Ever heard a talking bird speak your language? In the scientific community, there is debate over whether talking birds simply mimic, or understand and are capable of using, language. The function of spoken language in the human mind is also a topic of debate in the linguistic community.
This article summarizes the findings of select research about how multilingualism affects human worldviews, personalities and decision-making.
Language shapes personality
Do you feel like a different person when speaking different languages? When asked this same question, nearly two-thirds of 1,000+ bilingual participants answered affirmatively in a 2001-2003 study by linguists Jean-Marc Dewaele and Aneta Pavlenko.
Another 18-month study started in 1998 found that participating bilinguals “emphasized different traits in their [personal] characters, depending on which language they were speaking.” In this case, all participants in the study were Parisian adults whose parents had immigrated from Portugal. Ethnographic researcher Michele Koven „focused specifically on how her [human] subjects represented themselves in narratives of personal experience” in both French and Portuguese languages. For example, “the women in the French stories were more likely to ’stand up for‘ themselves, whereas the female characters in the Portuguese narratives tended to cede to others’ demands.”
Whorfianism
„Whorfianism“ might explain the difference in worldviews. Whorfianism is an idea attributed to linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf who believed that „each language encodes a worldview that significantly influences its speakers.”
If this is true, might it be more realistic than stereotype to characterize the French as rigorous, the Germans as logical and the English as playful? It has been proposed that French language be made the sole legal language of the EU because of its supposedly unmatchable rigour and precision. Some would say that German is an especially logical language (for the especially logical!) because the verb is placed at the end of a sentence. In (English) English, you can „park on a driveway and drive on a parkway,” as quoted in the article, Do different languages confer different personalities? „English must be the craziest language in the world!“
Considerations about multilingualism include a distinction between being bilingual and bicultural. For those who are bicultural, this distinction helps make sense of why people feel like a different person when speaking different languages. Indeed, those who are interculturally savvy tend to express ourselves differently in different cultures in order to better communicate and connect.
Language affects decision-making
In April 2014, a research discovery by Pompeu Fabra Univeristy (UFP) in Barcelona and the University of Chicago (UChicago) was announced: “[P]eople using a foreign language take a relatively [non-emotional [i]] approach to moral dilemmas, making decisions based on assessments of what’s best for the common good.”
In one experiment with 725 study participants from France, Israel, Korea, Spain and the U.S., the following situation was presented:
“Study participants are asked to imagine they are standing on a footbridge overlooking a train track when they see that an oncoming train is about to kill five people. The only way to stop it is to push a heavy man off the footbridge in front of the train. That action will kill the man, but save the five people. In other words, study participants were faced with the dilemma of choosing between actively sacrificing one person, which violates the moral prohibition against killing, or by inaction allowing five people to die.”
What would you do?
In this moment, consider: What would you do? In what language are you thinking?
According to the university researchers, “Across all populations, more participants selected the utilitarian [non-emotional] choice—to save five by killing one—when the dilemmas were presented in the foreign language than when they did the problem in their native tongue.”
Like the research connecting language with personality, the implications of the relationship between language and decision-making are open to interpretation. UChicago Psychology professor, Boaz Keysar said that, “This discovery has important consequences for our globalized world, as many individuals make moral judgments in both native and foreign languages.” UPF psychologist, Albert Costa, added that “deliberations at places like the United Nations, the European Union, large international corporations or investment firms can be better explained or made more predictable by this discovery.”
How might you interpret the research?
The above article was included in the May 2014 intercultures e-newsletter.
Sources:
- R.L.G. “Do different languages confer different personalities?” The Economist 5 Nov. 2013. Web: 15 May 2014.
- Robb, Alice. Multilinguals have multiple personalities. New Republic 23 April 2014. Web: 15 May 2014.
- Ingmire, Jann. “Using a foreign language changes moral decisions.” UChicago News 30 April 2014. Web: 15 May 2014.
[i] The word “utilitarian,” synonymous with “practical,” has been replaced in this quote in response to language in the article and original quote that seems to make a contrast between what is emotional from what is practical. intercultures acknowledges the value of emotion and encourages management of emotion that is effective for the given cultural context.
Photo credit title photo: Getty Images.