Bilingual Speakers in the Lab: Psychophysiological Measures of Emotional Reactivity

Bilingual speakers report experiencing stronger emotions when speaking and hearing their first language compared to their second. Does this occur even when a second language is learned early and becomes the dominant language? Spanish / English bilinguals who had grown up in the USA (early learners) or those who were first exposed to English during middle childhood while residing in a Latin American country (late learners) listened to words and phrases while skin conductance was monitored. Stimuli included taboo words, sexual terms, childhood reprimands (‘Go to your room!’) and single words which functioned as a neutral baseline. Consistent with the hypothesis that a second language is less emotional for the late learners, emotional expressions (i.e. reprimands) presented in the first language elicited larger skin conductance responses than comparable expressions in the second language. For the early learners, no such difference was obtained, indicating that age of acquisition of the second language and proficiency modulate speakers ’ physiological reaction to emotional language.