Affect and emotional prosody in the foreign language classroom

• Fonseca Mora, M. Carmen ^[1] ; Fernández Corbacho, Analí ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad de Huelva

     Universidad de Huelva

     Huelva, España

     
• Localización: Affectivity and Prosody in Second Language Learning / coord. por Francisco José Cantero Serena, Dolors Font Rotchés, 2025, ISBN 978-3-11-124749-6, págs. 61-76
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Affective aspects greatly influence and regulate the language learning process and learners’ communicative competence. Although affects and emotions should not be regarded as the philosopher’s stone, research has undoubtedly shown that more than good materials, techniques or language skills are needed to become a successful foreign language speaker. Emotional prosody affects meaning, mood and prosodic patterns and is important not only for first language acquisition but also for learning any other additional language. Cultural differences in emotions can be understood using the dialect theory of emotions, which postulates that emotions are a universal language with some “emotional dialects”. The role of affective factors or personality traits in explaining foreign language emotions is controversial. Many unsuccessful attempts have been made to establish a link between long-term personality traits and emotions, but recent studies have found that foreign language emotions such as enjoyment, boredom and anxiety were predicted by personality traits as neuroticism, extraversion and conscientiousness, as well as by the sub-factors of trust, dutifulness and cheerfulness. Yet they ask for caution due to the complexity of personality variables. Furthermore, if emotions can be conveyed through the prosodic features of language, it is another interesting aspect to think about the possibilities of the speakers’ emotional attitude in relation to their message, mood, or listener. Therefore, the main aim of this chapter is to reflect on the role of affective factors and emotional prosody in language learning, since prosody is one of the linguistic aspects that are difficult to learn in a foreign language. In this sense, this chapter concludes with some pedagogical implications that can be derived from the research. Helping learners to recognise emotional expressions, emotional prosody and how the musicality of language can affect others is one way of bringing affect into the foreign language classroom to enhance the learning process.