Emotions and Multilingualism in L1 isiXhosa speakers: Measuring emotional resonance reduction using the RER-LX scale
The emotional weight that a bi-/ multilingual speaker may attach to the different languages in their linguistic repertoire, specifically, the phenomenon of emotional resonance, has been extensively researched in Northern contexts across a variety of languages and linguistic communities. Many studies within multilingualism research, dealing with the topic of emotional resonance, indicate that multilingual individuals experience a greater degree of emotional resonance in relation to their first language (L1), in comparison to their later learned languages (LX). Although there is an extensive body of existing literature on this topic, very little research has been done on emotional resonance regarding African languages, and the concept has not been investigated within the South African context. The present study aims to address this research gap by extending the investigation of emotional resonance to the multilingual context of South Africa and building on the first investigation of emotional language use among multilingual people in South Africa. This study investigates the factors influencing the emotional resonance that South African multilingual individuals associate with their different languages, by zooming in on a linguistic community that has previously been underrepresented in this domain of research, specifically L1 isiXhosa – LX English speakers residing in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The study is quantitative in nature, making use of a language background questionnaire, which is used to collect sociodemographic information about the participants, and a recently published psychometric scale called the Reduced Emotional Resonance in the LX scale (RER-LX scale). The study considers data collected from a sample of 100 participants between the ages of 18 and 37 years old. The findings revealed that a variety of sociolinguistic factors influenced the participants responses to the RER-LX scale, thus highlighting that emotional resonance is modulated by an individuals’ language learning history, language proficiency, and current language use. The findings were considered in relation to the multilingual context of South Africa which is situated in the Global South and confirms key characteristics of African multilingualism exhibited by African language speakers in South Africa.
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