What happens to a person’s behaviour when he or she speaks more than one language?

By Vera Donker

It is often said that a person who is fluent in more than one language does not have the exact same personality in each of these languages. How is it possible that we are not the exact same person when we speak in English as when we speak in Chinese for example? Does it depend on the surroundings, the structure of the language, our ease when speaking a language, or something completely different? And more importantly, does is have positive or negative effects on our behaviour and the results we get while engaging in another language?

The obvious advantages of being bilingual are being able to perform executive functions better (functions that demand planning and prioritising), the possibility to talk with another person in a language that suits their needs better, the prevention of dementia in an older age and the possibility of having multiple personalities and thus different worldviews.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf               (1897-1941)

In the 20th century, an American linguist named Benjamin Lee Whorf held that every language encodes a worldview that is specific to a language and the culture of its speakers. There are two version of this vision, a strong form which supposes that language determines thought and a weak form that says that language influences thoughts and decisions. Many researches have done research about these ideas and most of them have concluded that there is no real proof for the idea that language defines our personality. This does, however, not mean that researches deny that the languages we speak have an influence on how we act and think.

                  Lera Boroditsky                    Cognitive scientist and Professor

Lera Boroditsky of Stanford University says that while language is a central part of cognition, there is nothing magical about how language shapes thought. Languages shape our thinking in the same ways that going to medical school or learning to fly a plane also build expertise and transform the way we can do. According to her different languages encourage different kinds of cognitive expertise in their speakers, and as a result, speakers of different languages end up thinking differently. An example of this is that in the Chinese language there is no way to express the future using verbs. A result of this is that for Chinese people the future seems closer to today than it does to for example an English speaker. The influence of this grammatical structure is that Chinese people save more money for their future than English people, the Chinese are 30% more likely to save money in any given year. An explanation is given by behaviour economist Keith Chen. He says that in English the future seems more distant from the present and that makes that we’re less motivated to save money.

There are many explanations as to why a bilingual person can act different in each of the two languages. Most of all because the person doesn’t necessarily have to be bicultural too, depending on the way and time we learn the second language we can speak a second language but not feel engaged in the culture as much as in our first language and culture. Another explanation is that even when a person is bicultural each language can evoke different feelings. Speaking one language can create a feeling of stress for example when it’s the language we use professionally while another language can create a feeling of feeling at home if it’s the language we use to talk to our family. Another reason for a difference in behaviour in different languages is the grammatical structure of a sentence. In some languages the verb can be found at the beginning of the sentence, like in Greek, and this makes it easier for another person to interrupt because they already have to most important information after just one word.

We can thus conclude that speaking more than one language does not necessarily mean that we act in the same manner when speaking them. It shows us the influence of our surroundings and the importance of grammar. What we should always keep in mind when speaking another language is that culture is also a very important part of how we speak and what we say.
For example, Dutch people are known for being very direct and impolite in some countries, but for the Dutch it is more impolite to waist somebody’s time with useless information and formalities than it is to ask directly for something. Some Asian cultures are acting the opposite way. When meeting someone there are many courtesies and formalities you have to keep in mind. A person will also never tell you no directly, they will diverse the conversation or say yes when they mean no just to end the conversation. If you can understand these nuances and behavioural rules depends on what you know about the culture and the language.

The most important thing to keep in mind when speaking more than one language is that you don’t only have to know how to speak the language but also how to engage in a conversation with local people, accept and learn about the culture and be careful not to use the same approach as you would in your mother tongue. There are people specialised in learning you how to deal with people from other cultures and languages, it is a mistake to think that this is not important. Whilst knowing how to speak a language is an important part of being able to communicate with local people, facial expressions, gestures and formulations of sentences are just as important and need to be learned for each language that we speak.
Even if knowing how to speak other languages doesn’t mean we master the culture that comes with it too, being able to speak multiple languages affects the structure of the mind in terms of categorization, memory, perception and self-perception. These are useful skills for anyone who works in a business environment and should encourage everyone to try to learn the languages that seem useful to them, because even if we don’t use them every day, they help us in many ways, both on a personal and a professional level.