Expression and perception of emotions by Polish–English bilinguals I love you vs. Kocham Cię

ABSTRACT

The present article aims to focus on the perception and expression of emotions by Polish immigrants to England and Ireland. The informants of the study were 72 Polish–English bilinguals living in England and Ireland from 1 to 324 months. Data analysis discussed emotional expression in the L2 as well as perception of such emotional statement as I love you and its Polish equivalent Kocham Cię. The results showed that even though the emotionality of the I love you phrase was stronger in the participants L1, perception of its emotionality in the L2 changed with the length of stay in an English-speaking country, self-perceived L2 proficiency and frequency of the L2 use. At the same time, statistical analysis revealed that the strongest predictors of the emotional expression in the L2 were such factors as socialisation into L2 culture and the degree of L2 use that accounted for almost 55% of the variance (adjusted R² = .554). Findings of this study suggest that socialisation process as well as self-perceived L2 proficiency and frequent L2 use might be the key factors determining successful communication of emotions in the foreign language.

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingualism
• immersion
• I love you
• expression and perception of emotions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Katarzyna Ożańska-Ponikwia is an Assistant Professor at the University of Bielsko-Biala. She obtained her PhD in Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her main research interests include bilingualism, second language acquisition, perception and expression of emotions in the L1 and L2 as well as personality and EI traits. She has delivered papers at many international conferences and has published in international journals on the fields of bilingualism and second language acquisition. She is also an author of a book Emotions form a Bilingual Point of View: Personality and Emotional Intelligence in Relation to Perception and Expression of Emotions in the L1 and L2 (2013).