Dutch Speakers’ English Usage with Respect to the Emotional Context

Abstract

This study aims to illustrate the English use by Dutch speakers with respect to the emotional context. Research on bilingual processing of emotion words predicts that English usage will decrease as emotions run higher. However, a study conducted by Zenner et al. (2015) on the reality TV show Expeditie Robinson revealed Dutch speakers used more English when the context became more emotionally charged. The study presented here is an attempt to replicate these findings, using a newer season of Expeditie Robinson. The results turned out largely similar. While English usage overall had increased, this study shows that the English insertions that were used, are highly fixed words and similar to those found 15 years ago. Still, some code-switches were found, providing support for the idea that for some Dutch speakers English is taking on the role of a second language.