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How switching language can change your personality
New Scientist ^ | 25 June 2008 | Staff

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: languages; personality; spanish
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1 posted on 06/26/2008 2:40:54 PM PDT by forkinsocket
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To: forkinsocket
Learn another language, gain another soul.

I've always believed the language you speak profoundly molds, or frames, the way you think.

2 posted on 06/26/2008 2:44:40 PM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: forkinsocket

I once took an Arabic language class. Wish I’d had the money to continue it because I was picking it up really fast and I was enjoying it. Anyway, I quickly noticed that the way a language is constructed can have an *enormous* effect on how you think about things.


3 posted on 06/26/2008 2:44:43 PM PDT by JamesP81 (George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not a suggestion)
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To: LibWhacker

wonder what that says about made-up languages like klingon and ebonics?


4 posted on 06/26/2008 2:48:37 PM PDT by bravo whiskey (green is the new mean)
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To: JamesP81
I quickly noticed that the way a language is constructed can have an *enormous* effect on how you think about things.

How so?

5 posted on 06/26/2008 2:48:48 PM PDT by NativeSon (off the Rez without a pass...)
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To: forkinsocket
Language creates a structure that forces a person to organize their thoughts in specific fashion to conform with rules of grammar, etc.; it is only natural that bilingual people will see the same event from a slightly different perspective depending on the language they use. The first language a person uses will have the most dramatic effect on how a person thinks. Read an author who is fluent in English as their second language and you will find a difference in how they view the world from native English speakers.
6 posted on 06/26/2008 2:52:31 PM PDT by Libertarianize the GOP (Make all taxes truly voluntary)
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To: JamesP81
Anyway, I quickly noticed that the way a language is constructed can have an *enormous* effect on how you think about things.

Did it make you want to blow yourself up?

7 posted on 06/26/2008 2:58:04 PM PDT by webheart
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To: forkinsocket

Arabic and Farsi must make you a bit crazy.


8 posted on 06/26/2008 2:58:10 PM PDT by Bobalu (What do I know, I'm a Typical White Guy)
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To: bravo whiskey
wonder what that says about made-up languages like klingon

Here's a well-known song, as translated from the original Klingon:

Accept the game!
To all things we are compelled to say "Well done!"
The neighbours seem to behave in a friendly fashion,
and there is where we enter!
Describe to me immediately
how to go to Sesame Street!

9 posted on 06/26/2008 3:05:41 PM PDT by agere_contra
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To: Bobalu

Farsi is for softies ;)

I can’t express any real anger in any other language but Arabic. Hebrew is strong & simple. Arabic is complicated & emotional. I don’t know what I think of English yet.


10 posted on 06/26/2008 3:09:19 PM PDT by forkinsocket
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To: Libertarianize the GOP

It’s true what you said about structure forcing a person to organize thoughts into a specific format. Mandarin and Cantonese have no verb ‘to be’. So the concept of time is difficult to pin down.

When will it be ready?
- Tomorrow.
Great, thank you. I’ll call before I come by.
- OK.
Hi, I’m here to pick this up. (present ticket)
- It’s not ready.
OK, when can I get it?
- Tomorrow.
Great, thank you. I’ll call before I come by.
- OK.
(repeat ad infinitum)

It is also because of that structure that people choose the language in which they would prefer to write. Arab Christians *never* write to their parents in Arabic and never speak to their children in Arabic. It’s a language they pick up in schools. At home and in church, they speak French. It’s the language of emotional intimacy.

Czech author Milan Kundera writes in French. Nabokov writes in English and then translates his own work into Russian.


11 posted on 06/26/2008 3:12:07 PM PDT by definitelynotaliberal
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To: forkinsocket

I only know English; but, from observation I’d guess English is “brash”!


12 posted on 06/26/2008 3:15:59 PM PDT by donna (Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Never Hurt Me)
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To: NativeSon
I quickly noticed that the way a language is constructed can have an *enormous* effect on how you think about things.

How so?

I was learning Chinese for a while and I really enjoyed it, but my wife made me stop after I ate Pokey, our dog.



>>cymbal crash<<

13 posted on 06/26/2008 3:18:21 PM PDT by Bon mots
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To: forkinsocket

It is more satisfying to express anger in Arabic. It is, by it’s very nature, bombastic. The word for jackass, for instance, is jhahash. Nobody ever says it, though. What you say in an instance where you want to say jhahash is hamar illi khalafuk, which means, ‘a donkey had to have been the cause of your conception’. It implies much more than it says. You are infertile, your father is a donkey, your mother is a promiscuous horse with bad taste - much more satisfying than simply saying, “Jackass!”

Plus, in Arabic, you keep going: Yila’an abu rabbuk, hamar illi khalafuk, til has teezi, allah yakhuduk insha’allah. It’s what I do when I’m driving.


14 posted on 06/26/2008 3:18:59 PM PDT by definitelynotaliberal
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To: donna

Hm, maybe. Now that you got me thinking about it, I think English sounds relaxed & informal.


15 posted on 06/26/2008 3:19:07 PM PDT by forkinsocket
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To: donna

English is clean and linear. It’s very precise. And it’s the only language I know of that offers gender parity.


16 posted on 06/26/2008 3:20:06 PM PDT by definitelynotaliberal
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To: forkinsocket; definitelynotaliberal

Oh, very interesting. Thanks.


17 posted on 06/26/2008 3:23:18 PM PDT by donna (Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Never Hurt Me)
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To: forkinsocket

Totally agree - I have a lifelong struggle to acquire some competency in French. I’d have to say English is more direct, more practical while French is a bit more roundabout, more indirect.

It’s said it’s the language of diplomacy - probably because diplomats are trained to say “nice doggie” while searching for a big stick. The French language is well suited for that.

Finally just as in computer languages - it’s not all about the language per se - it’s about the libraries that come with it. If you speak French you inherit the culture that goes with it - Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Zola, Dumas etc. English, you get the whole English literary, cultural and scientific tradition.

And the two differ by quite a lot. So some of this is about the words, the grammar, the expressions, but some of this is also the 100s of years of civilization that goes along with it.


18 posted on 06/26/2008 3:30:28 PM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: Libertarianize the GOP

I have always thought that children raised with two ormore languages have certain advantages in all their school subjects because of being able to approach problems from slightly different directions.


19 posted on 06/26/2008 3:31:38 PM PDT by arthurus
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To: JamesP81

did you feel like jihad?

no, seriously.

if you like a language, buy rosetta stone at borders books. good price.


20 posted on 06/26/2008 3:32:24 PM PDT by ken21 ( people die + you never hear from them again.)
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