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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 885

Part of Session 129: Multilingualism and emotions in urban settings (Other abstracts in this session)

Anger and the city: (sub)cultural factors mediating emotion term semantics in bilingual urban milieu.

Authors: Ogarkova, Anna
Submitted by: Ogarkova, Anna (University of Geneva, Switzerland)

This talk reports the results of two independent (but mutually informative) studies on the emotion term semantics in bi- and monolinguals. In the first study, an online questionnaire based on the componential emotion theories [1] is used to compare how bilinguals (L1 Russian and L1 Ukrainian) evaluate the meaning of 26 prototypical emotion terms in their L1. Two comparable groups of university students were recruited in the same city (Kyiv, Ukraine). Between-group differences were expected to be minimal because of the typological affinity between the Russian and the Ukrainian languages, and the prevailing (80%) use of cognate emotion word pairs. Although the meaning profiles of emotion terms in the two language groups indeed exhibited minimal overall divergence, systematic differences however emerged in the emotion regulation component. Specifically, both conflict- and fear-related negative emotion terms were rated significantly higher on the emotional control/repression by the L1 Russian Ukrainians than by the L1 Ukrainian group.

In the second study, a modified questionnaire [2] with a different set of words (nine Russian ANGER terms, [3]) was administered in the groups of monolingual Russian speakers from Russia and the L2 Russian speakers from Ukraine. Alongside with considerable similarities, the results revealed a significant between-country effect as well. Specifically, Russian monolingual group systematically rated the various anger-related words as denoting significantly less socially acceptable, frequently experienced, or readily/openly manifested emotions, compared to the ratings of the same words made by the L2 Russian Ukrainians.

Taken together, the results of the two studies highlight the possibility of the cultural heterogeneity in contemporary Ukraine where L1 Russian Ukrainians exhibit a closer affinity with monolingual Russian speakers from Russia (rather than with their L1 Ukrainian countrymen), and where L1 Ukrainians—in both their L1 and L2—consider socially disruptive emotions like anger or fury to be less likely subjected to regulatory control or societal disapproval. Alongside with cultural factors, several other possibilities (e.g., the impact of academic subcultures on the meaning profiles of emotion words) are also discussed, and the ways of testing their impact in future research are highlighted.  

 

 

References:

[1] Fontaine J., Scherer, K., Roesch, E. & Ellsworth, P. (2007). The world of emotion is not two-dimensional. Psychological Science, 18(2), 1050-1057.

[2] Soriano, C., Fontaine, J., Ogarkova, A., Mejía, C., Volkova, Y., Ionova, S., & Shakhovskyy, V. (in press). Semantic types of anger in Spanish and Russian. In J. Fontaine, K.R. Scherer & C. Soriano (eds.) Components of emotional meaning: A sourcebook. Oxford: OUP.

[3] Ogarkova, A, Soriano, C & Lehr, C. (in press). Naming feeling: Exploring the equivalence of emotion terms in five European languages. Lodz Studies in Language, 24, 245-‐276.