Browsing by Author "Mergen, Filiz"

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Bilinguals' Emotion Expression and Perception in L2: Proficiency Matters for Some but Not All Emotions
(Wiley, 2025) Mergen, Filiz
Verbal expression and perception of emotions have been topics of interest in various disciplines, and the domain of bilingualism is no exception. Research has firmly established the dominance of the first-learned language (L1) in emotion expression and perception. However, there is some evidence that bilinguals are able to experience emotionality in the language they learn later in life (L2). This study aims to contribute to the present debate in the literature by providing evidence from late bilinguals' expression and perception of L2 emotionality relative to their L1. The participants (N = 205) were native speakers of Turkish who learned English through formal instruction after age 9. They completed an online survey adapted from Toivo et al. (2023) emotionality scale. Consistent with prior research, the results showed that L1 is the language of emotions for non-proficient bilinguals while proficient bilinguals, reported that they can alternatively use L2 when expressing some emotions and perceive it as emotionally powerful as L1. Regardless of proficiency level, however, higher emotional resonance in L1 was found for words suggesting negative emotions, that is swear words, insults, and criticisms. These results confirm the role of L1 priority in emotions but also suggest that proficiency may reduce this effect, at least for some emotions.
An Investigation of the Relationship Between Violence and Emotion Perception: Evidence from Turkish Cinema
(University of Pittsburgh, University Library System, 2025) Keles, Semra; Mergen, Filiz
Violence has been a significant phenomenon throughout human history and has been studied across various disciplines. With the rise of interdisciplinary approaches, it has become a central issue in many fields. Adapting a psycholinguistic perspective, this study examines how films with violent content influence people's perception of emotions. It was hypothesized that the violent content in film the participants saw would alter their perception of the emotional content of the words they were shown. To this end, they performed a rating task on a list of positive, negative, and neutral words before and after watching a violent film. A comparison of pre- and post-ratings revealed that valence ratings decreased for all word types after watching the film, while arousal ratings remained unchanged. These findings suggest that exposure to violent content can influence how emotional words are perceived. The results provide valuable insights into the impact of violence on emotional processing.