dc.description.abstract | The foreign language effect (FLE) refers to the observed difference in evaluations of the same
material presented in the foreign language (FL) as opposed to the native language (NL).
Previous research focused on the FLE in the context of meaningful material. The present study
investigates the cognitive processing of nonsense, namely bullshit statements. We aimed to
create bullshit and everyday statements in Serbian and English, which differ by emotional
valence (EV) but are matched on various features, and to investigate whether it would be
possible to match these statements for the imageability of their content. For that purpose, we
conducted two studies on samples of Serbian native speakers (N1 = 91, N2 = 93). The first study
aimed to select words for the final statements and collect lexical norms to control and
manipulate the statement properties. We extracted a group of English words from the existing
database, along with their familiarity, EV, and imageability ratings, and collected familiarity
ratings from Serbian native speakers. The words were translated into Serbian and rated for EV
and imageability. Based on these ratings, we created our database of the words and their
translational equivalents familiar to Serbian speakers and matched them for EV. However,
Serbian words were slightly more imaginable than their English equivalents (t(699) = 9.024, p
< .01, d = .341). The second study aimed to evaluate the statements as a whole. Using our
database of translational equivalents and the custom-made software, we created 480 statements.
Bullshit and everyday statements were based on the same randomly selected sample of either
negative, neutral, or positive words matched for other relevant lexical-semantic features.
Participants rated the statements for EV and imageability. As intended, the statements differed
by EV (F(2, 71) = 1053.09, p < .01, η2 = .904). Nevertheless, the everyday statements were
evaluated as more imaginable than the bullshit statements (F(1, 71) = 235.201, p < .01, η2 =
.385), and the statements in English were more imaginable that their Serbian equivalents (F(1,
71) = 59.111, p < .01, η2 = .055). The results show that the statements in the FL are rated as
more imaginable than their NL translations, even though the constituting words were rated as
less imaginable when presented in FL. The observed difference could result from the weaker
foreign language entrenchment in the semantic network. | sr |