Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Languages used in Carnatic Music & Literature
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vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Post by vasanthakokilam »

http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/does ... ersonality

Some excerpts from the above link:
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"...I'm often amazed by the things students from this second group say to me. Some students tell me they are pessimistic in their native language but optimistic when they speak English. There are others who have trouble talking about their emotions in their own language but have no problem telling me all about their hopes and dreams in class. There are even some of my students whose posture and physical gestures are completely different when they speak English to when they speak their mother tongue. Generally, it's the students like this who reach their goals fastest.

I have personal experience of this, too. My life is fairly evenly split between three languages. I speak English when I talk to my family in the UK or at work. I'm fairly serious and polite in English. When I speak Indonesian on the streets or with friends, I love making jokes and I'm really outgoing. When I speak Balinese at home, I swear a lot (especially when I'm driving) and I generally say what's on my mind a lot more directly than I would in the other languages......."
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The above link is not any big research finding, just some observations by a language teacher. I have never thought about this too much but after reading this, I started paying attention to how I express myself in Spoken Tamil, Spoken English and Written English ( my only three modes of expression these days ). This split personality syndrome does seem to exist in me as well. It is not how others perceive the emotional content of what I say, but how I feel about saying 'fully' and clearly what is in my mind. That has a different emotional feel to it. It seems to be so different between English and Tamil. Sometimes I feel that I just get by with English. I consider myself to be fluent in English. But as native speakers of English have pointed out to me numerous times over the decades, we are fluent alright and in fact we are pretty good in speaking English but our English does sound different. It is not the accent or specific vocabulary but it is more subtle. How we structure the sentences are different in subtle ways compared to how a native speaker will instinctively say it.
(the word 'fluency' does not quite capture this aspect)

I think these two things are related. Even if we do not consciously translate every little idea into English, there seems to be something going on which increases the entropy in English which is less so in one's mother tongue. I know it is highly subjective but put yourself under the microscope and observe yourself how you feel after speaking in your mother tongue vs after speaking essentially the same content in English. It is hard to do but it is a fun exercise.

priyaram78
Posts: 393
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:57

Re: Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Post by priyaram78 »

Very interesting topic. Thanks. My personal take is, when I speak in Tamil, it is full of politeness, respect. My husband will completely agree with this. When I speak in Tamil, there is so much respect......inge vaango, sollungo et al. And when I speak in english, it all becomes so casual........you come here, you dont understand, please do as I say et al. So we fight in english. So we have decided to speak Only Tamil at home. Once we are with friends, we speak english and hindi and we ofcourse cannot fight and are in our best behaviour. So yeah.....its a split personality.

Rsachi
Posts: 5039
Joined: 31 Aug 2009, 13:54

Re: Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Post by Rsachi »

Indians love their language skills as much as they love their biscuits. It doesn't split personalities, but spells dissonance easily. I think Bongs and Mallus use minimal English words when they speak...earns my respect surely.

Two days ago, an auto driver insisted on speaking to me in English, saying he was actually employed during daytime in some office. My respect for him wouldn't have diminished one bit in Kannada.

Someone in my family speaks in English when spoken to in Kannada, in Kannada when spoken to in Tamil, and speaks Tamil when kids speak in English.

ENGLISH VINGLISH... Great movie.

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Post by cmlover »

Neurologically languge is monitored by the Broca's and Wernicke Areas of the Brain, none of which are any language specific.
http://voices.yahoo.com/brocas-wernicke ... 44206.html
Whatever happens is more through cultural constraints which is learned (self-programed) rather than intrinsic. Mother tongue always has a strong influence in thought-processing both consciously and subconsciously. After a long exposure the secondary languges can come close behaviourally to mother tongue but can never replace them! The cultural milieu we are in plays a strong role in our use of the languages. Most definitely the English we speak at NA is quite different from the one we speak back home at India with our own folks. In fact we mix english with Tamil most often back home.(Tanglish ?).

Whether there is a behaiour modification due to learning to operate in other languages is an interesting question worthy of scientific exploration. But definitely it will not cause a "split personality" which is a pathological condition.

rshankar
Posts: 13754
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26

Re: Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Post by rshankar »

vasanthakokilam wrote: When I speak Balinese at home, I swear a lot (especially when I'm driving) and I generally say what's on my mind a lot more directly than I would in the other languages.......
This is indeed true :lol: - I for one would hardly know how to swear in tamizh, while I think I am fully qualified to make a sailor blush in English!

Shivadasan
Posts: 251
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 07:52

Re: Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Post by Shivadasan »

Language does not create split personalities. It is the inexpertise in the language that creates the feeling of submissiveness or inadequacy. There have been plenty of orators with capacity to talk in several languages. None of them had any split personalities. In fact capacity to communicate in several languages removes a lot of hatred and bias against certain communities. Some languages are polite, like Lucknow Urudu, and some can be full of curses like (?) . The language gives opportunity to bring out our dormant passions. A very polite and cultured personality will be soft even while speaking a language full of curses.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Just to make one thing clear, the title of this thread is a bit provocative. The word 'split personality' is used in an ordinary and casual sense and not in any clinical or serious sense.

Shivadasan, what you state is quite true and that is probably what most people believe. So we can all agree that learning multiple languages is a good thing. I also understand what you say about the inadequacy in a particular language that may be the inhibiting factor. Let us assume for this discussion, we are talking about one's mother tongue (MT) and English and we have adequate speaking skills in both. ( of course, talking strictly in MT without mixing English is a problem but we know instinctively if we are speaking in MT or English by the predominant use of one language vs the other ).

I am curious about this at a different level. Let us take a simple scenario: Someone asks me a question that makes me think. At a first level of approximation, what may be going on is the 'sentence' spoken is understood by me and once the meaning is extracted, a language independent thinking goes on. That 'processing' results in an idea, possibly an answer or possibly a counter-question. Now, something very complex happens which results in translating that idea into a language. That is a transducer process. Meaning, a process by which one type of energy/signal is converted to another. Most transduction processes involve some loss or reduction in fidelity. If the loss is low, we perceive that we more accurately expressed our idea that stemmed from this language independent processing. What I am wondering is, if the loss is lower for certain types of expressions in one's mother tongue vs non mother tongue or vice versa.

BTW, what I describe above may not be what actually goes on in our brain but this is just a high level model to think about such things.

A lot of times, we know instinctively that we expressed a thought very well. It is not about how grammatically correct it was, or how well it was put together with rhyming etc. or it was a clever turn of phrase etc. Not those kinds of things. How closely does that spoken sentence reflect what we thought. It is hard to quantify it but we know it when we hit it right. I would characterize that feeling as an indication of a low loss transduction. So we all can check for ourselves if that loss is different for the different languages we speak for different circumstances. We after all do this thousands of times every day.

Speaking for myself, humor is one category where I detect a big difference in myself. The manner of telling a joke or describing a funny situation is so vastly different between English and Tamil. I think in many circumstances the fidelity is higher in Tamil ( but I may be wrong ). This is a relatively easy one to test since a lot of times we tell the same joke or describe the same funny situation in different languages. I realize that how we tell the joke depends on the other person and their cultural context etc. So if you decide to check it, choose people who will relate to the joke or funny situation in a similar manner.

I agree it is a complicated topic and my own thoughts on this may not pass scientific muster.
So it is more about self-testing and self-observation and reporting your own results in the most honest manner possible not encumbered by any external knowledge you may have acquired about this ( as to the theories ) or any personal pre judgements you may have about this. Again not easy to do, but it is fun once you get started.

Shivadasan
Posts: 251
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 07:52

Re: Does learning a language give you a split personality?

Post by Shivadasan »

Dear Vasantkokilam,
The following article in Hindu would enlighten us on essence of being humourous.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-pa ... 637432.ece

A life of laughter by Chandrika R. Krishnan

I read the article “With humour, you can fight many a battle” by Matthew Adukanil (The Hindu, Open Page, March 10, 2013) with interest. There was a time when insults had class. I feel that ordinary men too should face life with loads of humour.

My childhood was one big laughter zone as it was filled with P. G. Wodehouse and family. My father and his two brothers have only to get together to bring the house down. I recently went to a colony where I spent my youth and everyone had something or the other to say and laugh about my father’s wit even after two decades.

However, it was my father’s older brother who stood out from the rest with his innumerable one-liners. Forty years ago, doctors found a small tumour in his leg very worrying and he was asked to have it operated upon. The doctors were explaining to my father the seriousness of the situation, when my father commented:

“By tomorrow, we will know where we stand.”

To which my uncle quipped, “or whether I stand at all…” That was his statement when he was just in his forties.

On the day of surgery, his surgeon tut-tutted and removed a small hair the ward boy had missed out while preparing my uncle for his operation. Half groggy after his anaesthesia, my uncle commented dryly, “I have the world’s most expensive barber!”

The surgeon made it a point to be present after the anaesthesia had worn off to comment, “The world’s most expensive barber is at your service.”

His leg was always his Achilles heel. The second time he had to undergo another surgery two decades ago, the doctor assured him that he would see that my uncle walked home. “So, you mean to say that I have to sell my car to pay your bill?” was my uncle’s tongue-in-cheek query.

He was left with a noticeable limp after the second operation. One fine day he walked over to my parents’ house during one of our visits, when we asked him if we needed to fetch an auto for his return journey. My uncle replied, “No need, I have a walking stick, on the one hand, and a talking stick (meaning my aunty), on the other!”

He lived a full life before he lost his battle to cancer that led to an amputation a few years before his death. Despite his struggle, he never lost his humour or zest for life. Literal translation was his greatest source of strength. He would often be heard asking guests if they would like to eat, ‘salt flour.’ At their confusion, he would say upma! Even during hospitalisation, a simple collection of blood would elicit the remark, “he is after my blood,” making the technician break into a smile.

During one of his visits to my place, under my urging, my uncle asked my husband to procure a video cassette of a movie, which my husband felt was a big bore. On his enquiring how the movie was, my uncle replied, “it was good and would have been better had we all been cats!” (it was one of those dark, arty kind)

To lift the lines of the Bard, Here was the wittiest man, when comes such another?

My father’s uncle was not far behind when it came to humour. His mother lived on to be beyond 100 and though was ailing, he refused to allow his wit to lose its cutting edge. He had to go to a funeral in a neighbourhood when their family members, as is the norm, regaled the visitors saying the person was completely normal and had just bought a bunch of spinach from a local vendor and she collapsed and died soon after.

He regaled others with a story at a get-together and added that he had requested the woman who sold the greens to visit his house too! He was actually worried that his mother would outlive him and tried to hide his worry with his wit.

When my father’s side of the family meets, it is always an occasion to celebrate with boisterousness and wit. A man living beyond a hundred was being commiserated by others, when a cousin remarked that the reason for the troubled American economy was this man’s survival. He said that after retiring from the American Consulate, his handsome pension ensured that all the four sons vied with one another to make sure that their father continued to live, giving him the best possible medical care!

Humour makes us look at life with a different perspective and is worth being cultivated. It is a worthy legacy to hand down to generations to come.

(The writer is Asst. Professor in Manipal Univesity. Email: chandrika1306@gmail.com)

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