The purpose of our study was to determine if Chinese learners of Spanish used dimensions of valence and arousal and the distribution of grammatical categories of Spanish vocabulary similarly or close to native speakers of Spanish in oral narratives. To achieve this, we elicited oral emotional narratives of different valence: negative (sadness), positive (joy) and one neutral (answering the question: what do you do in a normal day?)
The aim of this research is to analyse the dimensions of valence, arousal and the grammatical categories used in the oral productions of 81 Chinese adult learners of Spanish. For this purpose, three narratives of personal experience were utilized; one of sadness; one of joy, one not emotionally loaded. The dimensions of valence and arousal in the vocabulary used by these learners, and of their grammatical categories, were examined. The results showed that the participants used more positive and high arousal terms even when they were expressing something sad. Regarding the grammatical categories, verbs were most used by learners, followed by nouns, adverbs and adjectives. These results point out the need to study the oral expression of emotion and to consider elements beyond vocabulary, in a more qualitative style that takes into account sentence level and context.
Key words: oral expression of emotions; valence; arousal; grammatical categories; emotional vocabulary.
