제 21 호 Foreign Language Effect
Kicker: Life
Foreign Language Effect
by Si-ho Park, Reporter
When I was in an English Language and Culture program in Canada, I felt like I became more confident and freer when I was using English. I always feel like I become a different person when I am using a different language. And that’s why I love to learn and use foreign languages. It may be related to cultural, educational, or psychological factors. For instance, Korean culture emphasizes being humbler compared to Canada, whereas Western culture emphasizes being more confident. I was also educated in a freer environment when I was learning English. When I am using my mother tongue, Korean, I feel like I have to be more perfect, but I feel like it’s okay to be imperfect in English because it is a foreign language for me.
Is this only a personal experience? I find out that this applies similarly to others. Let’s look inside what this theory is.
How Does Foreign Language Free People
Vladimir Nabokov is a Russian American writer, who wrote a bestseller Lolita. His mother tongue is Russian, but he wrote several books in English, which is his second language. Lots of researchers say that his knowledge of multiple languages might free him to write more creatively and that one’s own exposure to other languages can in some way help one’s writing.
It’s easy to become locked into a certain way of speaking or writing; we grow accustomed to certain linguistic conventions and it’s hard to see past them to write with a fresh voice. When I was in a different country speaking a different language, the biggest thing I learned was how to use my brain in a different way. The simplest example is this: We usually say only “hello” for greetings in Korean, but in other countries, we can say “Good morning, how are you?” or many other expressions for greetings. How about this? When we want to say, “It fits you well, or it perfectly suits you” in Korean, we can say “It is a glutinous rice cake for you,” because it is a food that sticks to our teeth. Every language has its own creative expressions that come from different cultures in each country. And learning other languages also means learning other creativities. And that’s why we can say that foreign languages free us to describe things in more diverse ways. It gives us more flexibility and creativity.
Foreign Language Effect by Boaz Keysar
Besides the fact that foreign languages set us free, another study has shown that using foreign languages improves our decision-making abilities. It is Boaz Keysar's "Foreign Language Effect." He says that using foreign languages not only improves memory but also affects financial and ethical decisions. In the “trolley problem,” which asks us whether we should kill one man to save five people, experimenters were far more likely to make the utilitarian choice when they were using a second language compared with a native language. Also, in the memory game,people who recalled a childhood trauma in a second language showed less emotional distress than those recounting the event in their native tongue. These studies show us that people become more rational in foreign languages, whereas they are more emotional in native languages.
Here is another concept about foreign languages. “Linguistic determinism” proposes that the specific words and grammar of a language can change the way we perceive the world, and I feel like using many other languages helps us to perceive the world in many other ways.
Based on all these other theories about languages that I introduced to you above, I believe that it would be helpful for you to learn and use foreign languages. One of my friends added a few words about using foreign languages. “First of all, learning or being able to use a foreign language enabled me to widen my network of friends and people from various countries. Second, I can also discover the culture of each country by knowing the history of a language.” As he said, there are lots of advantages to using different other languages. I wish you could find out these merits of foreign language learning and get a chance to perceive the world in many ways.
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/sep/17/how-learning-thinking-in-a-foreign-language-improves-decision-making
https://writeitsideways.com/can-a-foreign-language-enhance-your-writing/
