Does the language that you speak influence your behaviour? And is the opposite true too? Does your personality influence the way you manage to speak a second language? Please share your experiences with us on this site.
If you end up being a TEFL teacher it is very helpful to have some acting in your blood. When you enter into a new language you have to adopt a new persona. You need to speak differently but also behave in a different way. Apparently Emperor Charles V once said: ‘ I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse.’ Do you also adopt a new persona when you speak your second language?
My English/Dutch self
I would say that the language you speak most assuredly has an influence on behaviour. Current research in this area points to the emotional quality of language use in bilinguals with the L1 always having a greater emotional impact than the L2 unless the individual is a coordinate bilingual. Then both languages would carry the same emotional impact.
From a psycholinguistic perspective, I would have to say that an individual’s personality is not going to be affected by the use of a language because these are traits that are transferable .. If you are a Type A personality in L1 you will most likely be a Type A in L2.
I see this more of an issue of cultural transmission and the sociocultural contexts for language use and function. If you appreciate and have some knowldge of how the langugae is used in sociocultural contexts, you will use it appropriately and not have to “adopt a persona” to teach it.. On the other hand, if you simply had language knowledge then you would have to act it out and imitate the way speakers of the language would..understanding of and fluency in the cultural transmission of the language is key..
My personal experience is as a biligual of Italian and English..I have familial emotional connections to both of these languages as well as the sociocultural contexts for their use, and though I am a second language learner of Spanish, I have lived and worked in Central and South American countries where I operationalized emotion in the language in sociocultural contexts driven by the cultural transmission of living in those contexts.
If I make any persona changes between the three languages they are the paralingusitic features of the proxemics, oculesics, haptics, voice quality and tone..but since I learned these behaviours in sociocultural context these are fluent changes that I see as necessary to making myself understood and not imitations.
In my case the language I’m speaking definitely influences my persona. I’m still me underneath whatever language I’m speaking or trying to speak, but depending on my ability level in the second language my true personality may or may not come across. I’m a native English speaker and now a fairly fluent Italian speaker but even now I often think, gee, if only I could say this in Italian the way I would say it in English, people would get the real me, not the Italian-speaking me. Of course, context plays a huge role in this, too. Just learning the ropes in terms of differences between certain day-to-day situations here in Italy versus in the U.S. has been an eye-opener and required certain changes in behavior which obviously translates to changes in language usage, so maybe it’s actually the other way around: the situation dictates the language used. However, this probably only becomes important or noticeable the more fluent you become, because at a beginner level you’re limited by what you can say anyhow. In terms of personality, I do believe certain personality types have better success at learning languages than others. An ability to roll with the punches and not give up is crucial, and students I see who are really hard on themselves because they make errors don’t make as much progress as others who can just laugh off the errors.
Well, I would say it definitely does…but it isn’t the language as such. Producing the right sounds does make a difference for my face muscles but the sounds and the words don’t make up the language; for language is culture, or at least a big part of it. I am a native speaker of Greek, now living in the UK – this is my adopted culture, I feel at home. I also feel that my Greek self is somehow evolving into a hybrid self. Speaking the language is one thing, being able to fit in your new environment is another.
I suppose it’s more of a cultural thing, even if we don’t live in the target country. When I lived and worked in Athens (and that was for many years, much more than my ‘international’ career) I spent more than half of my day speaking and thinking in English; yet, it didn’t seem to affect my peronality (or the other way round) because the cultural environment was set and very familiar. I sounded all right, I moved all right and it felt ok. Then I moved to Spain, third country, third language (I must admit it was minimal when I went there) the strongest feeling was that my Greek self experienced a shock. The few utterances I could produce sounded ok, my looks very similar to the locals (being southern European), still, something was wrong. Later on, when I moved to the UK, I realised that there is so much one’s self can absorb, and mine was already overwhelmed with Greek and English ways that there was no space for more, especially or a short time period.
I mentioned my ‘hybrid’ self earlier because this is what it feels now. I speak both languages, sometimes, when with ex-pats there’s unconscious interchanging between the two…I feel, though, that my body language has changed and intonation is still changing. This is more obvious when I go back to Greece – I think that whatever would be considered an exaggeration for both cultures has been supressed in my attempt to strike balance and still be me, the same persona, yet a bit more flexible.
The language you speak definitely chages your personality. I have a good friend, a German who teaches English and has near-native English skills. When we’re alone we speak Engish and she’s a pussycat. When we’re with others and she’s speaking the local dialect (Swabian) she becomes a lioness and does a lot more roaring. Even after knowing her for 18 years, I’m still suprised how speaking English makes her a softer nicer calmer person. There may be many factors involved: the music of the language, the speed it’s spoken at, the amount of swear words or similar in the native language, confidence with the language, volume of speech… But whatever it is, it’s personality changing.
What about your students? The classroom is a micro social setting in which the teacher plays a central role. Students often perceive the teacher’s reactions as criticism on their personality rather than their skills in English. Do you feel that students sometimes repress their true self when they talk to you? Do you feel that you as a TEFL teacher play a crucial role in your students’ academic identity?
Yes.. I believe students repress the true self when they speak in the classroom.. they are focused on prescriptive responses in a less than authentic setting underlying true social interaction..the teacher does truly play a critical role in giving students as many social, emotional and authentic opportunities to use the language as possible thus advancing their ability to use the language in academic settings as well as social interchanges.
This is one of the reasons I promote the use of differentiated instruction in a language classroom.. this type of instruction targets the various learning styles and allows students of various abilities and personalities to demonstrate their knowledge and facility with a language.