Emotion and moral stance in evaluations of impoliteness in L1 and L2 from video clips of workplace interactions

Abstract

This study investigates how emotions and moral stance influence evaluations of impoliteness between first language (L1) and second language (L2) English users, from an interdisciplinary perspective combining pragmatics, bilingualism, emotion research, and moral psychology. The study widens previous impoliteness research by focusing on both L1 and L2 users and analyses moral stance and emotions following a mixed methods approach. The study was preregistered prior to data collection and analysis. Fifty-five L1 English participants and 45 Spanish-speaking participants with L2 English watched video clips of workplace interactions and assessed the level of impoliteness in these videos. Moreover, the participants indicated the emotions they experienced after watching the video clips and completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. The results revealed that L2 users perceived higher levels of impoliteness. By contrast, emotional reactions to impoliteness did not significantly differ between L1 and L2 English users. Qualitative analysis of the participants’ emotions showed that these alluded to notions of moral order, with moral emotions being prevalent. The moral foundation of harm/care appeared to be the most prominent within impoliteness evaluations. In light of the above findings, this study suggests L2 (pragmatics) teaching should raise L2 learners’ awareness of the pesonal and psychological factors involved in impoliteness events, provide input on inferences from gesture, and draw on workplace interactions as a useful context for discussions on infelicitous interactions.