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Multilinguals’ language preference for communicating emotions

20 February 2023, 6:00 pm–7:30 pm

A woman talking to a person during a therapy or counselling session. Photo by Viacheslav Lakobchuk / Adobe Stock

Join this event to hear Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele’s lecture entitled 'Communicating emotions in a foreign language: the ultimate linguistic challenge'.

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All

Availability

Yes

Cost

Free

Organiser

Roberto Filippi

Emotions are at the heart of social interactions, and the ability to perceive and express them accurately is crucial for mental wellbeing. Foreign language users face particular challenges in this respect because emotion words and concepts do not always overlap between languages and their emotional resonance differs in the mouth and ears of multilinguals. 

In this event, Professor Dewaele will explain how declarations of love or swearwords in a foreign language may feel deceptively harmless or inauthentic. He will also highlight how strategic code-switching can be highly beneficial for multilinguals in psychotherapy, where discussing traumatic events in the foreign language can allow clients to distance themselves from the trauma.


This event will be particularly useful for those interested in multilingualism and multicultural diversity in our society.


Multilingualism and Diversity: Impact on Education, Health and Society seminar series

This seminar series aims to bridge science with practice in education. Leading experts in linguistics, psychological sciences and neurosciences will engage with education practitioners, parents, students and members of the public who have an interest in multicultural diversity and inclusion. 

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About the Speaker

Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele

Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck College, University of London

Professor Jean-Marc Dewale.
He has published widely on individual differences. He is former president of the International Association of Multilingualism and the European Second Language Association, and the current president of the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning. He is General Editor of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. He won the Robert Gardner Award for Excellence in Second Language and Bilingualism Research (2016) from the International Association of Language and Social Psychology and the EUROSLA Distinguished Scholar Award (2022).