How language and emotional intelligence shape judgements of real-life moral transgressions of first and foreign language users of English

Abstract

It has been argued that bilinguals are more likely to evaluate moral transgressions and murder scenariosless harshly in their LX than in their L1 due to differences in the emotionality of L1 and LX (e.g. Hayakawa etal., 2017). However, the mediating role of emotion in the relationship between moral judgements and language may have been assumed but has not yet been empirically demonstrated. Moreover, previous research almost exclusively used hypothetical scenarios that were exclusively presented in the written mode and that are unlikely to occur in real life (e.g. Costa et al., 2014; Driver, 2022). The current study isthe first one to employ real-life moral transgressions in an authentic audiovisual format to investigate how 209 bilingual Greek-English and 187 Hungarian-English speakers judge the severity of different types ofmoral transgressions (mild, medium, severe) in their L1 (Greek/Hungarian) versus LX (English), the degree to which these moral transgressions elicit emotions in these bilinguals, and the punishment they proposedto the perpetrators. Moreover, this study takes the role of individual differences into consideration byfocusing on emotional intelligence (EI). To this end, the Greek-English and Hungarian-English bilinguals, aswell as 256 British L1 users, were presented with six authentic TV news bulletins presenting moraltransgressions of mild, medium and extreme severity. The results revealed strong correlations between offensiveness, emotionality ratings and proposed punishments for the medium and extreme severity videos in both L1 and LX. However, the Greek and Hungarian participants who watched the videos in theirLX English reported lower offensiveness and emotionality ratings and opted for less harsh punishments forthe perpetrators than in their L1. Moreover, the role of language in moral decision-making was mediatedby emotional intensity, but only for the extreme severity stimuli. The results also suggest that higher levelsof emotional intelligence are linked with tougher judgments of offence seriousness and stronger emotionswhile watching real moral transgressions. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the moral foreign language effect in a number of realistic moral transgressions. They highlight the implications thatSLA have beyond language development itself and add to our understanding of the lived experience of bilingualism.