Poster #96 - Why do bilingual speakers code-switch when feeling emotional? Dynamic approach to immigrant parent-child communication

• In Event: 2-002 - Special Poster Session 05 with Continental Breakfast Reception
  In Poster Session: PS 05 - Interdisciplinary Section

Integrative Statement

Children learn to understand, experience, express, and regulate emotion through their parents. In particular, parent’s discussion and expression of emotion play an important role in shaping the child’s emotion and emotion-related behaviors (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). Bilingual parents have been observed to code-switch, or use two or more languages within a single conversation, during emotional events. Previous research has found that bilingual speaker’s first (L1) and second languages (L2) are differentially associated with their emotional experiences (Pavlenko, 2012). The present study thus aimed to understand the language-emotion link in bilingual parents during parent-child communication.

Specifically, the present study tested the dynamic moment-to-moment associations between code-switching and facial display of positive and negative emotion in a sample of 68 Chinese-American parents and children. During a 5-min dyadic puzzle box task (Eisenberg et al., 2001), parents and children’s language use (L1 Chinese or L2 English), code-switching frequency (L1 to L2 or L2 to L1 switches), and facial display of emotion (positive or negative) were coded at 5-second intervals. Multilevel modeling was used to analyze whether code-switching at one timepoint (t-1) predicted emotion at the next timepoint (t), emotion predicted later code-switching, or both. Because children produced minimal utterances during the study task, only their facial display of emotion was used as a covariate in the analysis.

Results indicated that parent’s more intense display of negative emotion predicted more frequent code-switching in both L1 to L2 (γ = .08, p = .08) and L2 to L1 directions (γ = .11, p = .02). Display of positive emotion, on the other hand, was marginally associated with less frequent L2 to L1 code-switching (γ = -.10, p = .08) contemporaneously. In other words, bilingual parents switched between their two languages more frequently when expressing frustration or anger with the child, whereas parents switched less frequently when expressing enthusiasm or contentment. Code-switching did not predict later facial display of emotion, suggesting that the switches between two languages did not have an immediate effect on the intensity of emotional display.

In sum, the present study demonstrated that bilingual parent’s code-switching behaviors are differentially associated with the expression of positive and negative emotion during parent-child communication. The findings are consistent with the theoretical perspective that emotional arousal, especially negative arousal (e.g., anger), reduces cognitive control and may trigger spontaneous language switches among bilingual speakers. The influence of such parental code-switching during heightened negative emotion on children’s emotion and emotion-related behaviors will be further examined. The present findings inform theories on why bilingual speakers code-switching during emotional events, moreover, have broader implications on parent-child emotional communication in bilingual immigrant families.

Authors

• Aya Inamori Williams, University of California, Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Mahesh Srinivasan, UC Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chang Liu, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Qing Zhou, University of California Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author