Posted on 06/26/2008 2:40:54 PM PDT by forkinsocket
Bicultural people may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a US study on bilingual Hispanic women.
It found that women who were actively involved in both English and Spanish speaking cultures interpreted the same events differently, depending on which language they were using at the time.
It is known that people in general can switch between different ways of interpreting events and feelings – a phenomenon known as frame shifting. But the researchers say their work shows that bilingual people that are active in two different cultures do it more readily, and that language is the trigger.
One part of the study got the volunteers to watch TV advertisements showing women in different scenarios. The participants initially saw the ads in one language – English or Spanish – and then six months later in the other.
Researchers David Luna from Baruch College, New York, US, and Torsten Ringberg and Laura Peracchio from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US, found that women classified themselves and others as more assertive when they spoke Spanish than when they spoke English.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Actually, any strong emotion that I have comes out of my mouth in Arabic, automatically. Also, my little interjections. Ya Allah! Mashallah! Wallah! etc. I can’t imagine saying that in any other language.
My dialect one of the softer ones & best for expressing love. My boyfriend’s dialect is one of the harsher ones, so I find myself cursing in khaleeji now.
I’m goin gto learn Mexican, so I can invade another country, break its laws, not pay taxes, and due the work that Mexicans can’t do, high tech!
Rosetta Stone is very good.
I read an article some time ago that claimed you used different parts of the brain for different languages and your thought processes were affected by the language you were thinking in.
It is partly to do with the methodology of how the language is constructed.
When I think in French, which isn't very often these days, I am constrained by my French vocabulary and can stumble to "put my thoughts together" in a logical framework.
Apparently, Chinese people have totally different thought patterns to Europeans, and use a different part of the brain when having them according to the article.
I tried to write a story once about a culture that had no word for "death." I had to give up because I couldn't frame the whole idea of life without the other bookend. But what I did develop started getting pretty scary.
My wife speaks three and a half languages.
German, her native language, English, her second language, spoken longer than she has spoken German, French, a learned language, rarely spoken, but still used by her, and the half language, Spanish.
She can cuss you out in any of them, but she is a sweetie-pie in English, a b#t&h in German, downright scary in French and "get-the-hell-out-of-the-way" in Spanish.
She is able to express her feelings for me better in English than German.
She has a harshness in German that I've observed in quite a few German women, a harshness she hasn't lost in nearly 20 years of being a naturalized US citizen.
I can converse with her in all her languages, if need be, but prefer English, since it's my native language and she is much sweeter in it.
But when she switchs languages, you can, quite literally, see the difference in her demeanor, posture and attitude.
Funny, sometimes.
She says she doesn't see any difference in me, between languages.
Probably not, as I communicate more via body language, no matter what the spoken language.
Seems to me that is easily explained by the fact that the author grew up in a different culture. It's not necessarily the language. I've been fluent in Spanish, as my second language. Never noticed any difference in my brainwaves when speaking it :)
I used anger because that’s what you said initially. But Ya Allah is Oh God - not a particularly strong emotion. Likewise mashallah. Wallah is a question to test veracity. ‘Really?’ You seem shami. So you would be just as likely to say, “La - bijhad? Tahki bijhad?” I’m guessing you’re shami because you said your dialect is softer.
Yes, but your handle is "forkinsocket" :)
I don't think that's language. Similar problems exist anytime white middle class people deal with people from other cultures--eg hispanic. WASP's have a very rigid sense of time. 20 minutes early is way early. Thirty minutes late verges on rude.
It isn't the language. It's cultural convention. It is very difficult, for example, to get our cleaning lady to understand that "come at 2pm" does not mean "come somewhere between 11am and 5pm." It's not that they do not understand what 2pm means in English. It doesn't matter whether you say, "Come at 2 this afternoon," or "Venido en dos de la tarde," the convention is different.
They think my wife is unreasonable. My wife thinks they are flakey. But now we have a bilingual cleaning lady (first language Spanish) who grew up in Florida, es no problema.
So maybe there is something to this idea that language affects your personality.
Yes, it is true. Seems like native Finnish speakers are naturals for programming databases.
I have an interest in ancient languages, particularly the branching from the 'Tocharian'. Have you studied such?
Israelis have adopted a lot of the best Arabic interjections. They’re addictive! :)
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Barrack Obama in this thread. He shifts his personality, language and beliefs depending on with whom he is speaking.
Back in 1969 I learned (a little) Farsi in the Peace Corps—we were training for Afghanistan. I remember the irony of learning Farsi which has virtually no gender—the pronoun for he, she, it is the one word ‘e’—is used in two of the most ‘sexist’ societies in the world, Iran & Afghanistan. This was the same time when the feminists were claiming that one of the things that held women back was the English language. Words like ‘actress’ , ‘waitress’, and ‘chairman’ had to be purged and we ended up with sentences like “Everyone must bring his or her book.”
Although I was very young (and liberal) at the time I couldn’t help but think that if gender neutrality in language made any difference, then the women of Afghanistan and Iran were the freest and happiest in the world.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.