Seething with RageAffective Vocabulary of Anger in Autobiographical Memories of Spanish-German Bilinguals

Resum

This study analysed the affective vocabulary of anger in thewritten autobiographical memories of 60 adolescent Spanish-Germanbilinguals aged between 13 and 18. It also investigated the extent to whichthe age of onset in German and the amount of daily input and output inboth German and Spanish influence the emotional properties (i.e. valenceand arousal) of the words used to recall experiences of anger. The resultsshowed that the heritage language (i.e. Spanish) noticeably affectedthe retrieval and use of positive-valenced and high-arousal affectivevocabulary. Additionally, an earlier age of onset of the majority language(i.e. German) led to the use of a more varied affective vocabulary of angerin both Spanish and German. In contrast, the amount of daily languageinput and output did not influence the emotional properties of thevocabulary used to express anger. In light of these findings, it is possibleto conclude that early bilingualism has a positive effect on the affectivevocabulary of anger and that bilinguals might benefit from classroomtasks requiring the use of affective words and expressions.