Abstract

Emotions constitute an intrinsic part of our language attitudes and linguistic interaction and yet they have remained under-researched and undertheorized in the field of multilingualism. The key reason for this is a narrow understanding of the relationship between multilingualism and emotions that until recently dominated the field and limited the inquiry to the influence of affective factors on second language (L2) learning. A recent surge of scholarship opened up other venues for inquiry, such as emotionality of multilinguals’ languages or acquisition and use of emotion lexicons, revealing that the inter-relationship between multilingualism and emotions is much more complex than imagined earlier. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the limitations of traditional inquiry into affective factors, to summarize recent research on multilingualism and emotions, and to point to fruitful directions for future inquiry.