Author: Irini Mavrou, Associate professor, Universidad Nebrija; UCL

In today’s interconnected world, millions of people move between two or more languages every day. They may negotiate at work in one language, speak with family in another, and follow news, entertainment and social media across several others. Using multiple languages can deeply change the way a person sees the world. Research has suggested that […]

When people apologise, they do more than acknowledge a mistake. They also reveal how they understand responsibility, ethics, social and moral norms, and their relationship with others. These things all differ widely between cultural contexts. Speaking in a foreign language may directly influence the emotions – such as guilt and shame – that we feel […]

We often assume that how we respond to a rude comment says something stable about us: our personality, our culture, even the language we are speaking. If someone reacts calmly, we presume they are a patient person. If they snap back, we might assume they are short-tempered. But our research suggests something more immediate is […]

Rudeness, whether real or perceived, can deeply affect cooperation, trust, and workplace culture. But judgements of what we consider rude aren’t confined to specific disrespectful words or phrases – they are shaped by the listener’s emotional processing, attention to non-verbal cues, and underlying moral stance. In multilingual settings this complexity is compounded, as misunderstandings don’t […]

If you’re bilingual, moral choices can often feel more urgent and emotionally charged in one language yet distant and rational in another. This raises an intriguing question: does language merely shape how we express our thoughts, or can it also influence what we judge to be right or wrong? Our research team has explored this […]