Volume 4 General Psychological Issues in Cultural Perspective Article 3

Issue 2 Language, Communication and Culture

7-2020

Culture, Language and Emotion

Alexandra S. Dylman
Stockholm University, asdylman@[Link]

Marie-France Champoux-Larsson
Mid Sweden University

Ingrid Zakrisson
Mid Sweden University

Follow this and additional works at: [Link]

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alex Dylman, Department of
Special Education, Stockholm University, Frescati Hagväg 10, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Email:
asdylman@[Link]

Recommended Citation
Dylman, A. S., Champoux-Larsson, M., & Zakrisson, I. (2020). Culture, Language and Emotion.
Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 4(2). [Link]

This Online Readings in Psychology and Culture Article is brought to you for free and open access (provided uses
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Culture, Language and Emotion

Abstract
Culture, language and emotion all influence and affect our daily lives in their own manner.
Although there is a large body of research suggesting that these factors interact with each
other in intricate ways, they have traditionally been studied independently of each other.
Furthermore, although biculturalism and bilingualism are not new phenomena, they are now
prevalent globally to the extent that research investigating culture or language cannot be
complete without taking them into account. Thus, in this paper, we discuss how culture,
language and emotion may mutually influence one another in a globalized world where
biculturalism and bilingualism are commonplace and suggest how future research could
investigate these individual factors jointly.

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iss2/3
 Dylman et al.: Culture, Language and Emotion

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
Nelson Mandela

Introduction

This paper will highlight the importance of considering the possible connections between
language, emotion, and culture. We live in a multilingual society with increasing globalization
where languages and cultures meet on a daily basis. How do these factors affect how we
perceive the world? In an attempt to answer this question, three major aspects that affect
our daily lives will need to be considered, namely our culture, the language(s) we use, and
our emotions. How are they interconnected, and how do these factors affect each other?
The fields of cultural psychology, psycholinguistics, and emotion have traditionally been
studied primarily independently from each other (see top row in Figure 1), however, there is
an increasing bulk of research showing noteworthy connections between them. In this
article, we will summarize some of the research investigating the interactions between
emotion and culture; language and emotion; and culture and language (see middle row in
Figure 1), before finally discussing the interaction between all three areas (see bottom row
in Figure 1) by presenting some research that has looked at this, and proposing future
directions for research investigating the interconnections between culture, language, and
emotion.

Emotion and Culture

A question that has instigated much debate in the field of emotion theory concerns the
universality of emotion. Are emotions universal across cultures, or are there cross-cultural
variations with regard to emotion? This section will lay out some of the research investigating
this question by comparing and contrasting the major emotion theories, historically as well
as concurrently.
Emotions are a broad concept which can be defined in several different ways and
often includes the feelings that we experience within us, that we express through various
channels (verbally, physically, etc.), and that we perceive, or at least infer, in others based
on cognitive and perceptual processes. While defining emotion and the dimensions involved
(and how these should be labelled) has been a matter of some debate throughout the years
(for an overview see Barrett & Russell, 1994), a common approach to studying emotions is
by defining emotion through the dimensions valence and arousal (see for example Bradley
& Lang, 1994; Lang 1969; Russell, 1980).

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Figure 1.
Disposition of the Current Article

How we express and interpret emotions, both internally and in others, varies in part as a
function of our culture (e.g., Chentsova-Dutton & Dzokoto, 2014; Chung & Robins, 2015;
Molina et al., 2014). Although we are quite skilled at inferring emotions in people from other
cultures based on, for instance, their facial movements (e.g., Prado et al., 2013), their body
language (e.g., Pavlenko, 2002; Sogon & Masutani, 1989) or even their tone of voice (e.g.,
Gendron et al., 2014; Kurbalija et al., 2018; Pell et al., 2009), we tend to be more accurate
when inferring the emotional state of people from our own culture. Basic, or universal,
emotion theories (e.g., Ekman, 1992 & 1993; Ekman & Friesen, 1971; Izard, 1971; Izard &
Malatesta, 1987) explain our ability to identify emotions in others across cultures by
suggesting that there are a limited number of basic emotions (traditionally happiness, anger,
sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, and even contempt) that are universally and innately
recognized. More recent work has proposed a greatly expanded set of basic emotions, such

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as Cowen and Keltner (2017) who reported 27 distinct categories of emotion. However,
basic emotion theories are sometimes argued to fall short of explaining why we nonetheless
are better at inferring emotions within our own culture (see Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002, for
a meta-analysis).
The dialect theory of emotions, which also postulates that there is a finite number of
basic and universal emotions, explains such cultural differences by suggesting that emotions
should be thought of as a universal language with several regional dialects (Elfenbein, 2013;
Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002; 2003; Elfenbein et al., 2007; Hess et al., 2013). In the same way
that we are better at understanding someone speaking our language with our own dialect,
we are better at perceiving emotions expressed by people sharing our “emotional dialect”
(Elfenbein, 2013; Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002; Elfenbein & Ambady, 2003; Elfenbein et al.,
2007; Hess et al., 2013). More recent work has also explored historical migration patterns
and has found that ancestral migration patterns can account for some of the current cultural
variation in emotional expressions (Niedenthal et al., 2019).
Nevertheless, the basic emotions perspectives are sometimes criticized based on
methodological concerns and conceptual issues (e.g., Gendron et al., 2018; Russell, 1994).
One point that is raised as being problematic is the basic emotions theories’ idea that there
are so few emotions (Russell, 1994). Appraisal theories, on the other hand, suggest that
there is a much larger number of basic emotions (Ellsworth, 2013; Mesquita et al., 1997;
Scherer, 1999). Furthermore, appraisal theories posit that the boundaries between discrete
emotions are not as definite as basic emotions theories suggest, and that an appraisal of
internal and external factors is required in order to experience a specific emotion (Ellsworth,
2013; Mesquita et al., 1997; Scherer, 1999). Appraisal is believed to be a continual and
dynamic process, which, in turn, implies that the emotion that is perceived or felt at any given
time is subject to constant changes (e.g., Ellsworth, 2013; Mesquita et al., 1997; Scherer,
1999). As for cultural differences, appraisal theories explain by suggesting that culture is a
major factor that influences how we appraise situations and, consequently, that culture
affects our emotional experiences through this appraisal (e.g., Ellsworth, 2013; Mesquita et
al., 1997; Scherer, 1999).
However, none of the theories above can satisfactorily account for the large amount
of evidence suggesting that emotions, just like any other abstract concept, are not basic but
rather learned during early childhood (e.g., Castro et al., 2016; Gross & Ballif, 1991; Morton
& Trehub, 2001; Widen, 2013; Widen & Russell, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010; Zieber et al.,
2013). This body of research does not imply that newborns and toddlers cannot feel
anything, but rather that what younger children can experience is different combinations of
varying degrees of (positive or negative) valence and of (high or low) arousal. Around age
four, however, children begin to conceptualize these experiences of valence and arousal as
discrete emotions (e.g., Gross & Ballif, 1991, Székely et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2014; Widen
& Russell, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010). Interestingly, this coincides with a stage of language
development when children incorporate emotion words into their vocabulary.
Meanwhile, these empirical findings are more easily accounted for by another type of
emotion theory, namely constructionist theories. Several constructionist theories posit that
words are a necessary ingredient for understanding and perceiving emotions (e.g.,

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Lindquist, 2013; Lindquist et al., 2014, 2015; Wilson-Mendenhall, 2017). Constructionists do

not suggest that we cannot otherwise experience various sensations, but rather that words
are one of the key elements that groups together disparate experiences and sensations into
concepts of discrete emotions (Lindquist et al., 2015). In other words, emotion words are
more than mere labels that we use to break down a continuum of sensations into discrete
emotions. Rather, they are the glue that holds together a panoply of experiences, which
otherwise would not necessarily have much in common, into a discrete emotion (Lindquist,
2009). Developmentally, this would explain why children before age 4 find it difficult to tell
apart emotions from the same valence, such as anger and sadness (e.g., Champoux-
Larsson et al., 2019, Russell & Bullock, 1986; Russell & Widen, 2002), even though these
discrete emotions sometimes have no or only a few features in common. Culturally, given
that language and culture are deeply intertwined, this could explain why an in-group
advantage is found in emotion inference (e.g., Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002; Wickline et al.,
2010). While different languages and cultures share many emotion words (which could
explain some of the consistency found across cultures), their meaning can nonetheless be
different across different languages and cultures (e.g., Goleman, 1995; Fontaine et al.,
2013). Furthermore, some emotion words are so unique to a language and/or culture that
they cannot be directly translated. For instance, the Japanese concept of amae, the
Portuguese word saudade, the German feeling Fremdschämen or even the Dutch sensation
of gezellig all lack a direct translation in English. These constructionist theories recognize
the importance of culture and language in the study of emotions (e.g., Gendron & Barrett,
2009), which, therefore, may provide a framework for investigating the relationship between
culture, language and emotion. Finally, there are theoretical perspectives that combine the
appraisal approach with the constructionist, such as the model proposed by Ortony, Clore,
and Collins in 1988 known as OCC model (Clore & Ortony, 2013; Ortony et al., 1988), which
incorporates aspects from both theoretical accounts and proposes a list of ideas about the
construction of emotions, including language and context.

Language and Emotion

In order to better understand the above-mentioned connection between emotion and culture
through the role of language, we need to better understand the connection between
language and emotion. This section will review the literature on language and emotion
focusing mainly on the empirical work in the field of bilingualism preoccupied with
investigating emotional reactivity in bilinguals’ first- vs second language.
A steadily increasing number of studies have found that we experience stronger
emotionality in our native language compared to a second language (e.g., Caldwell-Harris,
2014; Pavlenko, 2005). For example, multilinguals experience emotional phrases such as “I
love you” as being the strongest or the most emotional in their first language compared to
their second language (Dewaele, 2008). Likewise, the emotional force of swear words and
taboo words are also rated as higher in the first language compared to the second language
(Dewaele, 2004; 2018). Psychophysiological data have shown higher emotional arousal

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(measured as skin conductance levels) for emotional words and phrases (including
childhood reprimands) in the first compared to the second language (Harris, 2004; Harris et
al., 2003). There is also an array of psycholinguistic studies investigating emotion word
processing in a bilingual context, including the acquisition of emotion words in a second
language (e.g., Altarriba & Basnight-Brown, 2011) and processing of emotion and emotion-
laden words in bilinguals’ first- and second languages (e.g., Altarriba, 2003; El-Dakhs &
Altarriba, 2018; 2019; Kazanas & Altarriba, 2016). These studies have employed various
tasks (such as free recall, ratings of various parameters and characteristics of emotion and
emotion-laden words, word associations, etc.) and have observed differences in processing
depending on various aspects such as whether the words are in the participants’ first- or
second/foreign language, the emotional content of the words, and second language
exposure, to mention just a few.
Furthermore, Bond and Lai (1986) found that Chinese-English bilinguals seemed to
have less difficulty discussing embarrassing topics in their second language English,
compared to their native language. There are even case studies reporting that some therapy
patients have refrained from using their native language during counselling as a mechanism
of reducing emotionality to allow them to speak about their negative experiences (Buxbaum,
1949; Krapf, 1955). There is also more recent work that has investigated the emotional
distance of a second language during therapy sessions, by interviewing bilingual therapists
about their bilingual sessions (Santiago-Rivera et al., 2009). Santiago-Rivera et al. (2009)
found that both the therapists and their clients switched between languages for various
reasons; the therapists as a means of bonding with their clients and establishing trust, and
the clients as a means of expressing certain emotions. Research has further shown that
PTSD symptoms and traumatic memories are experienced as more intense and vivid in the
first language compared to the second language (Schwanberg, 2010). Recently, Dylman
and Bjärtå (2019) showed that using a second language to process negative texts read in
the native language leads to decreased levels of distress, suggesting that purposeful second
language use can reduce distress following negative events encoded in the first language.
These above-mentioned findings and the general phenomenon of larger emotionality
in one’s first compared to second language have been explained in terms of bilinguals
having a larger emotional distance in a second language compared to the native language,
which has been proposed to be a consequence of the context in which the languages were
acquired (e.g., Ivaz et al., 2015). The idea here is that the native language is acquired in
emotionally rich and varied contexts, which increases the links between the words and
labels, and the experienced emotions associated with them. In contrast, a second language,
in particular a foreign language, is typically acquired in classroom settings which tend to be
more neutral and less emotionally varied. This connection between language acquisition
and use, and experienced emotionality seems to be a key factor in determining the level of
emotionality experienced in a multilingual’s different languages. For example, Dewaele and
Salomidou (2017) investigated experienced emotionality in cross-cultural/cross-linguistic
romantic relationships, and found that many in a romantic relationship with someone
speaking a different language reported that emotional communication was difficult,
particularly in the beginning of the relationship. However, Dewaele and Salomidou also

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found that affective socialisation increased with time and that “the partner’s language often
became the language of the heart” eventually (Dweaele & Salomidou, 2017, p. 116). This
supports the notion that the context of language acquisition and language use is crucial to
the level of emotionality experienced.
This emotional distance hypothesis has also been proposed to explain the so-called
foreign language effect in decision making whereby bilinguals make more rational decisions
and are less affected by decision making biases in the context of their second language
compared to the native language context. For example, Keysar et al. (2012) found, across
several different groups of bilinguals, that framing a problem-solving scenario (such as the
Asian disease problem) in a certain way (that is, changing the wording of the text) affects
decision making when the bilinguals reason about problems and make decisions in their
native language. However, when they do the same task in their second language, such
framing effects disappear. This has also been found for other types of decision making
processes, such as financial decisions (e.g., Costa et al., 2014a) as well as moral dilemmas
(e.g., Corey et al., 2017; Costa et al., 2014b).
An example of a moral dilemma is the trolley problem, where the following hypothetical
scenario is presented to the participants:

A train is about to run over five people. You have the power to pull a lever
and redirected the train to a different track where it would run over one
person. There is no time to get anyone off the tracks. Do you pull the lever?

This, and other similar problems, can be responded to in two ways: One can either choose
the utilitarian option (i.e., choosing to sacrifice the life of one to save those of many) thereby
maximizing the global benefit, or one can choose the deontological option (not killing one
but letting five people die), thereby adhering to the moral code “do not kill”. The moral code
of not killing is so deeply rooted that the vast majority of people tend to choose the
deontological option when faced with these types of moral dilemmas (Greene et al., 2001).
However, a comparably larger proportion of participants choose the utilitarian option when
faced with moral dilemmas in their second language, compared to when faced with the same
dilemma in their native language (e.g., Corey et al., 2017; Costa et al., 2014b). This has,
again, been interpreted within the framework of emotional distance, where the larger
emotionality in the native language makes it difficult to overcome moral codes (such as “do
not kill”), resulting in a larger proportion of respondents choosing a deontological choice in
their first language, while being more likely to make the utilitarian choice in their second-
compared to their first language.
In summary, there is a vast and continuously increasing amount of research showing
differences in emotional reactivity in bilinguals’ different languages. That is not to say that
we are heartless and cold-blooded in our second language – rather, the point is that the
level of experienced emotionality seems to be higher in the native language. As
demonstrated, however, various situations can lead to a decrease in this so-called foreign
language effect, such as when the second language is the language of communication in a
long-term romantic relationship where the second language is the language of

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communication (Dewaele & Salomidou, 2017). There are even some studies showing that
the foreign-language effect in moral dilemmas can disappear in the case of long-term
immersion in the second language country, such as was the case in a study investigating
moral decision in Croatian-German bilinguals living in Germany (Čavar & Tytus, 2018).
The question that remains, however, is to what extent culture plays a role in the
acquisition and development of the links between language and emotionality. Harris et al.
(2006) highlighted the importance of incorporating multiple dimensions, including cultural
aspects, when investigating bilingualism and emotionality, and several studies have
indirectly incorporated cultural aspects whilst investigating various aspects of emotionality
and language. Thus far, however, relatively few studies looking at the interaction between
language and emotion have also simultaneously examined culture specifically. There are
notable exceptions, of course, as this research topic is increasingly heeded (see for example
Altarriba & Kazanas, 2017; and Basnight-Brown & Altarriba, 2018). Furthermore, Dylman
and Champoux-Larsson (2020) recently investigated the foreign language effect in decision
making and moral judgments whilst incorporating a cultural aspect. Specifically, they found
that when the second language is culturally influential in the home country, the foreign
language effect diminishes, and participants make comparable decisions and judgments in
both their first- and second language.

Culture and Language

How culture and language influence psychological phenomena has long been an issue for
research. However, various sub disciplines in psychology conceive these constructs in
different ways, and there have been scarce attempts to integrate various views (Imai et al.,
2016). Culture can be defined as a set of shared meanings, practices, and products, which
facilitate social coordination, clarify group boundaries, and tell people what they are
expected to do and how they should do it (Kitayama & Park, 2007; Oyserman, 2017).
Through history, often over several generations, collective meanings and common practices
function as references and shape normative expectations for people, for the conception of
self, as well as for personal motives to take part in certain behaviors (Kitayama & Park,
2007). Within this frame of reference, language is considered to be an inseparable collection
of linguistic elements evolved through culture and as a medium in which specific cultures
are reflected (Imai et al., 2016). For example, in personality psychology, the lexical paradigm
assumes that all stable individual differences in behavior that are of social importance within
a cultural context are encoded into everyday language (Goldberg, 1981). For people within
a certain culture to be able to interact efficiently with each other, they need to have common
words for their differences in important features of personalities. For example, translation
equivalents which may seemingly express identical concepts, such as “marriage”, or words
for different emotions, may have different connotations across cultures (Kitayama & Park,
2007).
In other lines of research, predominantly in cognitive psychology, the focus has
generally been on the influence of particular segments of language on perception,

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categorization, and knowledge, but how linguistic categories are embedded in a broader
cultural system has not been considered (Imai et al., 2016). Research in this vein has studied
how non-linguistic representations are processed as compared to linguistic, how
psychological and linguistic processing develop during childhood, and by comparing
cognitive processing between monolinguals and bilinguals (e.g., Bialystok, 2011; Bialystok
& Barac, 2012; Bialystok et al., 2012; Paap & Greenberg, 2013; Paap et al., 2014). The
question remains whether it is the language elements themselves that shape thought or the
cultural connotations behind the linguistic categories. Culture may influence not only what is
considered as psychological phenomena, but also norms for how to use language for certain
experiences and in certain situations. If there are commonalities across cultures in terms of
labels for emotions, cognitions, and behaviors, they may differ in how such experiences are
expressed and to what degree (Heine & Buchtel, 2009; Mesquita et al., 2016). The by far
most studied cultural dimension is the individualism-collectivism dimension. This refers to
the extent to which the individual is seen as a separate being or embedded in the social
context (Heine & Buchtel, 2009; Kitayama & Park, 2007; Mesquita et al., 2016; Wood et al.,
2016). Indeed, this individualism–collectivism dimension has also been researched in
relation to emotion, including the substantial study by Matsumoto et al., (2008) who
investigated emotional display rules across different cultures by measuring them on the
individualism-collectivism dimension.
One of the most influential, and culturally extended theories of personality is the Big
Five (McCrae & Costa, 1987). The lexical paradigm states not only that any stable individual
difference in behavior is reflected in everyday language, but also that personality differences
of utmost importance are universal (Goldberg, 1981). Extensive research has come to an
agreement of five dimensions, namely Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
Emotional stability, and Openness to experience (Heine & Buchtel, 2009). Regarding
structure, all, or almost all, five have been reproduced in a number of countries around the
globe. Less convergence has been found for the dimension which is today most often
labelled Openness (Hendriks et al., 2003), which has, across time, also been labeled
“culture”, “intellect”, “creativity”, or “autonomy”. Originally, cross-cultural studies were
conducted using translated versions of instruments originally developed in English. This has
led to discussions regarding to what extent cross-cultural similarities is an expression of
universality or transference of Western culture through the way personality is discussed and
connoted in English (Heine & Buchtel, 2009). Later, this issue has been addressed by the
development of instruments originating from local sources (novels, dictionaries, etc.). These
have shown both similarities and differences in structure, fewer or more dimensions, that
overlap more or less with the Big Five dimensions (Allik et al., 2017; Heine & Buchtel, 2009;
Saucier, 2003). Differences in levels of the five dimensions could be reflections of real
cultural differences, but also of different interpretations of the items, differences in the way
they respond to these items, or whether people from different cultures compare themselves
with different standards. Thus, it is evident that studying cross-cultural differences in
personality separately from language is difficult. Given that most research on personality
originates from Western culture and Western languages (most often English), can we draw
conclusions on cross-cultural aspects of personality without imposing a Western mindset?

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(In fact, these types of English centric approaches are generally widespread in psychological
research, and this may obscure meaningful variation in numerous psychological effects,
given the global role English has throughout the world.) Translating Western personality
inventories into non-Western languages exports a pre-set personality structure, a certain
understanding of the items, a certain way of responding to them, and a given standard to
which compare oneself, which may likely affect the outcome of the study. People in most
corners of the world are aware of and knowledgeable of the Western culture even if they do
not adhere to it, something which may become even more salient by using translated
Western personality inventories.
There exist at least two ways in which to deal with this problem. One way is to start
with within-culture personality structures from non-Western societies. Based on identified
similarities in a seven-factor personality structure between Hebrew and Filipino personality
descriptors, Saucier (2003) used a set of these markers translated into English, and an
additional set of Big Five markers, and collected data from an American sample. The
rationale between this was that if two so disparate cultures as Hebrew and Filipino, with
neither geographical proximity nor language similarity, seemed to share personality patterns
(therefore not likely to be culture-specific), perhaps this is also generalizable to other
contexts. The results showed that this was the case; the two sets of personality markers,
Hebrew and Filipino, converged within an American sample. Furthermore, this structure
partly overlapped with the Big Five. Similar methodology has been used subsequently
(Saucier et al., 2013), identifying a basic bivariate structure of personality attributes using
samples from nine cultures representing eight language families. In this study, salient
markers for the two most important factors in within-culture investigations were translated
into English, and then the frequency with which these terms appeared across languages
was counted. The result was a distinct pattern in each study with two factors labeled Social
Self-Regulation and Dynamism.
The other way that this issue has been addressed is by investigating bilingualism.
Increasing levels of education and access to different media, as well as increasing mobility,
be it either temporary or permanent, voluntary or involuntary, all serve to expose people to
additional languages than their native tongue. Having access to two languages is assumed
to enable people to switch between not only two languages, but also between their
accompanying cultures, a phenomenon referred to as cultural frame switching (Hong et al.,
2000). A study where English-Spanish bilinguals responded to the Big Five Inventory found
that when answering the questionnaire in English, participants described themselves in a
more American manner, as more extraverted, agreeable, and conscientious, and less
neurotic compared to when answering in Spanish (Ramirez-Ezparza et al., 2006). It was
concluded that this was not due to translation effects, or self-enhancement, but rather that
a cultural shift took place appropriate to the cultural context that language implicated.
How and when a second language is acquired may also be of importance for this
matter. Acquisition of a second language can either be coordinate or compound (Chen,
2015). Coordinate bilinguals learn their first and second language sequentially in separate
cultural environments (for example when emigrating or sojourning), while compound
bilinguals acquire their two languages simultaneously in the same cultural environment (for

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example when learning a second language in school, or as second-generation immigrants).

It is suggested that cultural accommodation takes place in an analogous way. Thus, among
compound bilinguals there would be more cultural blending, while the two cultures of
coordinate bilinguals would be distinct and compartmentalized (Nguyen & Ahmadpanah,
2014). In a study where English-Spanish bilingual Mexican Americans indicated their degree
of bicultural blending, this is indeed what was found, even when controlling for generation
status.
Research in this area has most often been conducted by using self-report measures.
Chen and Bond (2010), however, went further by including actual conversation, thereby
studying language use in action. They studied compound English-Chinese bilinguals in
Hong Kong, with access to both Chinese and Western culture. In addition to self-report
measures and ratings of prototypic traits of English and Chinese persons, either in English
or Chinese, they also included conversations in either English or Chinese with either an
English or a Chinese partner, which was evaluated by external judges. The results
supported the influence of perceived cultural norms, language priming, and ethnicity of
conversation partner on several personality dimensions. This suggests that the linguistic
context activates appropriate expressions of personality depending on the situation.
These research examples illustrate the interplay between culture and language.
Language is most often seen as a carrier of culture. However, language also signals other
forms of social identities than culture – social class, status, occupation, gender, and so forth.
Language must thus be seen as both a carrier of culture and a marker of group identity
(Chen, 2015). Language is the connecting point between culture and context. Research thus
needs to incorporate both cultural and other social categorizations at the same time, in order
to be able to separate cultural influences from other contextual factors. Furthermore,
language has most often been studied as an expression of cultural identity – but language
is also a tool for communication. As such, it can be used either to enhance communication,
to include other people (from other groups and cultures), or to limit communication, to
exclude other people. What would the interaction between culture and language be in a
social context of either cooperation or competition?

Culture, Language, and Emotion

Finally, we want to discuss the interaction between the three aspects hitherto raised. How
are they connected and why is this important? As we have laid out, there are many studies
investigating various sub-aspects of the mentioned areas. For example, there are studies
looking at cross-cultural differences of emotion, but few emotion theories incorporate
language as an integral part of (cross-)cultural aspects of emotion (with the exception of
constructionist theories). Likewise, there is a large bulk of research investigating the links
between language and emotion, but where culture is not commonly explicitly incorporated.
Clearly, the mentioned studies all give us an important piece of the puzzle. Nevertheless,
can we truly see the bigger picture if we only focus on one piece of the puzzle at a time?
There are a few notable publications that have explored the relationship between all three

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themes, namely emotions, culture and language (e.g., Altarriba & Kazanas, 2017; Basnight-
Brown & Altarriba, 2018; also see Altarriba et al., 2003, for another review on emotion across
cultures). Ogarkova (2013) also presents research relating to how emotion words in different
languages may be “thought to be referents of culture-embedded cognitive categories, or
‘folk’ emotion concepts” (Ogarkova, 2013, p.2), and goes on to present this notion, saying
that “language plays an important role in establishing categories, both culturally and
developmentally (Neisser, 1987 : vii), and […] the ways in which emotions are represented
in language can provide an insight on emotion conceptualization, categorization, and even
experience in different cultural groups” (Ogarkova, 2013, p.2). There are also studies that
have argued that the various empirical findings of stronger emotional reactivity to emotional
words and phrases in a first- compared to a second/foreign language may, in fact, reflect
social and cultural norms (e.g., Gawinkowska et al., 2013), further calling attention to the
importance of incorporating all three themes when investing the intricate interplay between
culture, language, and emotions.
One of the challenges we face going forward is a methodological one. How can these
questions be investigated further? What methodological aspects need to be considered?
For example, how can we disentangle language from culture when they go hand in hand?
Recently, Jackson et al. (2019) attempted to map the semantics of emotion terms in close
to 2,500 languages across the globe, in order to examine the universality of emotions in
different cultures. Investigating the co-lexification (i.e., the extent to which semantically
related concepts map onto the same words across different languages), they found large
variability, indicating cross-cultural (and cross-linguistic) variation in the linguistic network of
emotion terms. At the same time, they also found indication of universal structures within
these networks.
Another methodologically relevant question regards the definition of emotion, whether
it refers to core affect, mood, perception/expression of emotion through facial expression or
emotional prosody, words (with the distinction between emotion and emotion-laden words;
see for example Altarriba, 2006), or any other aspect. We have refrained from selecting one
specific definition (and potentially excluding others) in the interest of giving a broader
perspective. However, it should be noted that how emotion is defined, and which aspects or
sub-aspects of the concept are investigated, will inevitably affect both the methodology and
potential findings. Therefore, this is another aspect (and potential challenge) to be
considered going forward.
To summarize, the interest in the interaction between culture, language, and emotion
has rapidly increased in recent years, but more research is needed. Some conceptual and
methodological aspects discussed above need scientific attention (see Table 1). As
language is an integral part of not only communication with others, but also govern all
internal thoughts, we are always within the context of language. Therefore, given the alleged
role of language in the perception of emotions, we cannot study human emotion devoid of
language. Likewise, language is learnt within a cultural and emotional context, which means
that we cannot investigate human language without also studying culture and emotion to
some extent. Therefore, if we are to truly understand any of these three areas, we need to
understand how they interact with and affect one another.

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 Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, Unit 4, Subunit 2, Chapter 3

Table 1.
Important Aspects to be Considered in Future Research

Category Examples
Conceptual: Integration of different theoretical perspectives on culture, language,
and emotion
Culture, language, and emotion all have both expressive and
communicative functions, integral research needs to take that into
consideration

Methodological: Separation of cultural specifics from universals in language, especially

regarding emotion aspects, also regarding different definitions of
emotion
Identifying cultures that either share or do not share a common
language, for example different sub-cultures
Experimental studies on emotion that simultaneously vary language
and culture

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About the Authors

Alexandra Dylman received her PhD in Psychology at the University of Essex, UK, in 2013,
looking at language production in bilinguals and monolinguals. Following this, she started
working at the Department of Psychology at Mid Sweden University, Sweden, before going
to Stockholm University in early 2019, where she is now an Associate Professor at the
Department of Special Education. Her research area, generally speaking, is within cognition
and psycholinguistics, and her primary research interests include bilingualism, language
production, reading, and the interaction between language, emotion, and culture.

Marie-France Champoux-Larsson received her PhD in Psychology at Mid Sweden

University, Sweden, in 2018. For her doctoral thesis, she investigated the perception of
emotions in bilinguals. She is currently continuing her research as a postdoctoral researcher
at Mid Sweden University investigating the relationship between language, emotion, and
bilingualism.

Ingrid Zakrisson received her PhD in psychology at the University of Stockholm in 1993,
studying social attitudes in a developmental perspective. She then started working at Mid
Sweden University where she now is professor in psychology. Her research is within the
area of social and personality psychology, and mainly focused on prejudice and stereotypes,
especially in relation to gender issues.

Questions for Discussion

1. Why would a larger emotional distance (such as has been proposed for foreign language
contexts) affect decision making?
2. Identify cultures/languages along other cultural dimensions than individualism –
collectivism.
3. What might we find out by comparing the same language in different cultures (for
example Portuguese in Portugal vs Brazil, Spanish in Spain vs. Mexico, or English in the
UK vs the USA)?
4. What might we find out by comparing different languages within same culture? Can you
think of any such cultures with multiple languages?
5. How might communication be used as a means of self/social expression, for
cooperation/competition?
6. What methodological aspects need to be taken into consideration when researching this
area?

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7. In a globalized world, how does the interaction between culture, language and emotion
affect how we interact with people from other cultures and/or using a different (possibly
second) language?
8. Contact with other cultures and languages is possibly easier and more common today
than ever before. How can this contact with other cultures and languages affect the way
we learn a foreign language and use it? Will this context, which can be much less sterile
than a classroom setting, influence the way we experience emotions in a second
language?

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