Mai Yamamoto 
Do you speak multiple languages?
If you do, does your personality seem to change depending on the language you speak?
I think about the relationship between personality and language when my friends and family tell me that I am a different person when I speak a different language (Japanese vs English). I also noticed differences in my partner’s behavior (he is Mexican); he seems more excited and emotional when he is speaking Spanish. Does this mean Spanish is an emotional language? Do I become more emotional when I become fluent in Spanish?
Bilingual and Bicultural
On this topic, Dr.François Grosjean, an emeritus professor of phycholinguistics at the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), has written a book and a few really interesting articles.
He pointed out the concept of being bilingual and bicultural, meaning people who speak multiple languages can be living with multiple cultures but not always. For example, Montréalers in the city of Montréal speak French and English (hence, bilingual) but live in the same city (monocultural). The opposite would be true for somebody who grew up in the UK and moved to the US (monolingual, bicultural).
When it comes to bicultural people, they are described by at least three traits;
- They take part in two or more cultures
- They adapt their behaviors, attitudes or values to different cultures
- They blend aspects of different cultures
This applies to me, my partner and many of our international friends.
As Dr. Grosjean wrote in “Who Am I? The identity quest of bicultural bilinguals”, the process of adapting to different cultures can be difficult when there are contradicting values present in these cultures. On this topic, I can relate to this old study published in 1964 by Dr. Susan Ervin-Tripp at University of California, Berkeley, on this topic, because this study was conducted on Japanese-American women in San Francisco who grew up in Japan and moved to the US. They were married to American men after the war, and their language at home and surrounding communities was English. Japanese language was used only when they visited Japan, self-talked, and spoke with other Japanese-Americans.
In this study, they were tasked with different word associations and sentence completions in English and Japanese at two different occasions, meaning that they were instructed and answered in different languages but the tasks themselves were the same.
The results made me chuckle.
Sentence completion task
When my wishes conflict with my family…
Japanese: “it is a time of great unhapiness.”
English: “I do what I want. “
Real friend should…
Japanese: “help each other.”
English: “be very frank.”
These may be extreme examples, but they show that their answers reflected what was expected in each culture at that time. Japanese culture tends to be passive and group-oriented whereas culture in the US tends to value individual will and honesty in friendship. It is important to notice that the core desire was probably the same but opinions voiced out were different. In other word, this person wants to do what she wants to do anyways even though she thought it was “a time of great unhapiness”. Likewise, being frank would help each other in the US culture.
Word association task
New Year’s Day
Japanese: “rice-cake”, “kimono”, “seven-spring-herbs”, “tangerine”, “shuttlecock”, “friends”
English: “new cloths”, “party”, “holidays”
Tea
Japanese: “saucer”, “green”, “tea-cake”, “tea-ceremony”
English: “teapot”, “kettle”, “party”, “green tea”, “lemon”, “sugar”, “cookie”
The result of this task shows that cultural meanings of each word might be different even when the meaning in a dictionary is the same.
Word association task: English vs Spanish
In order to see if cultural differences show up between English and Spanish for the same words, I gave six words to my partner on two different days (first English, then Spanish) without explaining the concept of this test to avoid introducing any bias.
(I added explanation or translation in brackets when necessary below)
MOUSE / ratón
English: “cat”, “Jerry”, “cheese”
Spanish: “mouse”, “orejas”(ears), “queso”(cheese)
HAPINESS / felicidad
English: “family”, “Tobimaru”(name of our dog), “food”
Spanish: “familia”(family), “dormir”(sleep), “tacos”
LIFE / vida
English: “half”, “it’s my…” (Bon Jovi’s song)
Spanish: “vivir la…“(part of a song), “tobimaru”(name of our dog)
FOOD / comida
English: “delicious”, “tacos”
Spanish: “felicidad”(hapiness), “familia”(family), “reunión”(reunion)
YELLOW / amarillo
English: “Bird”, “Sun”, “food”
Spanish: “comida”(food), “macdonald”, “pollo/ito”(chicken/chick)
MEAT / carne
English: “food”, “luffy”(name of the main character in Japanese animation, One Piece), “Mexico”
Spanish: “luffy”, “tacos”, “asada”, “peda”(party)
The same words (e.g. food, tacos, family, Tobimaru) repeatedly appeared regardless of the language, indicating that meanings of these words are more of less the same for him in both cultures (Canada/US and Northen Mexico where he is from). Only slight difference between English and Spanish was the increase of words associated with a social gathering (e.g. reunion and “peda”, party in Mexican Spanish but literally means fart).
Bottomline: Behavior and Attitude can shift with a language but not Personality (core values)
This makes sense doesn’t it? Just because you speak multiple languages, it does not mean that you have multiple personalities. Rather, you adapt to each culture with a different language. Of course, this adaptation can cause some discomfort but overtime, I believe many of us integrate different aspects of two or more cultures into us and live in peace with them.
I experienced something like identity crisis about two years after coming to Canada. It was after trying very hard to master English and behave like Canadians around me to “fit” and be accepted into the surrounding environment. I was often the only one international student in my science classes.
I was able to speak English fluently but something didn’t feel right. I was saying things in English that Japanese “me” would never say in Japanese. That’s totally fine because cultures are different, but at that time, I felt like there are two different people living inside of me.
The process of adapting to different cultures gave me different perspectives, tools to express myself better, and confidence that the person who I am does not depend on which nationality I have.
So, someday when I become fluent in Mexican Spanish, I would embrace the friendly gesture of making a nickname to someone I just met (which would be super rude in Japan) and having cousins of sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, aunts, uncles and a whole village at a family gathering!
Reference and Photo credits (tea photos)
Ervin, S. (1964). An analysis of the interaction of language, topic, and listener. In John Gumperz and Dell Hymes (eds.), The Ethnography of Communication, special issue of American Anthropologist, 66, Part 2, 86-102.
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