Abstract. Language is the most omnipresent and powerful cultural artifact human beings possess to mediate our knowledge of the world, our connection with one another, and our own thought and self-regulation. As Halliday (1975) stated, the two primary essential functions of language are interacting with others (social interaction) and with oneself (thought). In recent years, an urgent need has emerged in European society for educational engagement in processes that develop pluricultural and plurilingual competencies oriented toward collaborative dialogue to foster the acceptance of otherness and prevent inequalities among social groups (Coste & Cavinalli, 2015). Emotions exert a filtering effect (Mora, 2013) and, consequently, it is necessary to explore the affective issues surrounding this educational approach, since innovative proposals are often rejected due to insufficient knowledge of what they entail and a fear of change. To offer some answers, this chapter analyzes studies on how affective factors and emotions influence language acquisition and learning, and proposes methodological principles and practical tasks applicable to language education that can guarantee the learning of the values, attitudes, skills, knowledge, and critical thinking required in a plurilingual and pluricultural society. Based on the fact that cognition and emotion are intertwined factors, I describe the main research findings of various currents in the study of emotion and language. I review some of the differences between first and second language acquisition from an affective perspective. Likewise, I address motivation and language anxiety—two almost entirely independent poles rather than opposite ends of a single continuum—which drive or hinder the learner's willingness to communicate. This chapter also includes various contributions on mediation which, conceived as a paradigm shift in the foreign language classroom and through the different possibilities of out-of-school language learning (Piccardo, 2014, 2018), can foster an environment in which students maximize their emotional intelligence and their plurilingual and intercultural communicative competencies. Finally, I delve into research on emotions in foreign language learning and conclude this chapter with methodological recommendations for language education.
How to cite. Fonseca-Mora, M. C. (2023). Emotion in language education and pedagogy. In G. Schiewer, J. Altarriba & B. Ng (Eds.), Volume 3 (pp. 2195-2217). By Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110795486-043
