Spanish as a language of origin and heritage in Belgium: translinguistic and transcultural studies of emotionality and factors of its maintenance Spaans als “language of origin” en “heritage language” in België: translinguïstische en transculturele studies van emotionaliteit en van de factoren voor het behoud ervan

Language plays an important role, both in emotional processes (from the conceptualization of emotions to their regulation and expression), and in culture (as part of it, and in its transmission, conservation and change), . Emotion and culture are also linked: emotions respond to cultural values and models, and, since emotions are relational, they emerge and develop in interaction and contribute to regulating social and cultural behavior. The relationship between language, culture and emotion becomes even more complex when migratory processes take place, in which people come into contact with other cultures, other norms and values of social and emotional interaction, and often other languages. More specifically, when migrants have children, heritage speakers are born, at an intersection between social, cultural and linguistic systems.

Within this context, we approach three cultural and linguistic communities in two countries, and we focus on what we have called transcultural and translinguistic profiles: we intend to describe and analyze the linguistic, sociocultural and emotional landscape of migrants and heritage speakers with Spanish descent in Belgium and their cultural and linguistic communities of reference, that is: Spanish people in Spain, and French-speaking and Dutch-speaking Belgians in Belgium, with special attention to the maintenance of Spanish as the language of origin and heritage. We designed three studies, for which we conducted 65 interviews with migrants and 40 with heritage speakers, and questionnaires with 223 members of the reference societies.

Study 1 is dedicated to transcultural and translinguistic emotionality. We firstly compared the emotional processes in situations evoked by the participants of the reference groups, and, secondly, we focus on the emotional experience of migrants and heritage speakerstheir concordance with their reference communities, and the impact of sociocultural and linguistic factors, such as the maintenance of the language of origin and heritage. Study 2 revolves around emotional expressiveness and its relationship with emotional, social, pragmatic, cultural and linguistic factors. And Study 3 describes and analyzes the maintenance of Spanish as a heritage language.

In light of the results, we conclude that (1) the cultural and linguistic communities of reference present similarities and differences in the analyzed elements of the components of the emotional process; (2) the analysis of emotional patterns does not show, however, differences between migrants and heritage speakers and their reference groups; thus, it was not possible to delve into linguistic or sociocultural factors; (3) the emotional expressiveness of migrants and heritage speakers does not differ from that of their reference groups; (4) there are no differences in the ratings of social distance or relative power between the reference communities; (5) the emotional expressiveness of the reference groups as a whole is weakly related to social distance in the positive valence situation but not to the relative power of the speakers, and it is higher in pleasant situations; (6) the emotional expressiveness of multilingual speakers in cross-cultural contexts is not related to their linguistic or emotional competence in the languages used, but rather to the fact that one of the languages used is one of their first years of life: in these cases, they express more what they feel; (7) heritage speakers report relatively high linguistic competence in Spanish, more in oral and reception skills than in written and production skills; and (8) the maintenance of Spanish as a heritage language in Belgium is related to the linguistic and sociocultural attitudes of the speakers, as well as their linguistic and family trajectory, especially linked to the origin and language used with their mother. Finally, the last of our contributions is methodological, with the design of the language and emotions questionnaire in four languages (Spanish, Dutch, French and English), which includes a list of equivalent emotions in terms of valence and activation in those languages.