Emotion in English as a foreign language: Affective ratings for over 2,000 words by college learners

Previous research has consistently shown differences in emotional processing between monolingual and bilingual speakers, highlighting the importance of specific standardized affective norms for studying emotional language processing in different linguistic environments. However, whereas native speaker norms of emotional dimensions are generally well established, this work is scarce in bilinguals and even more rare in populations whose second language exposure and use are circumscribed to formal, instructional contexts. The main goal of this study was to collect affective ratings for a large set of English words in a representative and homogeneous sample of instructional-setting learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Valence and arousal indexes were obtained from more than 600 Spanish college students of EFL. Reliability and external validity analyses for both dimensions indicated valid psychometric properties for this database. Direct comparisons between the present EFL affective norms and those obtained from immersed-English students who learned English as an additional language (EAL) and English native speakers (L1) revealed interesting patterns of emotional word processing across linguistic contexts, underscoring the differential influence of immersive and formal learning environments in affective processing. Interestingly, the L1-EFL discrepancy increased as a function of affective, lexical, and sensory experience factors, and was particularly high in the arousal dimension, pointing to the important role that emotional intensity might play in the acquisition and use of emotional language. Overall, these affective norms might constitute a useful research tool to study emotional processing in EFL populations, and relevant in applied and educational contexts for the development of teaching strategies.