Emotions and Multilingualism

Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction

by Aneta Pavlenko

How do bilinguals experience emotions? Do they perceive and express emotions similarly or differently in their respective languages? Does the first language remain forever the language of the heart? What role do emotions play in second language learning and in language attrition? Why do some writers prefer to write in their second language? In this provocative and ground-breaking book, Aneta Pavlenko challenges the monolingual bias of modern linguistics and psychology and uses the lens of bi- and multilingualism to offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between language and emotions. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers across many discplines.

Genres: Linguistics, Psychology, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 12, 2006

Reviews

[Gustė · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. ''City,'' I said. ''My beautiful city''. And the words slipped into my bloodstream and made it real and me intensely happy for the first time in a long time. For it was then that I saw that I, sad and confused and full of longing, through my new love for the new language, and through the renaming of things, could claim my stake in the New World.

2. 'I wanted to breathe in French with André, I wanted to sweat French sweat. It was the rhythm and pulse of his French I wanted, the body of it... Learning French and learning to think, learning to desire, is all mixed up in my head, until I can't tell the difference.'

3. 'But now the language has entered my body, has incorporated itself in the softest tissue of my being. ''Darling,'' I say to my lover, ''my dear,'' and the words are filled and brimming with the motions of my desire; they curve themselves within my mouth to the complex music of tenderness.'

4. 'When I fall in love, I am seduced by language.'

[Sibyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book about bilingualism when I wrote mine on same subject. “Emotions and multilingualism” is unique in his genre, an overview on how different languages may actually get different responses from the same subject. In this book Pavlenko does not limit the study to emotions but necessarily includes affections and behaviors as well. She investigates for example how a certain language, more than another can, in a multilingual subject, trigger feelings and memories, what language a patient may prefer or reject in psycho therapy, what’s the reason and meaning of code switching and much more.
This book is particularly interesting to all those who speak more than one language or have family or friends who do so. Reading it, you may finally understand why for example you basically curse in your first language but find it much easier to say “I love you” in your second language. Although it is a book written for academic purposes, it is highly readable but it is obviously not trivial literature: you have to be well motivated to get through the whole book.

[BuzzBuzz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for uni, but this was a lovely overview of the way that our multiple languages interact with identity and lived experiences. It talks about a lot of qualitative studies, not much from the "hard" sciences.

[Lilí Lanz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's a multidisciplinary discussion viewed from all the perspectives possible. At the same time, although it is an academic dissertation, the book is profoundly personal and emotional. The author shares her personal experiences, how she has dealt with her emotions during important events in her life either in Russian or English. This book in a way helped me to find myself, in my confidence to continue pursuing the topics of investigation I've been in since 2009, and in understanding my own conceptualization of emotions during part of my life.