The recall of culture : specific emotionally charged words by Arabic-English bilingual students -

Abstract

Research has shown that the distinct qualities of emotionally charged words make them more memorable than neutral words. This is known as the emotionality effect. Possible explanations for the emotionality effect include both cognitive and neurophysiological accounts. This effect is robust and has been demonstrated on monolinguals and bilinguals who speak Spanish-English, Turkish-English, Chinese-English, and Spanish-Catalan. The present study explored the emotionality effect on a sample of Arabic-English bilingual students. Additionally, it examined whether such an effect shown by universal emotionally charged words can occur for culture – specific emotionally charged words. Culture – specific emotionally charged words were defined as universally neutral words that nevertheless can evoke emotional reactions in certain cultures, similar to that elicited by universal emotionally charged words, due to their relevance to values, norms, and socio – political context of a specific society. In case of Lebanon, these words pertained to politics and religion. The present study conducted a 2 (Language of presentation: Arabic, English) x 3 (Word category: culture – specific emotionally charged words, emotionally charged words, neutral words) within – participant experimental design on word recall. 37 male students and 39 female students from the American University of Beirut were administered an online test. The test instructed them to rate the arousal level of 48 stimuli using a 5 – point Likert scale, to complete an L2 Language History Questionnaire, and to perform an unexpected free recall test. The results confirmed the emotionality effect, since emotionally charged words were recalled at a greater rate than neutral words, whether the language of presentation was Arabic (L1) or English (L2). Yet a larger emotionality effect occurred for L2 in comparison to L1, indicating that words in the second language of the participants were perceived as more emotional than words in the first