Who are you when you speak different languages?
You might have never thought about this, but speaking a certain language can shape how you carry yourself through the world. Every language has a certain rhythm, flow, and melody.
Have you noticed how even your vocal range can change depending on the language you speak? Does this also affect how you present yourself to others, maybe even your personality?
Language and different versions of the self
The broader idea behind this is often connected to linguistic relativity: the idea that the structure and content of a language can influence the way we perceive and experience the world.
Michele Koven's research from 1998 explored this from the perspective of bilingual identity. Her work looked at how bilingual French-Portuguese speakers performed or expressed different selves through narratives in different languages.
Participants emphasized different personality traits depending on whether they told their stories in French or Portuguese. In this sense, language can shape how people present, express, or experience different parts of themselves.
Can language affect your decisions?
Language may not only influence how you perceive your surroundings. It can also affect how you make decisions.
Research on the moral foreign language effect suggests that bilinguals may make moral decisions differently depending on the language they use. When using a second language, people can sometimes make decisions in a more deliberative and less emotionally immediate way than when using their first language.
So, do you make different decisions based on the language you speak?
Exploring identity through language
Learning a new language can therefore tap into a new identity that you explore. It can give you another way to express humor, affection, disagreement, confidence, or vulnerability.
Sometimes, a word or idiom that feels natural in your native language does not immediately exist in the same way in another. And yet, finding a way to express that thought can help you feel more complete in the language you are learning.
Bridging your language identities with Lingaga
Lingaga builds on this desire: the desire not only to acquire a language, but to express yourself confidently and authentically in it.
Through real-life scenarios and vocabulary practice, Lingaga helps you strengthen the connection between the languages you already know and the ones you want to improve. Our goal is not only to help you start from scratch, but also to help you maintain, deepen, and enhance a language so you can bridge your different language identities in one app.