This will be the third lecture of the IAS Invited Lecture Series in Bilingualism and Multilingualism organised by the Faculty of English (Wydział Anglistyki UAM) and Bilingualism Matters Poznań in 2021-22, as convened by prof. Magdalena Wrembel and prof. Anna Ewert.
Abstract: One remarkably consistent finding in multilingualism research is that emotion words and phrases in the foreign language (LX) tend to feel emotionally weaker than equivalent words and expressions in the first language (L1) (Dewaele, 2013; Dewaele et al., 2021; Marcos, 1976; Pavlenko, 2005, 2012; Resnik, 2018). In this talk I will present possible reasons for this phenomenon and explain the potential benefits of the LX detachment effect in psychotherapy, where discussing traumatic events in the LX can allow clients to distance themselves from the trauma (Cook & Dewaele, 2021).