Has the language we use influence on our behaviour?

[Kas]

Not an article, just a simple observation.
I noticed that when I talk in foreign language the tone of my voice is slightly different, it influences also body language,gesticulation.

Has anyone else observed it?

If it has influence, then why?

 

[Virtual ghost]

Behaviour ?

I am not sure about that.
However different languages have different logic to them so the way of observing reality changes with different langauge.

 

[Kas]

Behaviour ?

I am not sure about that.
However different languages have different logic to them so the way of observing reality changes with different langauge.

Thanks for the reply

You meant maternal language or the languages we learn later as well?
I think it's true about maternal language that way it describes everething somehow influenced our way of thinking, but I'm don't see it with other languages I learned

 

[Virtual ghost]

Thanks for the reply

You meant maternal language or the languages we learn later as well?
I think it's true about maternal language that way it describes everething somehow influenced our way of thinking, but I'm don't see it with other languages I learned

If you know enough languages you will have easier time to shift you perspective on specific things. This is perhaps not so much because of languages itself but culture that comes with them.
However it is true that your first language will have clearly the biggest role in the whole story, since it is litterally starting point of the whole "life story".

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

Not an article, just a simple observation.
I noticed that when I talk in foreign language the tone of my voice is slightly different, it influences also body language,gesticulation.

Has anyone else observed it?

If it has influence, then why?

I wonder if this has a lot to do with fluency, also. The more fluent you are, the less likely you would be to notice this distinction?

 

[Kas]

I wonder if this has a lot to do with fluency, also. The more fluent you are, the less likely you would be to notice this distinction?

Not really. Although I have noticed it mainly about Spanish (and it's true that I don't speak Spanish fluently)... for example I gesticulate relatively a lot , I thought it could be because of the 'spirit' of the language

(or maybe it's just me not able to find words)

.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

I noticed when I took ASL, when signing, my facial expressions seemed much more pronounced. Now, I know that is part of the language but I noticed that I was doing it in an uncontrolled manner. While I was thinking of the right word to use. I felt more animated, for sure.

 

[Mole]

We learn to speak our mother tongue at home, naturally and intuitively, at our mother's knee. So every intonation of the spoken language is etched into our psyche.

By contrast, we are taken out of our home by State Law and sent to a special institution, with specially trained staff, to teach us literacy, to teach us how to read and write. We are sent to school.

And we are sent to a special institution outside our family because literacy is unnatural, counter-intuitive, but is the very basis of the modern world.

Interestingly, the spoken word is intoned while the printed word is visual without intonation.

So the spoken language we all learn involves all our senses, it involves the expression of our whole body, while the printed language is visual, does not involve our whole body, and requires we dissociate our body from the printed word.

So the printed word enables us to dissociate, to disengage, and to learn a new way of thinking called counter-intuitive.

And counter-intuitive thinking gave rise to science, modern economics, liberal democracy, and modern medicine. So counter-intuitive thinking underlies the modern world.

And while we live in the modern world we hanker back to the intonation of our mother's voice.

 

[Hitoshi-San]

When I speak in a foreign language, I feel like my tone has to be different. If I were to speak in my usual tone in Spanish, I sound like I'm trying to make fun of it or I have no clue what I'm saying even though I'm pretty fluent in it. It's hard to describe, but there just has to be emphasis on certain vowels that you wouldn't emphasize as much in English.

I've noticed the same thing in language teachers throughout school, they normally don't sound the same whenever they're speaking in whatever language they're teaching.

There's also that part in The Poisonwood Bible where they're talking about how if you say a word in Kikongo with even the slightest difference in tone than it's normally spoken with, you'll end up saying something potentially the opposite of what you meant. I think it was compared to singing.

 

[Kas]

When I speak in a foreign language, I feel like my tone has to be different. If I were to speak in my usual tone in Spanish, I sound like I'm trying to make fun of it or I have no clue what I'm saying even though I'm pretty fluent in it. It's hard to describe, but there just has to be emphasis on certain vowels that you wouldn't emphasize as much in English.

That's pretty much what I noticed. There are chances I'm not crazy

 

[Pionart]

I can't speak any other languages, but when I pretend I can my body language etc. changes. Yep.

 

[Mole]

It would aid our understanding of language if we distinguished between spoken, written and electronic language.

Each has profoundly different effects on the user and on the society that uses them.

And it is even more complicated when we have spoken cultures, without literacy, adding electronic language to their spoken culture. For instance, electronic language added to spoken language amplifies both, driving them into a frenzy. Whereas literacy is the antidote to both spoken and electronic languages.

To speak of languages as undifferentiated between spoken, literate, and electronic, is naive.

And as we perceive by making distinctions, to fail to distinguish between spoken, literate, and electronic languages leaves us unperceptive.

 

[free electron]

That's an interesting topic, indeed the language we use is one of the most important medium through which our inner self can reach out to our surroundings.
It is a way of communication and a way to experience the world, the fact that people use different versions of this medium must have some effect on their behavior. But I don't think it is something that can really affect your personality too deeply, it is just a way of self improvement as you get to see with different eyes (metaphorically guys).
Just like objects get to have a gender in some languages, verbs can be conjugated in tenses that don't even exist in other tongues, one thing can be one word for some, and 10 different words for others...