin conductance responses (SCR) when presented in the participants’ L1 than in the L2. Significant differences were found for taboo words and reprimands, which elicited the strongest responses for the participants in their L1. The researchers speculated that the differences in response to emotion-laden words may be a EMOTION DISCLOSURE IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH BILINGUALS 5 product of having learned the L1 at an earlier age, when the individual also developed emotional regulation systems. This process has been referred to by some as amygdala-mediated learning (Caldwell-Harris, 2014), in which a physical experience of emotion is linked to a specific word or phrase. Caldwell-Harris uses this learning style to explain why language spoken in one’s childhood may carry emotional responses. Emotional regulation systems develop alongside acquisition of the first language (Bloom & Beckwith, 1989). Caldwell-Harris thus hypothesized the potential of the brain’s network of emotions to be closely linked to L1 speech and utterances (Anooshian & Hertel, 1994). Insight into the association between emotion and language learning in early age can guide predictions into reasons for this effect in language production. While an individual’s processing of emotion and their consequent reaction tend to occur more strongly in the L1, there are some factors that may improve emotion processing in the L2. In Ożańska-Ponikwia (2019)’s study, 72 Polish-English bilinguals who had emigrated from Poland to Ireland and England, were tested on their perception of the emotional statement ​I love you ​in Polish and English. Although participants perceived this statement stronger in Polish (their L1) than in English, the data suggested that length of stay in an English-speaking country and their self-perception of L2 proficiency were predictors of an increased stronger perception of the statement’s emotionality in the L2. Therefore, while emotion processing tends to be consistently stronger in the L1, there are some factors that may enhance L2 emotion comprehension. To take it one step further, it is important to consider the potential for L2 becoming the dominant language. The term ‘L1’ is often used interchangeably as the dominant language, or the language used most frequently. However, in some cases, the L2 may become the dominant language as a result of changes in the environment that increase the prominence of that language. EMOTION DISCLOSURE IN SPANISH AND ENGLISH BILINGUALS 6 For example, Kazanas & Altarriba (2016) used a lexical decision task in which 60 Spanish-English bilingual participants determined if a series of stimuli were words or nonwords, and measured the response times (RTs) of these bilingual participants. The researchers compared RTs for participants in their L1 and L2, for stimuli comprised of positive and negative emotion words (e.g., ​passion, anger​) and emotion-laden words (e.g., ​butterfly, murder​). They found that RTs were significantly faster only among emotion words for participants when presented in their dominant language. The dominant language is frequently correlated with the L1. However, while in Kazanas & Altarriba’s study the L1 and L2 were determined by order of language acquisition, the L2 for all participants had become their dominant language, because they used it significantly more in their everyday lives, and had decreased their daily usage of the L1. Their study shows that language dominance and frequency of language usage can play a role in language processing. Furthermore, it illustrates the nuance in language processing and language spoken, complicating the ability to make definite conclusions on how bilinguals produce emotion in their languages. That being said, a faster reaction to emotion in one’s dominant language may benefit an individual during a therapy session, because they may access these emotions more quickly and more acutely than in their non-dominant language. Kazanas and Altarriba (2016) also conducted a study on emotion words and emotion-laden words. However, these are only some of the linguistic features that can be used to determine comprehension. Another important group of f