The influence of immersion in the L2 culture on perception of the L1 culture-specific emotion of tęsknota

Abstract

Aims/objectives/purpose/ research questions:

This study focuses on the relationship between the immersion in the L2 culture and changes in the perception of the L1 culture-specific emotion of tęsknota. It was designed to research the possible influence of such variables as immersion in the L2 culture, emotional intelligence (EI), frequency of the L1/L2 use and self-perceived L2 proficiency on the perception of emotion of tęsknota.

Design/methodology/approach:

Mixed methods were used in the present study. The qualitative method was used in order to elicit Polish culture-specific emotion of tęsknota by means of presenting the description of the given emotion in the participants’ L1 and L2. Three questionnaires (Personal background questionnaire; L1 and L2 use questionnaire, Trait Emotional Intelligence questionnaire) were used to gather sociobiographical and EI data.

The quantitative method was used to gather sociobiographical and EI data.

Data and analysis:

Data from 97 Polish–English late bilinguals and Polish L2 users of English was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.

Findings/conclusions:

Data analysis showed that clear linguistic differences in the perception of L1 culture-specific emotion of tęsknota emerged between Polish L2 users of English who had never been abroad and Polish–English bilinguals/L2 users who had lived in an English-speaking country, even if both groups were similar as far as age, gender, educational level, EI and self-perceived L2 proficiency is concerned.

Originality:

This is the first study to the best of our knowledge that researches possible changes in the perception of culture-specific Polish emotion of tęsknota among Polish–English bilinguals and Polish L2 users of English.

Significance/implications:

The present research shows that in the case of the participants of this study, proficiency in a foreign language might lead to the conceptual shift in the perception of L1 emotion only while accompanied by immersion/socialisation into L2 culture.

Keywords

Bilingualism perception of emotions culture-specific emotions immersion socialisation Emotional Intelligence

Introduction

This paper addresses an important but often neglected aspect of bilingualism and L2 use that is the perception of emotions in L1 and L2 (Dewaele, 2010; MacIntyre, 2002; Pavlenko, 2005). Emotions play a crucial role in people’s lives, whether they are monolinguals, bilinguals or multilinguals (Dewaele, 2010). However, the expression or perception of emotions might be more difficult if it needs to be done in a non-native language due to the possible lack of the linguistic and pragmatic knowledge in how to express ourselves fully and appropriately in a given situation (Dewaele, 2008). Sometimes there is no equivalent of the emotion in a foreign language, which forces bilinguals or L2 users to use lengthy explanations of something that is briefly and well described in the other language. At times, it is easier to use some L2 emotion words that had been learned in the L2 sociolinguistic setting. Rosaldo (1984) noticed that emotions are not isolated notions but they are incorporated into our life and language. Accordingly, they are referred to as “feelings and cognitive constructions, linking person, action, and sociological milieu” (Rosaldo, 1984, p.304). That would suggest that emotions are culture-specific. On the other hand, Ekman (1973, 1992) demonstrated that some basic emotions, such as joy, surprise, contempt, sadness, anger, disgust and fear, are universal. In the study (Ekman, 1973) involving two preliterate tribes of New Guinea, the informants were asked to select a story that best described a particular facial expression. The results from his study (Ekman, 1973), as well as other studies that included literate, industrialised societies (Ekman & Friesen, 1986; Ekman & Heider, 1988; Matsumoto, 1992), constituted evidence in support of universality. However, other studies (Panayiotou, 2004; Parks, 1996; Wierzbicka, 1992) provided evidence that some emotions are culture- and language-specific, as shown in the case of Polish tęsknota (Wierzbicka, 1992), Russian perezhivat (Pavlenko & Driagina, 2007), Greek stenahoria (Panayiotou, 2004) or Italian fare festa a qualcuno (Parks, 1996). Wierzbicka (2004, p. 94) claimed that:

…the vocabulary of emotions is undoubtedly different from language to language. This means that the set of concepts by means of which the speakers of any given language make sense of their own and other people’s feelings is specific to a particular language.

Wierzbicka (1999) also suggested that concepts which are language- and culture-specific are related to other independently identifiable cultural attitudes and cultural values that are learned behaviours, transmitted culturally, much like languages. The debate concerning whether emotions are universal or culture-specific implies a binary decision between universality and specificity. However, it has already been suggested that emotions could be both culture-specific and recognisable in all cultures. Evans (2001, p.11) suggests that:

Our common emotional heritage binds humanity together in a way that transcends cultural difference. In all places and all times, human beings have shared the same basic emotional repertoire. Different cultures have elaborated on this repertoire, exalting different emotion downgrading others, and embellishing the common feelings of cultural nuances.

This duality would explain the reason for the ability to recognise basic emotions among various cultures while, at the same time, experiencing and learning new emotions when being immersed in a foreign language and culture. Russell (1991) proposed that the categorisation of emotions involves words and this labelling might have an effect on subsequent cognitive processes such as encoding, responding and remembering emotions. This cross-linguistic variability of emotion terms may suggest that people who speak different languages have different conceptual representations of emotions (Stepanova Sachs & Coley, 2006: 209). Furthermore, it is possible that the bilinguals and L2 users change their perception of emotions due to the immersion in the L2 culture. The present study addresses the perception of L1 Polish culture-specific emotion of tęsknota by both bilinguals and L2 users of English who were immersed in the L2 culture and those Polish L2 users who have never been abroad. Lantolf (1999) notes that immersion in the second culture plays an important role in the L2 learners’ and bilinguals’ ability to construct conceptual organisations and lexical paradigms similar to those of native speakers. The question arises whether it may also influence the conceptual organisations that are already constructed in our L1.

Immersion in the L2 culture in relation to bilingualism

Learning another language entails more than just learning linguistic structures (Regan, Howard, & Lemée, 2009). Snow (1999) suggests that apart from the cognitive aspects of L2 learning the societal context of bilingualism also has to be acquired. The majority of the world’s population tends to be members of more than one language community and interacts to a greater or lesser extent with other communities (Regan et al., 2009). Consequently, the issue of language socialisation in second language acquisition (SLA) is receiving increasing attention as “cognition itself is constructed and shaped in the context of experience and through social interaction” (Watson-Gageo & Nielsen, 2003: 156; cf. Regan et al., 2009). Lucy (1992) demonstrated that one might perceive a word differently depending upon the language spoken. He showed that language has an influence on the way humans think about the world around them in a comparative study of English and Yucatec Mayan, a language that lacks count-mass syntax. Lucy (1992) used a similarity judgement task in which subjects compared one entity to two others, one similar on a shape dimension and the other on a material dimension (e.g. a cardboard box followed by a piece of cardboard and a plastic box). He found that Yucatec Mayan subjects demonstrated a strong preference for the material choice, while English subjects consistently favoured the shape choice (cf. Ożańska-Ponikwia, 2013). Meanwhile, Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) suggested that there are at least eight conceptual domains, namely objects, emotions, personhood, gender, number, time, space and motion, in which cross-linguistic differences are clearly manifested. They also stated that in the case of bilinguals and multilinguals the conceptual development and change are dynamic processes that are shaped through their socialisation into new discursive communities (Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2008: 153). This was clearly presented in a study conducted by Athanasopoulos (2009) that investigated the domain of colour in Greek–English bilinguals with different levels of bilingualism and English monolinguals. Greek differentiates the blue region of colour space into a darker shade called “ble” and a lighter shade called “ghalazio”. He found a semantic shift of category prototypes with the level of bilingualism and acculturation; the way bilinguals judged the perceptual similarity between within- and cross-category stimulus pairs depended strongly on the availability of the relevant colour terms in semantic memory, and the amount of time spent in the L2-speaking country (Athanasopoulos, 2009: 83; cf. Ożańska-Ponikwia, 2013). These studies may suggest that cognition is tightly linked to semantic memory for specific linguistic categories and to cultural immersion in the L2-speaking country. As mentioned by Athanasopoulos (2009) and Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008), some non-linguistic variables such as acculturation also play a significant role in the bilingual cognitive shift.

Emotional Intelligence in relation to immersion in the L2 culture

The next important factor that contributes not only to perception of emotions in L1 and L2 but also to the immersion and general adjustment in the L2 culture is Emotional Intelligence (EI). Mayer and Salovey (1993) define EI as “a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (p. 433). Hence, EI relates to a number of non-cognitive skills, abilities or competencies that impact on an individual’s ability to deal with environmental demands and pressures (Rahim & Psenicka, 2002; cited in Harrison & Voelker, 2008: 71). Certain higher-order personality traits, such as Extraversion or Openness, might have an influence on the frequency of L2 use (Klein, 1995). Consequently, the amount of contact with the language and its culture might result in a greater or lesser acculturation or affective socialisation, which on the other hand, has an impact on the bilingual cognitive shift (Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2008). Ożańska-Ponikwia and Dewaele (2012) suggested that progress in L2 depends not just on the immersion in it but also on the L2 user’s basic inclination to seek out social interactions in that language. They reported that, in the group of Polish immigrants in Ireland and the UK, Openness and Self-esteem were significant predictors of frequency of use of English L2. Further, Harrison and Voelker (2008) investigated the cross-cultural adjustment of students studying abroad and the associated impact of two personality variables – EI and Entrepreneurial Attitude orientation. Their study showed that these two dimensions of EI play an important role in the general adjustment of students studying abroad. The results indicated that the individuals with a higher self-emotional appraisal, a higher emotional appraisal of others and a higher use of emotion exhibited stronger general adjustment than those who scored lower on these dimensions. Similarly, those who scored higher on the regulation of emotion tended to have stronger general adjustment. It was also claimed by Ożańska-Ponikwia (2012) that some EI traits, such as Emotion expression, Empathy, Social awareness, Emotion perception, Emotion management, Emotionality and Sociability, had an effect on self-perceived changes in behaviour or body language that occurred while a foreign language was used. These results showed the complexity of the relationship between language, culture and emotions, suggesting that both higher- and lower-order personality traits should be incorporated into further research on various aspects of bilingualism and L2 use (Ożańska-Ponikwia, 2012).

Bilingualism and perception of emotions

Pavlenko and Driagina (2007) researched the use of Russian emotion words among Russian monolinguals, American L2 learners of Russian and Russian–English bilinguals. They used a narrative elicitation of two short films in order to investigate the non-equivalent emotion words. They have identified two verbs that were very difficult for the learners: the intransitive verb perezhivat’ “to suffer, to worry, to experience something keenly” and the intransitive reflexive and relational verb serdit’sia “to be cross/angry at someone”. Perezhivat’ caused difficulties due to the lack of its semantic equivalent in English, while serdit’sia was difficult because it refers to a narrow set of meanings. The learners mapped it onto a partial translation equivalent, angry, that corresponds to a much broader concept (Pavlenko & Driagina, 2007, p. 228). Pavlenko and Driagina (2007) suggested that, in the process of foreign language acquisition, learners could shift the pattern of their structural choices. Further, they found that monolingual Russian speakers systematically used the term perezhivat’ to describe the feelings of the main characters in the film, whereas American L2 learners of Russian and Russian–English bilinguals residing in the USA did not use the term at all (Pavlenko, 2009, p. 139). These results pointed to a cross-linguistic influence that affects both the lexical selection in the L2 mental lexicon and the acquisition of L2 emotion vocabulary. In another study, Stepanova Sachs and Coley (2006) observed a small influence of language on the conceptual structure. A conceptual shift in the performance of Russian–English bilinguals displayed an L2 influence on L1 performance. The informants of their study used in their Russian narratives a combination of change-of-state verbs and adjectives to describe emotions as states, rather than as processes which would be typical for the Russian language. Panayiotou (2004) investigated the verbal construction of emotions in a bilingual/bicultural setting, the target languages and cultures being American English and Cypriot Greek. The study was carried out with 10 bilingual/bicultural professionals who were presented with a scenario, first in English and a month later in Greek, and their verbal reactions were recorded. The participants’ responses were then analysed according to three questions: (1) whether they translate from one language to the other; (2) whether and when code-switching occurs; (3) whether there is a pattern in the use of emotion words. The analysis of the results showed that respondents displayed different reactions to the same story depending on the language of the presentation. The paper argued that participants changed their social code, that is, sociocultural expectations, with the change in the linguistic code. Emotions or emotion concepts are at least partly dependent on the sociocultural context, in that they are learned and determined by patterns of experience and expression. Bilinguals adopt certain emotions as they learn the sociocultural significance that they carry in a specific system (Panayiotou, 2004). Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) suggested that L2 might influence the use of emotions in L1. In the case of Polish and English, the two languages differ in the dominant morphosyntactic patterns of emotion encoding. In Polish, emotions are commonly referred to by verbs whereas in English, emotions are most often expressed by means of adjectives (Wierzbicka, 1992). This difference might suggest that the emotion adjectives and participles most commonly used in English refer to emotions as inner states, whereas verbs refer to processes in which one engages (Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2008). The way we perceive and describe a given emotion, through the lenses of a particular language, has an influence on our linguistic behaviour. This study examines the perception of L1 culture-specific emotion tęsknota among Polish–English bilinguals and Polish L2 users of English with the focus on the previously described variables, such as immersion in the L2 language and culture, EI and frequency of L1/L2 use.

The culture-specific Polish emotion of tęsknota

The culture-specific Polish emotions of tęsknota (noun) and tęsknić (verb) have no simple monolexemic English equivalents. Several English words may form the potential translation equivalents, including “homesickness”, “longing”, “missing”, “pining” or “nostalgia”, but they all differ from one another and from the original Polish term. Wierzbicka (1992) provides a detailed analysis of tęsknota:

If a teenage daughter leaves the family home and goes to study in a distant city, her Polish parents would usually “tęsknić”, but one could not say that they were “homesick” for the daughter that they felt “nostalgia” for her, and one would hardly say that they were “pining” after her. One could say that they “missed” her, but miss implies much less than “tęsknić”. One could say to a friend, “We missed you at the meeting”, without wishing to imply that anything remotely similar to pain or suffering (in fact, the best gloss I have come across is “the pain of distance”). The word miss implies neither pain nor distance. For example, one can “miss” someone who has died (“My grandmother died recently. You have no idea how much I miss her”). But one would not use “tęsknić” in a case like this, because “tęsknić” implies a real separation in space. In this respect, “tęsknić” is related to “homesick”. But of course “homesick” implies that experience himself of herself has gone far away from the target of the emotion. (…) “Pining” differs from “tęsknić”, above all, in its single-mindedness and its, so to speak, deliberating effect. Furthermore, “pining” does not refer to separation in space. (…) “Longing” doesn’t refer to separation in space either. More importantly, however, it is future-oriented and includes no reference to the past or to the present. For example, one can “long” to have a baby, but “tęsknić” cannot be used like that. In addition to the basic difference between “long” and “tęsknić”, there seem to be two further ones: “long” is more helpless (“I can’t do anything”), and yet is less painful than “tęsknić’”(…) (1992, pp. 121–123).

Thus, Wierzbicka (1992) describes in detail the differences in meaning between tęsknota and possible English translation equivalents, demonstrating that tęsknota (noun) or tęsknić (verb) is indeed a culture-specific Polish emotion. She claims that the feeling of tęsknota could only be felt in Polish, being a socioculturally determined pattern of experience and expression, which is featured in specific social situations.

Research question

The present study aims to research perception of the L1 culture-specific emotion of tęsknota among late bilinguals and L2 users of English who were immersed in the L2 language and culture as well as among the control group that consisted of informants who had never been abroad. The following research question is addressed in this paper:

How does the immersion in a foreign language and culture influence perception of the L1 culture-specific emotion of tęsknota?

Methodology

In the present study, both quantitative and qualitative methods were implemented. The qualitative methods were used in order to elicit the Polish culture-specific emotion of tęsknota by means of presenting the description of the given emotion in L1 and L2. The description was first pilot tested among the native speakers of Polish with no command of English to ensure that there was no cross-linguistic influence between the languages. Later on, the Polish description was translated into English and the participants of the study were presented with two short descriptions in L1 and L2, representing a culture-specific emotion of tęsknota. Three questionnaires (Personal background questionnaire; L1 and L2 use questionnaire, Trait Emotional Intelligence questionnaire (TEIQue)) were used to gather sociobiographical and EI data.

Participants of the study

The informants of the study were divided into two groups. The first group was the “control” group, consisting of Polish L2 users of English who had never been abroad; the second was the “immersion” group consisting of Polish L2 users of English and Polish–English bilinguals who had lived in an English-speaking country (ESC) longer than six months. In addition, the research project included two pilot groups. The first group consisted of Polish native speakers with no command of English (n = 22; 50% females 50% males; age mean = 62). The informants of this group were presented with the Polish version of the description and were asked to elicit the emotion presented in it. The second pilot group consisted of native speakers of English (n = 25; 10 males and 15 females; age mean = 25.2).This group was presented with the English version of the description. Due to the fact that both pilot groups were included in order to elicit the researched emotion in the subsequent languages, the only criterion used while recruiting informants of these groups was no command of any foreign languages.

Next, the two groups of informants, the “control” group and the “immersion” group, are presented in detail.

The “control” group

The “control” group consisted of 35 informants who had never been abroad. More than two thirds of the participants were females. Their age varied from 20 to 57 with two thirds of the sample being in their 20s, 25% being in their 30s and the remaining 5% being either in their 40s or 50s (Mean = 28.1, SD = 7.1). As far as the educational level was concerned, 20% of the sample had vocational education, 20% reported secondary education, more than a half had a Bachelor of Arts degree and the remaining 5% had only primary education (Mean = 3.2, SD = .9). Their self-perceived L2 proficiency varied from the pre-intermediate level (11%) to fluency (52%), with one fourth rating themselves as pre-intermediate and the remaining 12% as upper-intermediate (Mean = 4.2, SD = 1.3). As far as the EI scores were concerned, almost one quarter of the informants scored below 4 on a seven-point Likert scale, 61% scored between 4 and 5 and the remaining 17% above 5 (Mean = 4.5, SD = .4). Half of the respondents reported they did not read, write, converse or listen to English on an everyday basis; 13% of that group claimed to do it from time to time and the remaining 33% reported they used English on a daily basis (Mean = 2.7, SD = 1.1). As far as using Polish on an everyday basis was concerned,70% of the informants used Polish all the time throughout the day, 10% did it quite often and 20% used Polish only occasionally (people who use English at work or at home with their partners) (Mean = 4.2, SD = 1.1).

The “immersion” group

There were 62 informants in the “immersion” group. Two thirds were females and one third were males. Their age varied from 17 to 58 years with two thirds of the sample being in their 20s, 23% in their 30s and the remaining 10% in their 40s or 50s (Mean = 29.1, SD = 7.9). More than a half of the informants held a Bachelor of Arts degree (58%), 8% a Master of Arts degree, 8% had received secondary education and one quarter reported receiving vocational education (Mean = 3.4, SD = 1). As far as self-perceived L2 proficiency is concerned, 6% rated their L2 proficiency on the intermediate level, 27% as upper-intermediate and the remaning 67% as fluent (Mean = 4.5, SD = .6). Almost one quarter of the participants had lived in an ESC for up to 12 months, 37% reported living in an ESC from 12 to 24 months and the remaining 39% had lived in an ESC between 24 and 324 months (Mean = 40.3, SD = 54). EI varied from 3.37 to 5.86, with 11% of informants scoring below 4 on a seven-point Likert scale, 63% scoring between 4 and 5 and the remaning quarter of the participants of the study scoring above 5 (Mean = 4.6, SD = .6). None of the results were above 6 points. As far as the use of English on an everyday basis was concerned, 36% of the informants claimed to use English all the time throughout the day, 40% reported to use it most of the time, 17% used their L2 only from time to time and the remaning 7% did not use it at all (Mean = 3.7, SD = .9). While examining using Polish on an everyday basis, more than half of the informants admitted to use it all the time, 23% to using it very often throughout the day, 17% used Polish from time to time and the remaining 6% did not use Polish at all (Mean = 3.9, SD = .9).

Selection and recruitment

The aim of the present study was to find heterogeneous groups of informants that would fulfil the following requirements. In the case of the pilot groups, the only requirement was no command of any foreign languages. In the case of the “control” group, the requirement was not having travelled abroad. In the case of the “immersion” group the requirement was living in the ESC for longer than six months. The control group and the immersion group were almost identical as far as self-perceived L2 proficiency, gender, age, EI and educational level is concerned. The only measured variables that differed in both groups were the degree of L2 use as well as immersion in the L2 language and culture. Detailed comparison of both groups is presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

“Control” group and “Immersion” group – comparison.

	“Control” group	“Immersion” group
Gender	70% females 30% males	70% females 30% males
Age	Mean = 28.1, SD = 7.1	Mean = 29.1, SD = 7.9
Self-perceived L2 proficiency	Mean = 4.2, SD = 1.3	Mean = 4.5, SD = .6
Educational level	Mean = 3.2, SD = .9	Mean = 3.4, SD = 1
Emotional intelligence	Mean = 4.5, SD = .4	Mean = 4.6, SD = .6
Use of English	Mean = 2.7, SD = 1.1	Mean = 3.7, SD = .9
Use of Polish	Mean = 4.2, SD = 1.1	Mean = 3.9, SD = .9

Materials and questionnaires analysed in the present study

In the present study, three questionnaires (Personal background questionnaire; L1 and L2 use questionnaire, TEIQue) as well as one open task were used. All questionnaires were in Polish (informants’ L1) to avoid comprehension difficulties. Both groups were to elicit emotion presented in a short description; however, only the “immersion” group was presented with the L1 and the L2 version of the description as the computer program would activate the presentation of the description in both languages only after reporting travelling to or living in the ESC. The “control” group was presented only with the L1 version of the description. A detailed description of the materials is presented below.

Personal background questionnaire

The personal background questionnaire comprised 10 questions measuring age, gender, self-perceived L2 proficiency, the length of stay (LGS) in an ESC educational level and travelling abroad. An additional short test was introduced to ensure that informants were Polish native speakers. It comprised eight Polish emotions and their definitions. Informants were asked to match an emotion and its definition. Only those who scored 75% or above (six out of eight) were invited to complete the remainder of the questionnaire. As the present research focuses on the data elicited from Polish monolinguals, Polish–English bilinguals and Polish L2 users of English, it was crucial to ensure that the respondents of the online questionnaire were Polish native speakers. A further analysis of the participants’ responses to both questionnaire items and open-ended questions demonstrated that all respondents were Polish native speakers.

L1 and L2 use questionnaire

The L1 and L2 use scale was devised in order to measure the frequency of L1 and L2 use by bilinguals and L2 users in different, everyday situations. It consisted of nine statements for each language, requiring participants to choose between the following responses: 1 − Never, 2 − Sometimes, 3 − I don’t know, 4 − Quite often 5 − Very often. The items for the L2 version were: “How often do you use English at work?”; “How often do you use English at home?”; “How often do you use English at school?”; “How often do you use English when you talk to your friends?”; “How often do you use English in everyday situations?”; “How often do you use English for praising?”; “How often do you use English to maintain discipline?”; “How often do you use English when you talk to your partner?”; “How often do you use English when you talk to your children?”. The same questions, eliciting the frequency of use of Polish, were asked in the L1 version of the questionnaire. The Cronbach’s α for the questionnaire measuring L2 use comprising nine items was .768. The Cronbach’s α for the questionnaire measuring L1 use comprising nine items was .756. The scale was incorporated into the current research in order to determine the degree of socialisation into L2 language and culture as well as the degree of the L1 use among bilinguals and L2 users who live in an ESC.

Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire

Trait EI (or emotional self-efficacy) concerns a constellation of emotion-related self-perceptions and dispositions (Davey, 2005: 306). The construct itself posits the existence of actual or perceived differences in the extent to which people attend to, process and utilise affect-laden information (Davey, 2005: 306). As mentioned by Ożańska-Ponikwia (2013), the TEIQue measures Global trait EI by incorporating four factors of broader relevance and 15 facets measured through 15 subscales. In Table 2 are listed short descriptions of all facets, obtained from the TEIQue official website (Petrides, 2001–2010).

Table 2.

The sampling domain of trait emotional intelligence adapted from the official Trait Emotional Intelligence questionnaire website (2001–2010).

Facets	High scorers perceive themselves as…
Adaptability	Flexible and willing to adapt to new conditions
Assertiveness	Forthright, frank and willing to stand up for their rights
Emotion perception	Clear about their own and other people’s feelings
Emotion expression	Capable of communicating their feelings to others
Emotion management (others)	Capable of influencing other people’s feelings
Emotion regulation	Capable of controlling their emotions
Impulsiveness (low)	Reflective and less likely to give in to their urges
Relationships	Capable of having fulfilling personal relationships
Self-esteem	Successful and self-confident
Self-motivation	Driven and unlikely to give up in the face of adversity
Social awareness	Accomplished networkers with excellent social skills
Stress management	Capable of withstanding pressure and regulating stress
Trait empathy	Capable of taking someone else’s perspective
Trait happiness	Cheerful and satisfied with their lives
Trait optimism	Confident and likely to “look on the bright side” of life

The TEIQue used in the present study comprised 153 items rated on seven-point Likert scale from “completely disagree” to “completely agree” with a mid-point of “neither agree nor disagree”. It was used in the Polish adaptation created by Wytykowska and Petrides (2007).

Situation description task

The situation description task used a short story presented in participants’ L1 (Polish) and L2 (English) in order to elicit the Polish culture-specific emotion of tęsknota. This idea of incorporating the emotion to a short story description was inspired by Pavlenko’s (2002) study that required English–Russian bilinguals and Russian monolinguals to retell the short movie reflecting on the notion of “privacy” and “personal space” that are nonexistent in Russian but present in English language. In the present study, tęsknota was presented in a short description in participants’ L1 (Polish) and L2 (English). Informants were asked to state “What kind of emotion does X feel?” after reading the English story and “Jakie emocje odczuwa Y?” (“What kind of emotion does Y feel?”), after reading the version in Polish. The Polish version of the story was pilot tested among the informants who had never been abroad, to determine whether their answers would differ from the elicited answers of the Polish–English bilinguals and L2 users who had spent some time abroad, and had, to some extent, been socialised into L2 culture and language. The English version of the story was presented to the group of native speakers of English in order to compare the results obtained by both groups of informants analysed in this study.

The English version of the description used is presented below:

X is on a scholarship in the USA. He hasn’t seen his wife and children for about a year. He constantly thinks about them. He phones home every other day. Sometimes he feels that he can’t stay in the USA even a minute longer. When he’s all alone, he cries sometimes.

Data analysis

Elicitation of the Polish culture-specific emotion of “tęsknota”

The research hypothesis considered the influence of the immersion in the L2 language and culture measured by the length of stay in an ESC on the perception of the L1 culture-specific emotion of tęsknota. After reading two short descriptions in Polish and English, participants were asked to provide the given emotion. On the basis of the information provided, all answers were analysed and grouped according to the emotion elicited by informants. A detailed data analysis is presented below.

Results from the pilot groups

In the first pilot group that consisted of Polish native speakers, 100% of participants enumerated tęsknota as the emotion presented in the short description. In the second pilot group, which consisted of English native speakers, 80% of the informants pointed to “loneliness” whereas the remaining 20% enumerated “sadness” as the emotion presented in the short description. What is interesting is the fact that neither “loneliness” nor “sadness” were presented by Wierzbicka (1992) in her detailed analysis of the closest possible translations/equivalents of tęsknota, where she uses such emotion terms as “nostalgia”, “longing”, “pining” or “homesickness”.

The results gathered in the pilot study could not be used in the main data analysis due to the small sample size and the lack of important data concerning participants’ sociobiographical background, but they formed a point of reference when comparing the results of the native speakers of Polish and English.

“Control” group – analysis of answers

None of the participants in this group had ever visited or lived in an ESC where English was used on an everyday basis. Therefore, the informants were only presented with the Polish description of the situation, as the computer program would only activate that option after participants reported not having travelled abroad, visited or lived in an ESC. It is important to highlight the fact that the informants of this group knew English to varying degrees and, therefore, could not be considered as monolinguals, but rather as L2 users.

The answers of the informants from the control group, presented in the Table 3, were identical and 100% of them enumerated tęsknota as the emotion felt by Y in the short description. It was interesting to see that all the participants reported the same emotion being presented in the story, which was in line with the results obtained from the Polish monolingual group. This could suggest that the knowledge of the foreign language did not influence the perception of the culture- specific emotion of tęsknota among L2 users of English who never travelled to, visited or lived in an ESC.

Table 3.

Answers of the “control” group to the question eliciting the Polish culture-specific emotion of “tęsknota” in Polish.

	Frequency	Percent
Tęsknota	35	100

“Immersion” group – analysis of answers

After analysing answers according to the provided emotion term, the majority of answers could be divided into five emotion categories for the Polish version and seven emotions categories for the English one. A detailed analysis of findings is provided below.

Emotions elicited in the Polish version of the story

Participants’ responses to a question eliciting the emotion felt by a character presented in a short story are presented in Table 4. All but one emotion of tęsknota, which is a culture-specific Polish emotion, could be translated into English. Thus, Polish emotion words and their nearest possible English translations were as follows: nostalgia was translated as “nostalgia”, samotność as “loneliness”, smutek as “sadness” and niepokój as “anxiety”. Figure 1 graphically presents the findings.

Table 4.

Answers of the “immersion” group to the question eliciting the Polish culture-specific emotion of “tęsknota” in Polish.

	Frequency	Percent
Tęsknota	51	81.36
Samotność/Loneliness	5	8.47
Smutek/Sadness	4	6.78
Nostalgia	1	1.69
Niepokój/Anxiety	1	1.69
Total	62	100.0

Figure 1.

Results of the “immersion” group – Polish version of the description.

In terms of frequency of these categorised emotions, 81% of the informants chose tęsknota as the elicited emotion, the second most frequent choice (9%) was “loneliness”, fewer than 2% chose “nostalgia”or “anxiety”, while the remaining 7% perceived “sadness” as the emotion presented in the short description. It could be observed that there is a difference in the percentage of the informants who pointed to tęsknota as the emotion presented in the story in comparison with the control group, where all participants decided that this was the relevant emotion.

Emotions elicited in the English version of the story

The frequencies of emotion terms produced in response to the English version of the story are presented in Figure 2 and Table 5.

Figure 2.

Results of the “immersion” group – English version of the description.

Table 5.

Answers of the “immersion” group to the question eliciting the Polish culture-specific emotion of “tęsknota” in English.

	Frequency	Percent
Loneliness	23	36.84
Homesickness	14	22.81
Sadness	12	19.30
Tęsknota	9	14.04
Longing	2	3.51
Anger	1	1.75
Depression	1	1.75
Total	62	100.0

The most frequent answer given by the participants in this group was “loneliness” (37%), then “homesickness”, which was chosen by almost one quarter of the respondents. “Sadness” was selected by almost 20% of the respondents and tęsknota by 14%. Two informants decided to point to “longing”, one to “anger” and the remaning one to ”depression”. The most interesting finding is that 14% of the respondents decided that the best option was to use the Polish term tęsknota, which according to Wierzbicka (1992) constitutes a Polish culture-specific emotion. The fact of choosing the other language from that of the test could mean that participants were not able to find an appropriate emotion word in their English lexicon either because of the nonexistence of such a concept in English or because of low L2 proficiency.

It is worth noting that there was a difference in the frequency and type of answers not only between the “control” group and the “immersion” group of informants who had spent some time in an ESC, but also within the latter group. This suggests that spending some amount of time in an ESC and socialising into the L2 culture and language might change the perception of L1 culture-specific emotions. Bearing in mind the reults obtained by the group of native speakers of English (80% pointed to ”loneliness” whereas the remaining 20% enumerated “sadness” as the emotion presented in the short description) it could be concluded that the largest percentage of the “immersion” group pointed to the same emotion of ”loneliness” in the English version of the story. The second biggest choice was ”homesickness”, which might have resulted from the fact that it would be the nearest and most frequently used translation of the tęsknota into English. The third choice is “sadness”, and this also follows the responses of the English native group. The detailed description of the differences between various possible options of translating tęsknota into English showed that neither “sadness” nor “loneliness” would be the nearest possible equivalents of tęsknota existing in English. “Homesickness”, the only term mentioned by Wierzbicka (1999), was used by the informants of the study who lived in an ESC for more than six months. This might explain the reference to this emotion even if native speakers of English would not opt for such a choice while describing the emotion presented in the short description.

Discussion

Pavlenko (2004) states that L2 socialisation might result in the perception of the other language(s) as equally, if not more, emotional than the first. On the other hand, Wierzbicka (2004) suggests that emotion terms of the L2 may not have the subjective force that has been acquired by the L1 through their existential, autobiographical grounding. In this respect, using the Polish culture-specific emotion term of tęsknota in a context where only the emotion terms in English were required as well as using the emotion term “homesickness”, even if this option was not taken into consideration by the native speakers of English, could suggest that the bilinguals’ emotions have been moulded, to some extent, by the expressive devices (lexical and grammatical) of their L1. The terms of the L2 do not match those of the L1, and they may not match the speaker’s emotions, which have been shaped and coloured by the first language (Wierzbicka, 2004).

Clear linguistic differences emerged between Polish L2 users of English who had never been abroad and Polish–English bilinguals/L2 users who had spent time in an ESC in terms of the perception of the L1 culture-specific emotion of tęsknota. It is notable that the elicitation of culture-specific L1 emotions in the group who had spent some time in an ESC country “moved” towards elicitation of the same emotion in English rather than towards the results of the control group. On the basis of this finding, it could be speculated that residence in an ESC and socialisation in the L2 culture and language could have an impact on the perception of L1 emotions. This may be caused by language dominance and the process of undergoing affective socialisation in L2 (Pavlenko, 2006). As for those informants who claim that L2 is their dominant language, the perception of the L1 emotion would take place through L2 cultural and emotional scripts. This could account for the greater similarity in answers elicited in L2 and L1 of the same group of bilinguals/L2 users. Stepanova Sachs and Coley (2006), who claim that bilinguals’ familiarity with L2 emotion labels alters bilinguals’ conceptual representation of these emotions, reported similar findings. Overall, the results provide clear evidence for linguistic differences in Polish and English emotion scripts and in the manner in which they map onto emotion-laden situations. The qualitative data analysis showed that immersion in a foreign language and culture might result in a conceptual shift in perception of the L1 culture-specific emotion tęsknota.

Ożańska-Ponikwia (2012) suggested that EI should be taken into account while researching various aspects of bilingualism, especially while focusing on emotions or emotion concepts. In the case of the present study, both researched groups (“control” group and “immersion” group) were similar as far as the distribution of EI is concerned; therefore, no such influences could be noted. However, at the same time, it could be suggested that the differences in the perception of culture-specific Polish emotion of tęsknota in the present study could be attributed solely to the immersion and socialisation factor. The informants of the “immersion” group reported using L2 more frequently than the respondents in the “control” group. At the same time, it is worth noticing that the degree of the L1 use was similar in both groups. Therefore, the only measured variables that differed in both groups were the immersion in the L2 culture and the degree of L2 use.

According to Lucy (1997), while considering the influence of language on thought, both verbal and nonverbal behaviours need to be taken into consideration. It has already been stated that that language has an influence on the way individuals think about the world and that it can influence even non-linguistic thought in areas such as perception of motion, colour or of different types of objects (Lucy, 1992). In regards to verbal behaviour, current research supports the claim that it is necessary to acknowledge the possibility of the influence of particular languages on the speaker’s construction and perception of the world due to participation in alternative discourses (Pavlenko, 2005). This study has found that the knowledge of a foreign language might not have a direct influence on perception of L1 culture-specific emotion. It was shown that the combination of the L2 knowledge as well as its frequent use outside the classroom (immersion in the L2 language and culture) changes the perception of the Polish culture-specific emotion of tęsknota. The results across the Polish “control” group were identical and the description elicited the culture-specific emotion of tęsknota in all cases, whereas the “immersion” group results were more diverse and reflected the emotion terms used in their L2 more than in their L1. Similar results demonstrating L2 users and bilinguals adopting L2 ways of expressing emotions have been noted in earlier studies (Panayiotou, 2004; Pavlenko, 2002; Pavlenko and Driagina, 2007; Stepanova Sachs & Coley, 2006). This suggests that L2 learning and socialisation into new discourses may result in the assimilation of new perspectives. It also invites speculation that with the acquisition of a foreign language and immersion in its culture, perception and thought may change.

Concluding remarks

The present contribution claims that the socialisation into L2 culture and language might play a crucial role in the complex process of interplay of languages and cultures in the expression and perception of emotions. It was shown that such cultural and linguistic socialisation could alter not only the emotionality of the foreign language, allowing for greater expression of oneself in a second language, but also the perception of emotions in the first language. This study also highlights the importance of incorporating the EI variable into future research on various aspects of bilingualism and perception and expression of emotions, as it might contribute to creating a better understanding of this complex phenomenon. In the future, a replication study should be conducted with a larger sample to make the results more generalisable.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Katarzyna Ożańska-Ponikwia works as the Assistant Professor at the University of Bielsko-Biała, Poland. Her main research interests include bilingualism as well as the relationship between personality traits, emotional intelligence and perception/expression of emotions. She has published a book Emotions from a Bilingual Point of View. Personality and Emotional Intelligence in Relation to Perception and Expression of Emotions in the L1 and L2 (2013). She has also published in international journals of the fields of bilingualism and second language acquisition.

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