Cover not available
Part of
Emotion in Language: Theory – research – application
Edited by Ulrike M. Lüdtke
[Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 10] 2015
► pp. 241–256

Word valence and its effects

Cognitive science underwent an ‘emotional turn’ in recent years. Besides the rational part of the brain, the ‘other half of the human mind’ (see Parisi 2011) is now taken into consideration as well. Linguistics, with its strong orientation and links to cognitive science, cannot neglect this development and has to ask itself in which way emotions should play a role in theories about language (cf. Foolen 2012). The present paper intends to give an overview of recent research in psychology and linguistics on emotive expressivity in language. In the first section, we will discuss the emotive-expressive function of language in relation to the descriptive, referential function. In Section 2, we will have a look at research on emotion-laden words (‘valence’), both in L1 and L2. Then, in Section 3, we will shift the attention from content words to function words, to intensifiers in particular. Section 4 takes a short look at expressive elements on other linguistic levels (phonology, morphology, syntax), and Section 5 rounds off this paper.

Keywords: emotion-laden words, intensifiers, language processing, negativity bias, positivity bias
Published online: 16 December 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ceb.10.12foo
References
Barsalou, Lawrence W
2008 “Grounded cognition.” Annual Review of Psychology 59: 617–645. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baumeister, Roy F., Bratslavsky, Ellen, Finkenauer, Catrin and Vohs, Kathleen D
2001 “Bad is stronger than good.” Review of General Psychology 5 (4): 323–370. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berkum, Jos van
2011 Zonder Gevoel Geen Taal [‘Without emotion no language’]. Inaugural lecture, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Bloom, Lois
1993 “Language acquisition and the power of expression.” In Language and Communication: Comparative Perspectives, Herbert L. Roitblat, Louis M. Herman and Paul E. Nachtigall (eds), 95–113. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Boucher, Jerry and Osgood, Charles E
1969 “The Pollyanna hypothesis.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 8: 1–8. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bradley, Margaret M. and Lang, Peter J
2010 Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW): Stimuli, Instruction Manual and Affective Ratings. Technical Report C-2, Gainesville, FL: The Center for Research in Psychophysiology, University of Florida.Google Scholar
Clark, Andy
2006 “Language, embodiment and the cognitive niche.” Trends in Cognitive Science 10 (8): 370–374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colbeck, Katie L. and Bowers, Jeffrey S
2012 “Blinded by taboo words in L1 but not L2.” Emotion 12 (2): 217–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creusen, Catheleyne
2012 Emotioneel Geladen Woorden in de Nederlandse Taal: De Ontwikkeling van een Woordenlijst. [‘Emotionally laden words in the Dutch language: The development of a word list’]. Bachelor thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Degner, Juliane, Doycheva, Cveta and Wentura, Dirk
2012 “It matters how much you talk: On the automaticity of affective connotations of first and second language words.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15 (10): 181–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferré, Pilar, Sánchez-Casas, Rosa and Fraga, Isabel
2012 “Memory for emotional words in the first and the second language: Effects of the encoding task.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 16 (3): 495–507. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foolen, Ad
1993 De Betekenis van Partikels [The meaning of particles]. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
2004 “Expressive binominal NPs in Germanic and Romance languages.” In Studies in Linguistic Motivation, Günter Radden and Klaus-Uwe Panther (eds), 75–100. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2012 “The relevance of emotions for language and linguistics.” In A. Foolen et al. (eds), 349–368. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foolen, Ad, Lüdtke, Ulrike M., Racine, Timothy P. and Zlatev, Jordan
(eds) 2012 Moving Ourselves, Moving Others. Motion and Emotion in Intersubjectivity, Consciousness and Language. Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 6. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foolen, Ad, Wottrich, Verena and Zwets, Martine
2013 “Gruwelijk interessant. Emotieve intensiveerders in het Nederlands.” [Horribly interesting. Emotive intensifiers in Dutch]. Unpublished paper.
Fortin, Antonio
2011 The Morphology and Semantics of Expressive Affixes. PhD Thesis, Oxford University.Google Scholar
Gabryś-Baker, Danuta and Bielska, Joanna
(eds) 2013 The Affective Dimension in Second Language Acquisition. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Garcia, David, Garas, Antonios and Schweitzer, Frank
2012 “Positive words carry less information than negative words.” EPJ Data Science 1 (3): 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hancil, Sylvie
(ed.) 2009 The Role of Prosody in Affective Speech. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Harris, Catherine L., Ayçiçegi, Ayşe and Gleason, Jean Berko
2003 “Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first than in a second language.” Applied Linguistics 24: 561–579.Google Scholar
Harris, Catherine L., Gleason, Jean Berko and Ayçiçegi, Ayşe
2006 “When is a first language more emotional? Psychophysiological evidence from bilingual speakers. In Bilingual Minds. Emotional Experience, Expression and Representation, Aneta Pavlenko (ed.), 257–283. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Heyes, Cecilia
2012 “Grist and mills: On the cultural origins of cultural learning.” Philolosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367: 2181–2191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jay, Timothy, Caldwell-Harris, Catherine and King, Krista
2008 “Recalling taboo and nontaboo words.” American Journal of Psychology 121 (1): 83–103. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jing-Schmidt, Zhuo
2007 “Negativity bias in language: A cognitive-affective model of emotive intensifiers.” Cognitive Linguistics 18 (3): 417–443. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jablonka, Eva, Ginsburg, Simona and Dor, Daniel
2012 “The co-evolution of language and emotions.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367: 2152–2159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanske, Philipp and Kotz, Sonja A
2010 “Leipzig Affective Norms for German: A reliability study.” Behavior Research Methods 42 (4): 987–991. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koenders, Suzan
2011 Langage et Émotion. Une Comparaison Entre la Valeur Affective des Locuteurs Natifs et non Natifs. MA thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Koo, Hyun Jung and Rhee, Seongha
2013 “On an emerging paradigm of sentence-final particles of discontent: A grammaticalization perspective.” Language Sciences 37: 70–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia, Vinson, David P. and Vigliocco, Gabriella
2009 “Emotion words, regardless of polarity, have a processing advantage over neutral words.” Cognition 112: 473–481. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuppens, Peter, Tuerlinckx, Francis, Russell, James A. and Feldman Barrett, Lisa
2013 “The relation between valence and arousal in subjective experience.” Psychological Bulletin 139 (4): 917–940. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lüdtke, Ulrike M
2012 “Relational emotions in semiotic and linguistic development. Towards an intersubjective theory of language learning and language therapy.” In A. Foolen et al. (eds), 305–346. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maiese, Michelle
2014 “How can emotions be both cognitive and bodily?” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (4): 513–531. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Majid, Asifa
2012 “Current emotion research in the language sciences.” Emotion Review 4 (4): 432–443. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meteyard, Lotte, Rodriguez Cuadrado, Sara, Bahrami, Bahador and Vigliocco, Gabriella
2012 “Coming of age: A review of embodiment and the neuroscience of semantics.” Cortex 48: 788–804. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mischler, James J
2008 “Expressive phonology as evaluative comment in personal oral narrative: The play frame and language learning.” System 36: 241–252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moors, Agnes, de Houwer, Jan, Hermans, Dirk, Wanmaker, Sabine, van Schie, Kevin, van Harmelen, Anne-Laura, de Schryver, Maarten, de Winne, Jeffrey and Brysbaert, Marc
2013 “Norms of valence, arousal, dominance, and age of acquisition for 4300 Dutch words.” Behavior Research Methods 45: 169–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Myers-Schulz, Blake, Pujara, Maia, Wolf, Richard C. and Koenigs, Michael
2013 “Inherent emotional quality of human speech sounds.” Cognition and Emotion 27 (6): 1105–1113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nasrallah, Maha
2010 Enhanced Detection Sensitivity to Negative Emotional Valence: The Role of Awareness, Attention, Anxiety and Reward. PhD Thesis, University College London.Google Scholar
Osgood, Charles E., Suci, George J. and Tannenbaum, Percy H
1957 The Measurement of Meaning. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Parisi, Domenico
2011 “The other half of the embodied mind.” Frontiers in Psychology 2: 1–8. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pavlenko, Aneta
2005 Emotions and Multilingualism. London: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 “Emotion and emotion-laden words in the bilingual lexicon.” Multilingualism: Language and Cognition 11 (2): 147–164.Google Scholar
2012 “Affective processing in bilingual speakers: Disembodied cognition?” International Journal of Psychology 47 (6): 405–428. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Potts, Christopher and Schwarz, Florian
2010 “Affective ‘this’.” Linguistic Issues in Language Technology 3 (5): 1–29.Google Scholar
Rooswinkel, Judith
2013 De Emotionele Waarde van Woorden. Een Vergelijking Tussen Moedertaalsprekers van het Nederlands en Duitse Leerders van het Nederlands. [The emotional value of words. A comparison between native speakers of Dutch and German learners of Dutch]. BA Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Rozin, Paul, Berman, Loren and Royzman, Edward
2010 “Biases in use of positive and negative words across twenty natural languages.” Cognition and Emotion 24 (3): 536–548. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stern, Gustaf
1965/1931 Meaning and Change of Meaning. With Special Reference to the English Language. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael and Vaish, Amrisha
2013 “Origins of human cooperation and morality.” Annual Review of Psychology 64: 231–255. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Warriner, Amy Beth, Kuperman, Victor and Brysbaert, Marc
2013 “Norms of valence, arousal, and dominance for 13,915 English lemmas.” Behavior Research Methods 45 (4): 1191–1207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Witherell, Devon, Wurm, Lee H., Seaman, Sean R., Brugnone, Nikki A. and Fulford, Evan T
2012 “Danger and usefulness effects as a function of concept ancientness.” The Mental Lexicon 7 (2): 183–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wu, Yan Jing and Thierry, Guillaume
2012 “How reading in a second language protects your heart.” The Journal of Neuroscience 32 (19): 6485–6489. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Chen, Chen, Hao Yuan & Mike Z. Yao
2021. Identifiability as an “Antidote”: Exploring Emotional Contagion and the Role of Anonymity in Twitter Discussions on Misinformation. In Social Computing and Social Media: Experience Design and Social Network Analysis [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12774], ► pp. 240 ff. DOI logo
Foolen, Ad
2019. Chapter 6. The value of left and right. In Emotion in Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 302], ► pp. 139 ff. DOI logo
Kamber, Julie & Richard Huyghe
2023. Concurrence morphologique et préfixation de haut degré : le cas de méga -, giga - et hypra -. Travaux de linguistique n° 86:1 ► pp. 59 ff. DOI logo
Kauschke, Christina
2019. Linguistische Perspektiven auf Emotion und Sprache. In Emotionen, ► pp. 262 ff. DOI logo
Lafreniere, Katherine C., Sarah G. Moore & Robert J. Fisher
2022. The Power of Profanity: The Meaning and Impact of Swear Words in Word of Mouth. Journal of Marketing Research 59:5 ► pp. 908 ff. DOI logo
Pérez-García, Elisa & María Jesús Sánchez
2020. Emotions as a linguistic category: perception and expression of emotions by Spanish EFL students. Language, Culture and Curriculum 33:3 ► pp. 274 ff. DOI logo
Sander, Thorsten
2023. Towards a Fregean psycholinguistics. Analytic Philosophy DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.