Will Our Personality Change When We Switch to a Different Language?
Tags: Language, Linguistics, Language Learning, Personality Types, Personality

The relation between language and personality expression has often been the focus of a long-standing debate among scholars of different fields (from psychology to linguistics).

In 1964, the American sociolinguist Susan Ervin, forerunner of this discipline, carried out the very first experiment on this topic: the so-called Thematic Apperception Test. Using 64 French-English adult bilinguals, she explored the different ways through which these subjects shared the same story in different languages.

The comparison of the two set stories revealed interesting differences: while the English ones delivered a more challenging and rebellious set of topics (and of words used to express them); a certain sense of passivity emerged in the French versions. Despite the obvious limits of a research carried out over 50 years ago, these findings are still keen to be seen nowadays as undeniable evidence that something does change when we switch to another language.

And we don’t have to be perfect bilinguals to say that. That’s probably something that we have all experienced too. At our workplace, while talking to our friends and family or even just on our own.

As an exchange student abroad, I used to communicate in English the whole day. My classes were in English, my friends were from all over the world. My flatmates were so used to hearing me speaking English all the time, that they were shocked to assist at my phone calls with my family. I could see the smile on their faces and the surprise in their eyes, while my honest Italian self came to the scene. Every time it was like a revelation for them.

Almost as if I was a whole different person from the one that they got to know.

The truth is that bilingual and multilingual individuals may experience a change in attitude and behavior when switching from one language to another. But as Timothy Keeley explains: knowing a language is not always enough. In the article The Potential Effects of Language Switching on Self-Concept, Values and Personality Expression- Examining the Evidence, the polyglot challenges the myth that language alone is responsible for determining changes in our personality. He shifts the focus to culture and its related mechanisms, instead.

Language, as our most precious carrier of meaning, is far from being a mere communication tool. It determines how we interpret different cultural norms and how we adjust to meet the expectations resulting from them — and consequently, it defines who we are. Our own identity.

That’s the starting point to claim that what we trivially define as “different personalities” isn’t a result of the language itself but rather of its associated culture. The more closely exposed to a certain culture we are (its values, its traditions and its customs), the more often this “cultural switch” gets activated. And the more often and the more intensely we change.

So, forget about thrilling crime stories and psychology thrillers: people do act differently across languages, but our personality stays the same. What it’s often oversimplified as “personality shift” is nothing more than a shift in attitudes, in behaviours related to a change in contexts, no matter which language it is.