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Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome.
Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today I’m talking about…
The Power of Language: Multilingualism, Self and Society
This book is written by Viorica Marian and narrated by Cassandra Campbell.
The author is Romanian and wrote this in their third language, English. The aim is to look at the mind through the lens of multilingualism.
Before we start, there are quite a lot of things mentioned in this book that I have heard in other books, and I won’t go over previously discussed things too much, if I can avoid it, but all authors will go at things from a different perspective and bring up different points. And that kind of ties in with one of the themes of this book.
Speaking multiple languages changes the way you think, both as a whole, and when speaking each individual language.
Okay, so each language labels things differently, in terms of gendering non-animate objects, and research has been done on the gendering of nouns in different languages. Even though the gender of a noun isn’t supposed to really mean anything, from what I’ve read before, people still think about things differently depending on this. If something is gendered as masculine, they tend to think of it with traditional masculine-type traits, bigger, stronger, etc, and, obviously, vice-versa with female gendered objects. This has been tested where the gendering is different for the same item in different languages. So, even if it wasn’t deliberately meant to make people think like that, it does? So, it seems, which is quite amusing in some respects. One hand is male and two is female? One arm is male and two is female. Makes me think of that strong arm emoji. One arm and one hand!
Let’s get onto brains. It’s now possible, with the help of new technology like Functional MRIs to do better tests on the brain. And, we are now more sensible about language research. Not doing it only on monolinguals, or one language, or one gender. Yeah, all that wasn’t ideal.
Knowing multiple languages, or codes, because we’re not just talking English, Chinese, German, etc, can transform the structure of your brain. You think differently. It has been discovered that asking someone a question in two different languages can produce two different results, which seems bizarre, but maybe not. I’m not sure I could explain how, exactly, but I do kind of feel a little different when I’m writing in Italian as opposed to English. So, perhaps, that’s linked.
In contrast to one of the previous books I read, where it was stated that we can switch off one language to speak another, this author contradicts that - that was the old way of thinking. Studies have now been done on eye tracking which prove that you are activating more than one language by what you look at when a word is said. This is all to do with the sound of the word and related objects. Quite complicated. Honestly, after reactivating my Spanish, I’m definitely finding that Spanish isn’t always being shut off when I’m trying to do things in Italian, but I think I’m okay with French, which doesn’t seem to get interfered with a lot by the other two. Mixed results for me!
Multilingualism also increases creativity, perception and thought, because, as said above, you’re not shutting things off, you’re connecting things in multiple languages and coming up with more possibilities and sometimes outlandish connections. This makes me wonder whether, even though I didn’t start using other languages again until 2020, after many years of letting them slide, if this had an effect on my writing before then. When I used to post on Instagram, I made up lots of silly stories from wildly unrelated prompts. Was I able to do this because of my multilingual brain, even though I thought it was largely dormant? Maybe. By the way, that makes it sounds as if I’ve stopped doing this kind of thing, which I haven’t.
The author states that language determines how we represent things, not what we represent. For example, the fabled many words for snow that innuit populations have can be matched by adding other words to the word snow in other languages. But, the more specific a term is, the quicker the speaker will react to it. For some things, we may have just as many words, but represent them in different ways, so if we see a different representation, we will also be slower to react, but we will likely understand. There are lots of very specific details of these things given in the book, but you’ll have to read it to find those out. But I’m going to add one of my own, that I think fits. Some countries use a 24-hour clock and others use a 12-hour clock. Those who use a 24-hour clock will be faster at recognising times in the latter part of the day, because that’s their norm, but those who use a 12-hour clock will be able to work it out, albeit more slowly, if they are presented with a time with the 24-hour clock.
Back to Functional MRI scans. These basically show increases in blood flow in areas of the brain that are activated when performing a task. However, whereas it was originally thought that different languages would have discrete areas, there’s a lot of overlap. These scans have also shown that multilingual brains may be more efficient at determining relevant and irrelevant info, across things more than languages, because the overlap in functions in the brain is not just to do with language learning.
We’ve talked about cognitive decline and alzheimers being delayed by learning languages before, but this book goes into it in quite a lot of detail that’s easy to understand. Basically, multilingualism, as well as things like music, reading and exercise, improve the cognitive reserve in the brain. That is, if your brain gets impaired in whatever way, through illness or accident, your brain will have a much better chance of finding another route to perform the same functions than someone who doesn’t participate in these activities. You might even be able to continue to do things in one of your other languages, but not in your first language. So, I guess, reading and listening to, or perhaps singing, in another language could have significant benefits, so I’m definitely not holding back on that.
Are you a different person when you speak in a different language? I’ve talked about this before and, to be honest, I was sceptical about the prospect of this, in general terms. This book goes into a good deal of detail on this subject and my opinion might have shifted a little. The thing is, it seems it’s not really a different personality we’re talking about. It’s more related to the norms of the language that you’re using. So, in a way, you’re trying to fit in with how that culture operates. I don’t know if this is supposed to be a conscious thing, but I’m guessing not. The reason you may be more emotional in your own language boils down to you know more words on the subject, which gives you more context. Which leads onto something I’m not totally on board with, that reading is likely to be more evocative of emotions in a native language. Why? Because I have full-on sobbed about things in some of the Italian novels I’ve read and the non-fiction book I’m currently reading is so sarcastic and jokey in tone, that I’m constantly sniggering at it. This may be because of how Italians write. I don’t know. Perhaps, it’s closer to English. However, I haven’t yet had such a strong response reading in French. I can’t really put into words how, but reading in French … the style of the writing is definitely different. So far everything I’ve read has been very wordy and maybe that lessens the emotional impact that something short and snappy might have. I feel, though, that it might eventally happen in French. I’ve only currently read one book in Spanish and I had the least emotional response I probably could have had. There were potentially emotional scenes, but I felt nothing about them. But as it’s only one book, I can hardly make a judgement yet. Anyway, there’s a tonne of stuff about this in the book, so if this is of interest to you, you know what to do.
The book then moves on to topics that are more related to society than individuals. There are many things here that have been discussed in previous books I’ve talked about, some in much more detail, but there is a large focus on language as manipulation to start with and, in line with what has already been discussed, the suggestion that multilinguals are likely to be less susceptible to manipulative language than monolinguals. Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly susceptible to manipulative language. I would’ve thought that was largely to do with my upbriginging, which wasn’t bilingual, I didn’t start learning languages until I was in secondary school at age eleven. Our general family attitude was not believing everything you see, or hear. So, if you add the multilingual aspect on top of that, there’s a strong likelihood that I’m not going to be taken in by something. If I doubt something, but am not entirely sure, I will generally search for more information.
The other thing that is, again, related to what has come previously, about attitudes, is that you can become more prejudiced if you are using certain languages. That kind of shocks me a little. None of the languages mentioned are ones I have knowledge of, and I’m not going to put them here, but wow. When you think about it, it does track, but again, wow. I wonder if it works the other way.
There are a couple of things that are particularly difficult to translate into another language - humour and poetry. Yup, I know about that. I previously spoke about starting to translate some things I’ve written in English into Italian. It’s definitely much more difficult than starting from scratch. I learnt straightaway, although I expected it to be the case, that you cannot translate word for word. Even when I translate a single paragraph from a book, for the book reviews I do on YouTube, it’s often paraphrased rather than literal. But, when you think about it, that’s probably what your brain is doing when you read in another language, processing it in a non-literal way, or you’d never get through everything. Mind you, I have said before, maybe not on this podcast - I’m not sure about that - that although I might perfectly understand what has happened in a book in the language I read it in, I might have difficulty expressing that in my own language. That probably sounds weird to someone else, but it’s definitely a thing.
The more languages you learn, the easier it is to learn new languages, basically because you understand more about languages. The author seems to think there is no limit to how many languages you can learn, although managing swapping between them might be a headache. At the moment, I don’t think I’m going to start any more languages, at least not for quite a while, apart from a little something I’m doing for YouTube for Christmas. It is that management thing that I’m concerned about, mainly. I want to be able to maintain my languages at a good level of understanding and the more you learn, the less you can do that. I want to read in each language on a regular basis. I want to listen to or watch content regularly. Once you get past a handful of languages, that’s a problem. Although, if, say, you just wanted to learn basic greetings and the like in a whole host of languages, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.
Interestingly, when counting or performing calculations, people usually revert to their own language. Yep, I’m pretty sure I do that and then convert the result back to the target language. This is because counting speed is highly influenced by your first language, but also by the length of the words that define numbers. One example given was French, where it changes once you get to the 70s, which are based off sixty, which for people who are learning the language is rather complicated. Also, in Italian, I find the joining up of number words a tad confusing and my brain slows just training to work them out. And Welsh, well, that has a different system for different forms of numbers and neither of them are exactly like English.
Okay, that’s bascially it, except to say that there is a lot more information in this book that I haven’t touched on, at all. The second half of the book is almost a different book to the first, when looking at the more societal side of languages. There are large sections on the language of maths and elements of science, which veer off on all sorts of tangents. Yes, I think that describes the second half quite well. It goes off on a tonne of tangents, which are interesting, but aren’t about the process of language learning, but languages in all of their many forms, not just what we speak, and their impact on the world in the past, present and future.
As usual, the link to the book on Spotify is in the description.
That’s all for today’s episode. Don’t forget to join me again next time, for more language learning tips, tricks and tales and in the meantime, check out the A Language Learning Tale YouTube channel for additional, non-podcast content.
Ciao, salut, adiós, hwyl and bye for now.
Link to the book: https://open.spotify.com/show/1dXJk38OPops1WioEQo8Rm?si=cfd79a881ea34c2c