How First- and Second-Language Emotion Words Influence Emotion Perception in Swedish-English Bilinguals

A growing literature suggests that emotional intensity is reduced when reading or speaking in a second language. One potential theoretical explanation for this effect is that emotion concepts (which are thought to play a key role in constructing emotional experiences) are less strongly associated with second-language (L2) than first-language (L1) emotion words. We tested this possibility in 140 Swedish-English bilinguals aged 18-44 years (32.14% male, 66.43% female, 1.43% other). All participants spoke Swedish as L1 and English as L2. We adapted an existing paradigm to test how L1 and L2 emotion words influence emotion perception. Participants first saw a facial expression of an emotion (cue) followed by a target, which could either be another facial expression, an L1 emotion word, or an L2 emotion word. Participants indicated whether the cue and the target represented the same or different emotions as fast as possible. Results showed that participants were faster and more accurate in both the L1 and L2 word conditions compared to the face condition. However, no significant differences between the L1 and L2 word conditions emerged, suggesting that emotion concepts are more strongly connected to both L1 and a L2 emotion words than facial expressions of emotions. This result replicates prior research showing that L1 emotion words speed facial emotion perception and provide initial evidence against the notion that this effect is reduced for L2 words. However, studies in other cultural contexts, with less proficient bilinguals, and different language pairs are necessary to determine the generalizability of these results.