Functions of affect in language use

Stevick (1999) defines affect functionally: affect towards a particular thing or action is how this action or situation fits in with one’s needs or purposes and its resulting effect on one’s emotions (Stevick 1999, p.44) and thus includes in the term ‘affect’ both the positive (motivation) and negative evaluation (anxiety).

Stevick seems to be using ‘emotion’ as a wider term than ‘affect’ as he says: The inclusion o f emotion along with needs and purposes is not surprising when we consider that emotions are commonly responses to how one’s various needs and purposes are or are not being met (Stevick 1999, p.44).

Stevick considers that affect has at least five roles in learning and memory:

1. affective data are stored in the same memory networks as other kind of data and may even be the kinds of data around which those networks are organised

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2. affective data may call up from long-term memory certain other kinds of data and these extra-data may act as a clutter on the worktable, using up processing capacity

3. the affective side of feedback influences the shaping and reshaping o f the networks of the long term memory

4. affect is important in initiating voluntary playback of language and plays a part in response to involuntary playback

5. affect may interfere with one’s inability to draw on data in the long-term memory.

I will now proceed to compare each of the 5 Stevick’s roles of affect in language use with the findings of other researchers.

3.3.1.1 Organisation

The first role that Stevick (1999) sees for affect is that of ‘organisation’. He considers that affective data are themselves stored along with other kinds of data in memory. According to Damasio (1994) emotions are not merely parts of the network of memory. He calls the brain the captive audience o f the feelings. And since what comes first constitutes a frame of reference for what comes after, emotions may actually be the parts around which those networks are organised and they may have a say in how the rest of the brain and cognition in particular go about their business.

Power and Dalgliesh (1999) also discuss the interconnection of the cognitive and emotional variables in schemata, but they consider that the inner goal structures determine the organisation of the cognitive and affective structures. This suggests a more dynamic and interactive model of schema organisation than Stevick’s (1999).

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3.3.1.2 Interference

The second role that Stevick discusses is that of the interference that affect can cause: affect can interfere with the cognitive processing of the language input. According to Goleman (1995) the prefrontal cortex is the region o f the brain responsible fo r working memory. But the circuits from the limbic brain (the supposed seat of the emotion system, LeDoux 1999) to the prefrontal lobes mean that the signals o f strong emotion can create neural static, sabotaging the ability o f the pre-frontal lobe to maintain working memory (Goleman 1995 p.27). Stevick exemplifies this with a metaphor of a cluttered working table that interferes with one’s work.

Goleman’s (1995) and Stevick’s (1999) use of the term of interference describes how language anxiety is created and how it operates. The problem, however, is that Stevick neglects the fact that emotion is also responsible for the support the emotions can give to our processing capacity - ‘flow’ ; this is discussed by Goleman (1995) and Csikszentmihalyi (1998), (for explanation o f ‘flow’ see section 2.1.).

So I would paraphrase the role of ‘interfering’ as supporting or hampering the activity depending on the person’s previous experience and the level of difficulty of the task. Csikszentmihayli and Nakamura (1989) say that to enter a state of flow the task has to be just above the appropriate level of difficulty: difficult enough to challenge, but not so difficult that it causes anxiety. The instructions have to be straightforward and not ambiguous. So for the task at hand one either can either make use of the energy emotions provided or get sidetracked and think about the disasters of failure.

3.3.1.3 Monitoring

The next role Stevick (1999) discusses is that of monitoring and control. He says that it is through feedback that affect constantly reshapes the networks of the long-term

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memory in one’s brain. Stevick differentiates between external and internal, cognitive and affective, positive and negative feedback. Cognitive feedback answers the question How satisfactorily did I get my message through? Affective feedback answers the question What kind o f feeling did I come away with? (Stevick 1999, p.51)

• Stevick considers that external cognitive feedback derives its force from the human desire to transmit and receive ideas. When we perceive that the communication has been full and accurate, the external feedback is positive.

• Internal cognitive feedback is made possible by the two-way traffic between working and long-term memory and particularly by the comparisons of different linguistic items and forms that are made in working memory. If the forms do not match, the cognitive feedback is negative, but if we find a form that matches the meaning that we want to express, the cognitive feedback is positive.

• External affective feedback derives its effectiveness from our desire to identify with or disassociate ourselves from a particular group of people. For example, it answers the question ‘Do they like me?’ If the other person seems to be interested in what I am saying, the external feedback will be positive and will influence my willingness to keep communicating, in spite of my internal cognitive negative feedback (my cognitive awareness that I am making mistakes while talking).

• Internal affective feedback depends on the two-way traffic between the short­ term and the long-term memory and relates to evaluating one’s own linguistic performance. The question to be answered is: ‘Do I sound like a member of the speech community?’ The criteria include both message-bearing as well as

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non-message-bearing features like minor points in pronunciation and word choice.

Rolls (1990), however, differentiates between two separate functions of emotions: evaluation and communication about the way the person feels. This to my mind brings out the difference between evaluation of one’s own actions and perception of the emotions of others. These two functions are actively used both by the test-taker and the interlocutor during a speaking test that involves interaction between the test-taker and interlocutor. If, for example, the external affective feedback from the interlocutor is positive it helps the test-taker to speak better. Negative affective feedback, however, can easily cause anxiety.

The role of feedback or monitoring in Stevick’s interpretation can be compared to Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) of the area of assessment: taking stock o f what is needed, what one has to work with and how well one has done (Bachman and Palmer 1996, p. 71). Evidently this may be another area of interaction between affect and meta-cognition.

3.3.1.4 Language playback

Stevick (1999) considers that affect is important in initiating voluntary playback of language (spoken by others) and plays a part in response to involuntary playback. This to my mind is part of the assessment strategy. For example, after an interview that was important to me I would ‘go through it’ again and again scanning my memories for mistakes or reliving my success. Although Stevick does not talk about it, involuntary replay seems to have an important role in pronunciation and intonation acquisition, when learning a new foreign language.

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In a language testing situation this role is used as after the test is over, we replay and examine our own performance once again. The role of playback of affect would be useful to Wenden’s (1991) 3rd role of meta-cognition (evaluation after the event): the evaluation of the performance could work in concert with language playback.

3.3.1.5 Control of access to memory

Stevick (1999) considers that affect influences our ability to draw material from the long-term memory. He describes an experiment where he pretended to be either as an interested listener or an indifferent one, in the first case the person responding talks more fluently and has more things to say than in the second case. He explains this by Damasio’s (1994) statement that along with negative body states, the generation o f images is slow, their diversity is small, and reasoning inefficient; along with positive body states the generations o f images is rapid, their diversity wide, and reasoning may be fa st though not necessarily efficient (Damasio, 1994 p. 147).

Stevick’s (1999) discussion of the roles of affect in language learning is crucial for an understanding of the interconnection between the cognitive and affective aspects in language use. However, if we compare the roles described by Stevick with the functions of emotions in psychology we find some functions that are unaccounted for:

1. Rolls (1990), considers that emotion has its role in creating the need for social bonding. This may be the basis of language ability development of the human species and the basis of motivation in foreign language learning. It is possible, though, that Stevick has deliberately ‘ignored’ motivation as it has been adequately discussed by other researchers (for example, Oxford 1990).

2. Damasio (2000) adds one more function of emotion in language production, that of providing speech rhythm and intonation that characterize the speaker in

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general as well us informs us of his or her well-being and attitude to the object under discussion. He considers that to produce language we have to be awake (alert) and have background emotions (feel well-being or malaise, calm or tension) and this is reflected in a person’s speech. He says that emotional aspects of the communication are separate from the contents of the words and sentences spoken. Words and sentences from the simple ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘hallo’ to ‘good morning’ or ‘good-bye’ are usually uttered with a background emotional inflection. The inflection is an instance of prosody, the musical, tonal accompaniment to the speech sounds that constitute words. Prosody can express not only background emotions, but also specific emotions (embarrassment, jealousy, guilt, pride), when emotions are expressed explicitly and purposefully.

All the roles or functions of affect discussed here have a direct influence on language test performance: affect mobilizes our energy to do well in the examination, it organizes our memories and controls access to it, helps us choose the task if there is a choice and helps us choose strategies for fulfilling it. Affect determines the rhythm of our speech and gives additional meaning to the content with the help of intonation. Affect also monitors our progress by telling us how well or badly we are doing during an examination and evaluates our performance after it. It warns us if the needs of the task do not match our abilities; it mobilizes more strategies and activates associations with our previous experiences to improve our performance. Affect can also overreact by activating so many strategies and so many previous experiences that we cannot cope with all the activity and give up, thus destroying our own performance.

This description of the functions of affect may seem exaggerated only if we see affect as isolated from cognition, but if we think of affect as basis of consciousness, it is

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only natural that it is present in every cognitive operation either as a background emotion or as a secondary or social emotion (see Damasio 2000).