Readers’ Emotions: A Plurilingual Perspective

Abstract

This article focuses on the differential emotional power of languages in the book-reading practices of plurilingual readers. Within a plurilingual perspective, it aims at adding nuance to the “emotional contexts of learning hypothesis” and the “theory of language embodiment”. This qualitative study is based on semi-structured interviews with 24 adult plurilingual readers living in Catalonia, Ile-de-France, French Basque Country, and western Switzerland. Some of the participants indicate that they have felt intense emotions while reading in languages they did not learn and do not use in highly emotional contexts. It can be inferred that cultural goods consumption, among other factors, may affect the emotional force of languages. Difficulties expressed by participants in feeling intense emotions or in appreciating books in family languages that are dominated languages – according to Bourdieu’s conception of dominant and dominated languages – suggest that sociolinguistic inequalities may also be of crucial importance in reading-language emotionality.