Comprehension and verbal expression of emotions by Greek-speaking preschoolers

Abstract

The emotional development of preschool children is one of the main pillars of the Greek Preschool Education Curriculum. This is in line with research that has shown correlations, of varying strengths, linking preschoolers' emotional development and the degree of their socialization. A large part of this research has mainly focused on the perception and comprehension of emotions, as well as their nonverbal expression. Similarly, there is an accumulated corpus of evidence that suggests various and at times contradictory insights and linkages regarding age, linguistic intake and expression, interlingual and intercultural differences, and more. This study investigates if emotions are perceived and how accurately they are labelled and verbally described by preschoolers whose first language is Modern Greek. Α mixed methodology was applied to process the data, i.e. both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used. Our findings reveal aspects of preschoolers' linguistic and emotional development that critically extend their upbringing and schooling, since verbal expression enables children to "talk through" their emotions rather than act them out.