Embodied Lexical Semantics in a Second Language: A Neurocognitive Review

Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics. 2025. Vol. 22. No. 2. P. 362–375.

Karliukova A., Abutalebi J., Shtyrov Y., Myachykov A.

Sensorimotor embodiment of emotional semantic representations in the second language (L2) has been largely studied through behavioral paradigms. However, most neuroscience research of embodied semantics has almost exclusively focused on the native language (L1). The representational architecture of emotive con cepts (e.g., love, hate) in L2 has been explored from the neurocognitive per spective to a lesser degree. In this review, we first scrutinize emotive concepts highlighting their main embodied fea tures and differences from other abstract (e.g., transformation, coherence) and concrete (e.g., hat, cat) concepts. We then analyse conceptualization of lexico semantic representations indicating that L2 proficiency plays out differently in the development of embodied features for L2 emotive lexicon. Second, we examine behavioral research in the emotive con cepts’ domain both in exclusively L1 and in mono- and bilingual contexts. We then summarize the main neurocognitive evi dence in processing emotive semantics in L1. Finally, we review the existing neu rocognitive findings regarding embodied processing of emotive concepts in L2. Thus, we discuss evidence from several recent neuroimaging (i.e., fMRI, EEG), and physiological (i.e., EML, eye-track ing) studies using healthy populations. These data provide evidence for the exis tence of embodied neural representations of emotive concepts in L2. However, these findings also suggest they are embodied differently than L1 words to a degree.

Keywords: эмоции, emotions, eye-tracking, EEG, укорененность, фМРТ, fMRI, embodiment, айтрекинг, воплощение, Электроэнцефалография (ЭЭГ), emotive concepts, affective abstract words, emotive semantics, skin conductance response (SCR), grounding, electromyography (EML), эмотивные концепты, эмотивная семантика, эмоциональные абстрактные слова, электромиография (ЭМЛ), кожно-гальваническая реакция (КГР)