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A foreign language is a way to live several lives in one. The more languages we master, the more personalities manifest in us.
“I stopped talking to my three-year-old daughter in Hebrew,” says New Republic senior editor Noam Scheiber*. He grew up in a family that spoke both English and Hebrew. – My Jewish “I”, as it turned out, is much colder, arrogant and picky, besides, it does not formulate its thoughts very well in words. When I switch to English, I become more patient and reserved, I speak clearly and simply.”
Many of us notice that we change when we switch to a foreign language, even if the knowledge of a foreign language is not completely fluent. The conventions that fetter in the native language are easily overcome in a foreign language. “We had a special liberation exercise,” says Oleg, a student at the Moscow Art Theater School. Everyone had to learn one French song and perform on stage with it. Even those who do not sing in Russian at all suddenly began to sing well in French.”
Polina, a 38-year-old translator who speaks English and Italian, agrees that she behaves differently in different languages: “For example, with Italian I become more relaxed and a little familiar, openly express my feelings, actively gesticulate, insert exclamations into speech . British English, on the contrary, adds to my restraint and wit in the style of Jane Austen.
Ksenia, 30, was born in Moscow, but has been living in Germany since she was eight. Her fiancé is Spanish. She is fluent in Russian, German and Spanish. “It seems to me that everything strongly depends on the circle of communication and the circumstances in which you learn the language,” says Ksenia. – For example, I have Russian for school, teenage, and the vocabulary is appropriate. In Russian, I am more careful, but there are things that are possible only in Russian, for example, to count. My Spanish is partly port-male, because I got most of the knowledge from my fiancé and his circle of friends, and he grew up in a port city and there are many workers among his friends. My best jokes are in German and Russian. In Spain, not everyone understands my humor, and a lot of things are incomprehensible to me too. But even in German there is a certain kind of humor, which, it seems to me, is understandable only to Germans, I do not understand it and do not like it. My German friends often notice that when I speak Spanish, I speak louder and more emotionally. In German, it is easiest for me to adapt to the situation and choose the appropriate vocabulary. My German is the most multi-faceted and probably covers most of my personality.”
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One of the clearest examples of reincarnation through language is the performance of the famous Russian song by Regina Spektor, an American singer of Russian origin. In the video, she first gives a short introduction in American English – with characteristic drawling intonations – and seems a little mannered, shy, young. Then he begins to sing in Russian – without the slightest accent, with exact semantic hits – and suddenly, before our eyes, he becomes older, stricter, deeper, it’s like a different person in front of us.
Scientific research confirms that bilinguals who are equally fluent in two foreign languages really feel like “different people” when they switch from one language to another.
How does this manifest itself in everyday speech? In 1964, Susan Ervin, a sociolinguist at the University of California (USA), conducted an experiment. The participants were 64 French adults who lived in the United States and were fluent in both French and English. On average, they spent 12 years in the US, 40 of which were married to Americans. Erwin met with them twice, six weeks apart: she showed the participants a series of pictures and asked them to write a short story, 3 minutes long, that would fit the picture. At the first meeting, the conversation was held in French, at the second – in English.
When Erwin compared the two sets of stories, she noticed several important differences. The stories told in English more often featured active, successful women, their heroes and heroines behaved aggressively towards their parents and tried their best to avoid censure. In French stories, older authoritative characters more often dominated, the characters felt guilty and showed verbal aggression towards their peers.
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In 1968, Erwin conducted another experiment to further explore her hypothesis that bilingual personality changes with language. This time, the participants in the study were Japanese women living in San Francisco, most of whom were married to Americans and raised English-speaking children. Almost all of them were isolated from their compatriots living in the US and only had the opportunity to speak Japanese when they came to visit Japan or met friends who also spoke Japanese. The interviewer, speaking both Japanese and English, asked the participants to answer the same question, first in one language, then in another. As Erwin expected, there were important differences.
For example, when women were asked to complete the following sentences, their answers differed depending on the language in which the question was asked:
1. When my desires are at odds with those of my family…Japanese: I am very worried In English: I do what I see fit
2. Most likely, in the future I will become … In Japanese: a housewife In English: a teacher
3. True friends should… Japanese: help each other English: be honest with each other
Scientists have used other methods to understand the influence of language on personality. Social psychologist Michele Koven conducted a year and a half study of bilingual adults in Paris whose parents immigrated from Portugal. All participants were fluent in French and Portuguese. Most lived in France, but maintained strong ties with Portugal. The coven asked the participants to recall various events in their lives and tell about them – some of the stories in French, some in Portuguese.
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Analysis of the stories showed that bilinguals exhibited different personality traits depending on the language they spoke. For example, women in French stories were more likely to stand up for themselves, while in Portuguese stories they tended to be subservient to the demands of others. The personalities of the narrators also changed. “One girl was very confident, even brazen, and looked like a real “trash from the outskirts” when she spoke French,” recalls Coven. “By switching to Portuguese, she became nervous, but patient and polite, like a bank client who does not want to draw attention to the fact that she is an immigrant.” What is the reason for the amazing metamorphosis that a foreign language provokes? So far, researchers have no answer.
* See http://www.newrepublic.com for details