The Role of Emotionality in the Organisation of English Abstract Words on Second Language Lexicon

Abstract words (AWs) or imageless words refer to words which addresses something that is not tangible. Even though these words do not have physical existence, they can be categorised semantically into: emotional and non-emotional words. Whilst classical models offered valuable insights about AWs, the patterns of some AWs require further scrutiny. More studies have proven the role of emotionality in the representation of these words among monolinguals (Kousta et al., 2009; Vigliocco et al., 2010), but few studies have explored the role of emotionality on L2 speakers. This thesis examines how these words are rated and stored among L2 speakers of English (n=60) with different levels of language proficiency compared to monolinguals (n=30). Particular attention is given to examine the effect of emotionality in storing these words. Data obtained suggest that not all AWs are scaled and stored in the same way, as some AWs showed different patterns of emotionality intensity as well as retaining these words in the memory. The result showed differences at the word level rather than in the type of the lexicon. Emotional words were rated higher than non-emotional words across groups. Non-emotional words displayed different patterns in terms of emotionality. As for storing these words at the retention stage, more patterns emerged between emotional and non-emotional words. The thesis concludes that the representation of AWs is affected by the semantic characteristics of these words, the design of memory tasks and the degree of word difficulty. Emotional intensity may enhance the recallability of emotional words, but the nature of memory tasks and the type of AWs affect this relation. However, the level of language proficiency has proven to be less effective among L2 speakers in establishing emotionality. The establishment of emotionality and memory retrieval are two independent processes which are unaffected by the speakers’ linguistic abilities.