5 Research Questions,

Hypotheses, Independent
Variables and
Research Design

In this chapter, the general research questions will be presented and refi ned
into sub-questions and hypotheses. The independent variables taken into
account in the two studies included in this book will also be explained.
This is followed by a detailed description of the research design, discussing
the methodological choices made in both studies. Additionally, the
participants of both studies and the procedure will be described in detail.

Research Questions and Hypotheses

Based on research presented and discussed in the previous chapters, two
overall research questions can be proposed. Chapter 6 seeks to answer the
following general research question:

(1) To what extent do cross-cultural, crosslinguistic and individual

differences including demographic (gender, age and education)
and language-related variables (language learner history, self-perceived
proficiency and frequency of use), have an impact on the perceived
degree of emotionality of the fi rst language (L1) and second language
(L2), the self-rated frequency of verbalising emotions in the L1 and
L2, code-switching (CS) in various situations and the perception of L2
users’ selves?
Chapter  7, investigating LX users’ verbalisation of their emotions on
the level of performance, seeks to answer the following general research
question:
(2) To what extent do cross-cultural, crosslinguistic and gender
differences have an impact on the frequency and way of expressing
emotions when writing a story in the L2?

The general questions were then broken down by topic and divided
into various sub-questions and hypotheses, which are listed below. In
Chapters  6 and 7, the results are also presented by topic. To improve

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