Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of code-switching on emotional processing

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation research project examines the effect of switching languages, or code-switching, on the emotional reactivity to emotional words. Emotional reactivity is defined as the differences in how we react to emotionally charged words such as ‘sweetheart’, ‘disgust’, and neutral words, such as ‘door’, ‘cup’, as observed using various experimental techniques. Researchers have a good understanding of the language acquisition factors shaping bilinguals’ emotional reactivity to words in their first and second language. Nevertheless, it is yet unknown how switching between languages, a common bilingual conversational act, affects emotional reactivity. Spurred by the work of sociolinguists and psychologists, this project aims to ascertain whether code-switching reduces emotionality and its findings will advance knowledge about the relationship between code-switching and emotionality. Sociolinguists have found that code-switches frequently occur before emotional words. This pattern suggests that code-switches provide some type of benefits to bilingual comprehension. Psycholinguists have found that code-switched paragraphs increase objectivity by potentially reducing emotionality, more than passages entirely in the first or second language. Moreover, emotion regulation or reduction and code-switch comprehension result in similar neurocognitive responses. It is thus likely that code-switches help reduce bilinguals’ emotional reactivity to emotional words. Two experiments will be conducted to ascertain the effect of code-switching on emotional reactivity. In the first experiment, Spanish-English bilinguals' eye-movements associated with emotional vs. neutral words embedded in Spanish, English, and code-switched sentences will be compared. The second experiment will use electroencephalography time-locked to events (Event-Related Potentials) to compare the electrophysiological signatures of emotional vs. neutral word processing in the three language conditions. The hypothesis is that the differences between emotional and neutral words would be the smallest in the code-switched sentences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.