

Do you have a different personality when you speak a different language? - jazzdev
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/08/15/f-vp-ross.html

======
RiderOfGiraffes
I have an unpublished, unfinished PhD thesis investigating this question. I'm
working on getting permission to publish it, but for now I can only give you
the summary.

The author administered standardised personality tests to people tested as
fluently bi-lingual in English and German. Each of the four possibilities was
tested. Everyone got both tests, some tested first in English, the others
first in German. Each group had roughly equal numbers of those claiming
English as their first language and those claiming German as their first
language.

The data showed two distinct types of behaviour. Some of those tested showed
no personality shift at all, while others showed an unmistakable change. There
were none who changed a little - either they did, or they didn't.

It's been suggested that those who didn't change were, for example, compound
bilinguals, whereas those who did were coordinates. Or _vice versa._

The conclusion was that a personality shift for some types of bilinguals is
clear and unavoidable.

I really hope I can get this material onto the web.

ADDED IN EDIT: Separating the effects of cultural influences from those of the
language itself is difficult, and the author of the thesis went to great
lengths to look for changes based on the language. that's what makes this
research so important (in my opinion). My next step is to contact the
supervisor(s) of the candidate, but that's awkward. Working on it.

~~~
jacquesm
Here's a bit of my experience to back up how hard it is to separate out the
cultural aspect: The English singular 'you' has two words for it in German,
'sie' and 'du'.

The first one is used in situations where there is some distance between the
speakers, the second when they are (much) more familiar. It used to be fairly
unheard of to hear a German 'subordinate' use 'du' to their superior, whereas
in English it would be impossible to even express the difference.

So in Germany workplace relationships tend to have a sense of distance between
the various strata. Even if you didn't want to change your personality the
simple fact that you'd address your superior in this way would make you behave
differently (and so you would show a more deferential personality), because
associated with that distance are a whole pile of other personal traits.

It's not as strict as it used to be, but the difference is definitely still
there.

~~~
sparky
Same in Spanish ('usted' and 'tu', respectively).

~~~
shrikant
And in most Indian languages.

~~~
CWuestefeld
And French, "tu" (familiar singular) and "vous" (formal singular, or plural).

English used to have "thou", but of course that's long since extinct.

~~~
eipipuz
Trivia, "thou" was actually the informal pronoun.

On the other hand in Mexican Spanish, "usted" is fading away. It's curious how
different cultures get rid of different options.

~~~
hernan7
"Usted" is alive and well in Argentinian Spanish. Divided by a common language
indeed...

------
compay
I speak 2 languages fluently and a few others adequately. I definitely think
my behavior is a little different when speaking Spanish versus English, but I
don't think there are any deep-seated psycholinguistic reasons for this - it's
more because of cultural differences.

An example: in Colombia, when demonstrating the height of a child, you hold
your hand vertically, while when talking about the height of an animal, you
hold your hand horizontally. If you do the wrong thing, people may assume
you're a foreigner and don't know, or they may assume you're just rude. The
fact that I learned to hold my hand a certain way when speaking Spanish with
Colombians doesn't mean my personality has changed, it means I've absorbed a
cultural lesson and if I do it, I do it because I am trying to fit in.

The same things goes for the way in which you express yourself with speech.
The way you greet people, how long you make small talk before "getting down to
business", how to flirt in a bar; all of these things vary a LOT from country
to country and if you want to fit in, then you need to pay attention and learn
some things. But again, doing that does not mean that your __personality __has
changed; you're just behaving differently.

One more thing - as somebody who studied theoretical linguistics and speaks
the two languages fluently, any time people start making ridiculously
subjective claims about a language like "English, a more unemotional and
efficient language than Spanish" - keep in mind you're reading complete
bullshit.

That's like saying the firewire cable that you use to transfer movies from
your video camera is more "artistic" than the USB cable you use to attach your
hard drive to your computer. It's confusing the signal with the carrier, and
making some pretty subjective claims about the signal too.

~~~
Shorel
"English, a more unemotional and efficient language than Spanish"

That claim is because it is usually perceived that lots of words and
expressions in English are shorter than their Spanish counterparts.

car vs carro

dog vs perro

lol vs que risa jajajajaja

I'm really interested in an expert explanation of why this is complete
bullshit.

~~~
compay
First: it's because it's making cultural observations about the people from
both places, and trying to somehow say that this is reflected in the language.

For the sake of argument, let's just assume the British are "less emotional"
than the Argentines (though attending a football match in each country may
disabuse you of that idea). This may affect the way people _use_ language, but
it does not affect _language_. Language is a tool that people use to convey
their thoughts. The tool not affected by the thoughts it is used to convey.

Second: sure, English may have lots of one-syllable words for things that are
two syllables in Spanish (though the "lol" example you gave above is spurious
because in my experience people just write "jaja."). But English requires more
use of pronouns, articles and prepositions than Spanish does:

* "No sé" vs. "I don't know"

* "No lo vi" vs. "I didn't see it"

* "vamos" vs. "let's go"

* "saco la mano" "I take out my hand"

What's more "efficient?" It's subjective, and at the end of the day an utterly
meaningless thing to analyze because trying to extrapolate cultural behaviors
from the way a language uses propositions and articles is about as good
science as phrenology or astrology.

Third: let's assume when people say "efficient" they mean "simpler grammar."
People often claim that "Latin is more complex than English" because it has
nominal declensions. But because of its declensions, word order in Latin is
almost irrelevant. In place of declensions, English uses strict word order to
distinguish subjects from objects. Which one is simpler? It's subjective,
because your answer will depend on whether you're a native speaker of a
language more like Latin or more like English.

But if you're writing a program to parse natural language syntax, Latin's
"complex" nouns make it _a lot_ easier to parse programmatically than English.
What does this say about Roman culture? Nothing. Again, it's the wrong way to
look at language - there's no valid reason to draw a connection between
grammar and cultural behavior.

------
jpp
This seems to be my week to finally "de-lurk" around here.

I did a collaboration a few years back on this; it's a fascinating topic. If
you're curious to learn more and have access, check out:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WM0-4DVBH3Y-1&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1428132340&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b715da28a8ab603d2c951da1a5de90a1)

I'll see if I can dig up a summary but am on iPhone at the moment.

~~~
zackattack
Nice paper. what is Atof, Inc.?

~~~
jpp
Just my company... essentially it's what I do all my work through, makes life
easier than doing things as a sole proprietor.

~~~
zackattack
very interesting. can you tell me more? what kind of work do you do?

------
maxklein
One issue that comes up with people who speak multiple languages is the way
you speak them and the way you are perceived, which in turn lead to a
personality shift.

Say for example, you are a native english speaker from South Africa. You speak
with a normal informal accent. Then you go to study french in a school in
france - the french you will learn will be formal school french, and not
street french.

As a result, people who speak to you in french will perceive you to be a
formal, educated person, because of your choice of words. So they will treat
you that way, and you will adopt the same formal characteristics as the people
who are talking to you.

So it will appear that you have a personality shift when you switch languages.

------
stan_rogers
I think it's a lot more cultural acclimatization than language, although the
language you're using at the time may "force" a cultural context. I've
certainly been different people when living in different places: the back-
woods bilingual (English and "sawmill French") Stan of Northern Ontario had a
lot in common with the distictly Maritime-accented Stan who lived in Halifax,
Summerside and St. John's, but is almost no relation to the Stan who lived in
Montreal or the current Torontonian version -- unless you can drag a bit of
Newfanese or joual d'scierie out of me in a conversation. When that happens,
the "my time is precious", stacatto-speaking urban a-hole melts away and a
mellower (yet, oddly, harder-working) kind of fellow takes over. Granted,
that's "anecdote", not "datum", but it frames an alternate way of studying the
phenomenon.

------
spython
It's getting more interesting when you have mastered a language to such a
degree, that you can think in it. Having lived the first half of my life in
Russia and the second in Germany I can think in both, russian and german, and
switch between them instantly. I found out, that I am more happy and more
relaxed while thinking in Russian, while thinking in German helps my problem
solving skills. Probably it's correlated with my life experiences. I also talk
in a higher, more boyish pitch while talking in Russian, while my German voice
is deeper. At parties I often enjoy talking in English, as I have no cultural
baggage at all associated with it, and can use it to say things I would hardly
say in any other language (knowing how it may be interpreted). While it has
its upsides (being able to switch to another cultural mindset on the fly helps
with taking things easy), having two personalities occupying my brain makes
both of them less deep, and while it's more or less interconnected now,
translating the pieces of information between the languages feels often
impossible in polynomial time.

------
waivej
For a few years I dated a girl (translator) that spoke several languages
fluently. She would talk with her father on the phone and sort of regress to
the age/personality she had when she primarily spoke that language.

In English she was a young professional. In Italian she was a teenage girl. In
Maltese she was a much younger child. I still wonder if they had a richer
communication by going through the languages like that. It was so abrupt and
obvious that I loved to sit and listen.

------
mickdj
I'm a native English speaker and relatively fluent Japanese speaker. I used to
speak only Japanese for several days straight, dreamed in Japanese, thought in
Japnese etc. when I lived there.

There are words in Japanese I cannot translate to English - any translation
just has the wrong meaning outside of the Japanese context.

My friends who've seen me speak in both languages say I have quite different
personalities in each language. I would say that it's primarily related to the
cultural context I learned the words in.

In the same way different groups of friends bring out different aspects of me,
so too do different languages.

------
marktucker
I live in America and only speak swiss german with my wife. Apparently I talk
like a girl when I speak swiss now.

~~~
nat
I had the same problem when learning Japanese. Whether teachers or friends, I
didn't often speak it with other men, and definitely picked up some softer
turns of phrase and pronunciations.

Once I became able to hear this in myself I started overcompensating somewhat,
and had a few people comment that I sounded unusually brusque or was saying
something almost cartoonishly masculine.

I don't think there was anything inherent in the language that changed my
personality, but it definitely added another layer of concern and thought to
how I interacted with people. A lot of it also had to do with just the more
limited set of words available to me, though. Maybe I wanted to say something
snarky or yell at a taxi driver or whatever, I might just not have known how.

~~~
marktucker
That's interesting and pretty hilarious. Did you ever find a middle ground
between the soft turns of phrases and being cartoonishly masculine?

The part about the "more limited set of words available" is the same for me.
My vocab is okay, but strongly biased toward certain (mainly household)
topics.

------
enki
i grew up speaking german and i live in SF.

I call bullshit on TFA, because last time I checked the german speaking area
was culturally diverse in the traits mentioned.

Repeating stereotypes: people in Vienna don't yell and call bullshit on people
(they are more likely to talk behind each other's backs), while people in
Berlin yell at each other all the time to resolve conflicts (which seems way
more healthy to me). These are stereotypes sure, but not more so than the ones
mentioned in TFA.

So if there's no uniform behavior identifying even stereotypical german
speakers, how can this guy pick up on behavior that is different just because
of the language?

OTOH, hanging out in a culture that is more verbose (or not) about their
conflict resolution can surely change you. But that's independent from
language.

~~~
studer
"people in Berlin yell at each other all the time to resolve conflicts"

Oh, I thought the real German stereotype was that you sued people if they
annoyed you even the slightest.

~~~
Tichy
The US is famous for their lawyer epidemic and nutcase lawsuits like McDonalds
coffee that is too hot.

~~~
jacobolus
I wish people would make themselves familiar with examples before citing them
as evidence of vague general claims:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restaurant...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restaurants)

~~~
Tichy
Have a TL;DR? Am I supposed to red a 1000 lines Wikipedia article before I
comment on anything?

~~~
jacobolus
Short version: the woman suffered third degree burns over 6% of her body (1% =
the size of a handprint) including her crotch, and lesser burns over 16%. She
required emergency medical attention, expensive skin grafts, etc. This was not
just someone spilling a bit of coffee on their arm and flinching in pain, but
instead was a horrific life-threatening injury (I’m somewhat reminded of Rush
Limbaugh suggesting that waterboarding is no big deal, similar to a fraternity
hazing ritual). A jury made up of people (including self-professed
conservative republicans) who initially thought the case was a joke ended up
rewarding the woman a big pile of cash, because they felt after hearing all
the evidence and four hours of deliberation that McDonalds needed to be
seriously punished for what they felt was unacceptable carelessness with
customer safety.

Here’s a 1995 Newsweek article: [http://www.newsweek.com/1995/03/19/are-
lawyers-burning-ameri...](http://www.newsweek.com/1995/03/19/are-lawyers-
burning-america.html)

> _What happened next on the morning of Feb. 27, 1992, was an accident. "I
> took the cup and tried to get the top off," she later testified. She looked
> for a place to set it down, but the dashboard was slanted and there was no
> cup-holder in the Ford Probe. "Both hands were busy. I couldn't hold it so I
> put it between my knees and tried to get the top off that way." Liebeck
> tugged, and scalding coffee gushed into her lap. She screamed. Chris leaped
> from the car to help her. Desperately, she pulled at her sweat suit,
> squirming in a bucket seat as the 170-degree coffee seared her skin. By the
> time they reached an emergency room, second- and third-degree burns had
> spread across her buttocks, her thighs and her labia. All that she remembers
> is the pain._ [...]

> _After the spill, Liebeck spent seven days in an Albuquerque hospital and
> about three weeks recuperating at home with her daughter Nancy Tiano, then
> was hospitalized again for skin grafts. She had lost 20 pounds -- down to 83
> pounds -- and was practically immobilized. The grafts were almost as painful
> as the burn, her daughter Judy Allen recalls: "She was in tremendous pain; I
> didn't know if she'd survive this." In August Liebeck wrote to McDonald's,
> asking the company to turn down the coffee temperature. She wasn't looking
> to sue,but the family thought she was entitled to her out-of-pocket expenses
> -- about $2,000 -- plus the lost wages of her daughter who stayed home with
> her. According to the family, McDonald's offered $800._

> _The case proceeded in the stylized manner of the civil courts: expert
> witnesses were gathered, settlement offers were made. Just before trial
> Morgan suggested $300,000, but McDonald's wasn't interested. In August 1994
> they went to trial before a jury filled with citizens annoyed at having to
> listen to a case about spilled coffee. "I was just insulted," recalls
> Roxanne Bell, 38, a preschool teacher. "The whole thing sounded ridiculous
> to me." According to several jurors interviewed by Newsweek, three witnesses
> turned the case around. First there were the photos of Liebeck's charred
> skin and the testimony of Dr. Charles Baxter, a renowned burn expert from
> Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He testified that coffee at 170
> degrees would cause second-degree burns within 3.5 seconds of hitting the
> skin._ [...]

> _After deliberating for about four hours, the jury found for Liebeck. Her
> compensatory damages -- out of pocket plus pain and suffering -- were set at
> $200,000. To be fair, the jurors knocked off 20 percent because she had
> contributed to the accident. Then they hit McDonald's with a stern warning:
> $2.7 million in punitive damages. "It was our way of saying, 'Hey, open your
> eyes. People are getting burned'," recalls juror Bell. A month later, trial
> Judge Robert H. Scott reduced the award to $640,000, calculating punitive
> damages at three times compensatory. He, too, wanted to deliver a message to
> McDonald's that it "was appropriate to punish and deter" its corporate
> coffee policy. Scott, another self-described conservative Republican,
> insists the case was "not a runaway. I was there." After further post-trial
> skirmishing, the two sides settled out of court. Part of their deal includes
> keeping secret the final amount._

etc.

~~~
Tichy
So is 170° too hot for coffee? I still don't quite get it. is that Fahrenheit,
or Celsius (the latter probably physically impossible, but still)? What
temperature is coffee now (at McD and at Starbucks?)?

Feeling sorry for someone doesn't appear to be beneficial to people's
judgement.

~~~
mitcheme
Fahrenheit. Yes, it is too hot; home-brewed coffee is ~140 degrees. McDonalds
was warned multiple times, at least once by a burn victims' society, that
their coffee was dangerously hot prior to this case but chose to do nothing
about it. I don't know the exact temperatures that McDonalds & Starbucks
currently serve their coffee at, but that specific McDonalds franchise lowered
the temp by ~10 degrees afterwards, and though I've never measured the
temperature of my Starbucks coffee (from multiple franchises), it's never been
much hotter than the drip coffee I make at home.

~~~
studer
Yet, the jury put part of the blame on her, and further attempts to sue
corporations for serving (or making) hot coffee has gone nowhere. The
temperature issue is probably just a legal McGuffin here; in reality, she got
the money because McDonalds blew it in the first round, when they refused to
contribute to her actual costs.

~~~
mitcheme
I'm no lawyer, so I'll take your word on the legal aspects. But from an
ethical perspective, I think the temperature of the coffee is important. They
intentionally sold a dangerous product. The woman's only faults were being
kind of clumsy and assuming that the "hot" coffee was ouch-hot, not ER-hot.
140 degree coffee is ouch-hot, and serving coffee so hot it would injure you
if you tried to drink it right away is absurd.

Juries are just people, and people blame victims of things all the time.

------
plnewman
When I started to get good at my second language (Japanese), I found it easier
to be outgoing than when I was using English. Now it's been several several
years and I speak Japanese and English every day, though I use Japanese a lot
less (maybe 10% of the time), and I think the distinction has gone away.
Sometimes I do find myself wanting to use a Japanese phrase when I'm having an
English conversation, though.

------
albahk
I definitely have a different personality when I speak Mandarin, a language I
studied for a year in Shanghai. I am not fluent, so my spoken mandarin is very
simple, but direct, without the fluffiness or sugar-coating that one tends to
include in English (my native language). Examples:

English: "Would it be possible to get a receipt for that?"

Mandarin: "Please give me a receipt"

The language helps to reinforce this due to its structure and grammar,
however, I find I am more confident, outspoken and to-the-point when speaking
in Mandarin. Also, I find I am an incredibly stingy negotiator when buying
things, to the point of being a bit of a shit... didn't realise this until a
friend came to visit me from overseas.

EDIT: Also, I tend to be more respectful when addressing others in Mandarin,
using Sir (xiansheng), Master (Shifu) (as in a learned master), Boss (Laoban)
etc to give face. Its an immense help and illustrates to me that a little
respect and politeness goes a long way.

------
pge
When working overseas and immersed in a foreign language, I found the
processing power required for translation occupied my brain enough that I was
less filtered and, as a result, more outgoing. I also picked up a new set of
social cues and linguistic mannerisms since I was working with a blank slate
of sorts. Both contributed to a slightly different personality.

------
patio11
I think I'm largely myself at my church and with my friends when speaking
Japanese, but if it is a business situation, you are meeting a very carefully
constructed avatar that sometimes forgets he isn't real.

I am insufficiently skilled at Spanish to be doing anything other than trying
to speak Spanish when speaking Spanish.

------
WildUtah
I was in a car with a few friends giving directions to another car that was
supposed to meet us. The driver of the other car had a little trouble
understanding the directions I was giving and asked if we could switch to
English.

No problem. I can give directions in English as easily as in the local
language.

When we were off the phone, my friends in the car remarked with astonishment
that I seemed like a different person in English. At most one of them had any
English proficiency but they certainly noticed that my manner had changed and
my personality seemed to follow.

My ex-wife mentioned the same thing.

I don't notice it because I'm always the same person, subjectively
experiencing the same reality. Evidence indicates, though, that I do have a
different personality in English and Spanish.

------
sabj
Interesting Wiki page that is helpful here on code-switching:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching>

~~~
elxrr
Another on linguistic relativity:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity>

------
btilly
Another interesting data point. My brother speaks English as his first
language, but Mandarin is his primary language.

One thing that he found is that when he immersed himself in Chinese culture,
he had no problems. However if he went through a period where he hung out with
other Americans and Canadians, he shifted back towards his Westerner persona,
and would start to have trouble with the cultural differences.

------
c1sc0
Does anyone have data on how thinking in a certain language relates to
problem-solving skills? I know that e.g. for any programming related task I
automatically switch to English, even though I'm not a native speaker. I
wonder if you could hack your thought processes to be more efficient? Kinda
like pick the right language for the right problem, but for natural languages.

------
mipapage
I've been living in Spain for 8-9 years now and notice this whenever I go back
to visit Canada or even the UK.

Interestingly, when we go to foreign places where English isn't the official
language I find that I take on my "Spanish identity", perhaps like this author
did when using German in the Czech taxi.

------
slmbrhrt
I'm definitely much more direct and polite in French. I'd prefer to calculate
what I'm about to say a little longer than misspeak the local tongue, so I end
up appearing much more tight-lipped as a result.

My wife, on the other hand, has spent a lot more time in France than I have,
and apparently learned from the school across the tracks--she's much more apt
to stutter and fumble with vocabulary (she's got an anecdote about learning
the difference between cravat and crevette), but she's much more talkative and
seems to get more done with her style.

------
mediacrisis
Well, I do feel much more saucy when I speak Spanish ;D

I tend to become much nicer when I switch over to Spanish, mostly because I
usually speak it in customer service situations. Spanish is my language to
help people. That and I always love the look I get when the pasty Russian girl
starts sounding like a Columbian.

------
yread
I actually try to get a different personality for every language I speak to
realize it's a different thing. It helps not to confuse the languages and not
to pronounce the common words in the wrong way. My spanish girlfriend is a bit
annoyed when I speak spanish like a maccho when I don't speak in english like
that at all.

------
hurt
I've noticed that when I speak Spanish (or Japanese) I become a much more
outgoing person. I've suffered from fairly bad social anxiety most of my life,
but when I switch to another language I don't run into the same mental walls
that I do when I speak English.

------
nolite
native english speaker... I feel it easier to be brusk and borderline rude
when speaking French, but also appear to be timid and shy in that language,
and probably also humorless. In english, i'm the exact opposite

------
dennisgorelik
Personality might be affected by culture, but not by language itself.

------
elxrr
I've always been of the belief that cognition is deeply rooted in language.
This is essentially the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis.

~~~
lookACamel
Not exactly. _Everbody_ agrees that cognition and language are interconnected.
But the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a little more specific.

