The “mental space” of emotions and its organization in the acquisition of Spanish as a foreign language in Italian learners

Abstract

This paper provides a neurocognitive and enactivist account of the “mental space” of emotions as a dynamic organization emerging from body–environment coupling and becoming stabilized through sociocultural and linguistic practices. We propose a multilevel model (core affect, conceptualization, linguistic realization) and argue that language not only labels emotions but also carves and refines affective space via lexicon, phraseology, metaphor, and pragmatic routines. Evidence in Italian learners of Spanish (Foreign Language) research indicates that L1 typically elicits stronger emotional resonance than FL, modulated by age and context of acquisition, proficiency, and use. We further integrate UDL 3.0 with the 4E cognition paradigm to derive instructional design criteria and include an empirical illustration based on beginner learners’ translation outputs, suggesting that motivational variables and evaluation anxiety relate to lexical choices in situated tasks.