Second Language as an Exemptor from Sociocultural Norms. Emotion-Related Language Choice Revisited

Bilinguals often switch languages depending on what they are saying. According to the Emotion-Related Language Choice theory, they find their second language an easier medium of conveying content which evokes strong emotions. The first language carries too much emotional power, which can be threatening for the speaker. In a covert experiment, bilingual Polish students translated texts brimming with expletives from Polish into English and vice versa. In the Polish translations, the swear word equivalents used were weaker than in the source text; in the English translations, they were stronger than in the original. These results corroborate the ERLC theory. However, the effect was only observed for ethnophaulisms, i.e. expletives directed at social groups. It turns out that the main factor triggering the language choice in bilinguals is not necessarily the different emotional power of both languages, but social and cultural norms.

双语使用者常会根据表达内容切换语言。根据情感相关语言选择理论（Emotion-Related Language Choice theory），他们认为第二语言是传递唤起强烈情感内容的更便捷媒介；而第一语言承载的情感强度过高，可能会对说话者构成威胁。在一项隐蔽实验中，波兰籍双语学生将充斥咒骂语的文本从波兰语译为英语，反之亦然。结果显示，在波兰语译文中，所使用的对应咒骂语强度弱于原文；而在英语译文中，对应咒骂语强度则强于原文。上述结果印证了情感相关语言选择理论（ERLC）。不过该效应仅在族群歧视性咒骂语（ethnophaulisms，即针对社会群体的咒骂语）中被观测到。研究表明，驱动双语使用者语言选择的核心因素未必是两种语言的情感强度差异，而是社会与文化规范。