I talk a lot about itself we talk about
finding yourself being our best self
going beyond ourselves but what is that
self the American Psychological
Association says that personality is the
characteristic patterns of thinking
behaving and feeling and those
personalities are made up of the genes
we inherit and also the influences from
the environment in which we grow up
things like friends family your religion
socioeconomic status we also associate
personality with things like physical
appearance we say things like fiery
redheads or brunettes at the center of
the party blondes are so silly think of
all the combinations of these different
influences on personalities that leaves
us with personalities and selves that
are infinite like there are stars if you
look on the internet for the word
personality you might find images like
these that show to varying degrees how
complex we think personalities are or
perhaps an image like this oh no not
that one or that one that was a lot of
clicking oh or images like this or the
one on the left the myers-briggs test
Mayer's Briggs says that there are 16
different personalities I was recently
sent another personality test I don't
remember the name of it by Scotts and of
all he's an English teacher here at
Tampa prep it was a link to an online
survey I clicked on it it took me to a
web page it was what seemed like 100
questions long and each question had
varying degrees of responses when I
concluded the test it told me that I was
92% a number seven there are nine
personalities in this test but you can
be varying degrees of different
personalities if I wanted to I could pay
an additional fee and it would give me a
complex report on how to be my best
number seven and also how to deal with
the inadequacies of my number you see we
are obsessed with personality hence all
the tests and we think we're relatively
fixed in these personalities hence all
the names that
place on them but I'm here to say that
perhaps they're learning another
language and more importantly learning
another culture to a deep deep level
that you can find some other selves in
2003 a research team showed this picture
of a bridge to a group of Spanish
speakers and a group of Germans they
asked them to describe the bridge the
Spanish speaker used words like things
like big strong long dangerous same
bridge same picture German speakers said
things like beautiful elegant curved
peaceful how such shocking differences
for the same bridge the same picture
well you see in Spanish the word for
bridge is masculine and in German the
word for bridge is feminine we take
things from our language and we filter
we use them as filters to see the world
these speakers use the things that they
associate with human gender and
associate them with the bridge but you
don't have to have gender in your
language to be influenced by language
let's talk about capitalization in
English we capitalize the word
I no matter where it falls in the
sentence but there's lots of languages
where this is not the case Spanish
French German Portuguese Italian and
many many more what difference does this
make as an English speaker do I pay more
attention to the individual because the
word is capitalized as a speaker of
those other languages am i given more of
a chance to pay attention to the rest of
the sentence because it is lowercase we
don't know language I could go on with
examples language has influences on
things like concepts that don't exist in
some languages in Portuguese they have
the words so Dada which we don't have in
English they have an emotion they have a
word for it but we don't have it in
English it's a feeling of sort of
missing and longing for something a type
of sadness but we have no word in other
languages that have words for colors
that we don't have words for does that
mean we don't see those colours we don't
recognize them in while PD language from
Australia you can put the words in the
sentence in any order any order the
sky's the limit you have full rein over
what your sentence looks like you
match it to something someone said to
you before to make the conversation flow
differently or you might put the word at
the beginning or the end to place more
emphasis on it language exerts pressures
on us but this is just language what
about culture culture molds us when we
think of culture we think of things like
folk dances or food festivals maybe
music as well but culture can be much
more complex it could be things like our
relationships marriage our understanding
of romance our perception of dating it
can be things like how we perceive life
and death the value we place on work the
space that food holds in our society as
many of you are aware of the Mexicans
celebrate Day of the Dead on November
1st and November 2nd and I teach about
this every year in my Spanish class we
of course cover things like how houses
are decorated what foods are eaten what
the streets like what the festival what
the event is like when you're in in
Mexico for Day of the Dead but what it
all boils down to is their different
perception of death how can something so
universal as death we all do it
how can it be turpitude so differently
close your eyes for a second I'm gonna
say a word and you think of an image yes
okay you can open your eyes maybe you
thought of something like this maybe not
this exact image but perhaps something
ominous and scary like the Grim Reaper
this is who we typically associate with
death in the United States now compare
this in stark contrast to la catrina
the Mexican representation of death la
muerte as you can see she's a socialite
dripping from head to toe with ribbons
and bows flowers and colors yes she is
made of bones but she is not designed to
incite fear she is designed to evoke
delight because you see in Mexico death
is not the end death is but a
continuation of life death maybe even
the beginning they say that while we are
here
earth perhaps we are just dreaming and
then when we die we truly wake up now
take these two stark contrasts and think
about the fact that you've been aware of
death for quite sometime perhaps younger
but at least by the time you're an
adolescent until the day you actually do
it and how can that perception change
the way you live your life another
example of how culture molds us is the
place that food holds in society I lived
in France for two years one of those
years I worked in a public school and
since I worked in the public school I
got to eat lunch there every day quite a
quite an experience we were given one
hour for lunch there was wine served for
the teachers we were served a
four-course meal there was a appetizer a
main dish cheese course and then dessert
and then after that meal every day all
the teachers retired to the teachers
lounge where we had coffee before we
went back to class but what I realized
is it wasn't only about the fact that we
were having all that lovely food and
that coffee it was about the time we
spent together
kosai : who was the director of Frisian
food services in the late 90s and early
202,000 said lunch is important food is
important because you share you share
with your friends you share with your
family you share with your colleagues
you share food but you share time you
share conversation you see while we
think of the French we think of their
food rituals and their gourmet cuisine
but what I learned while I lived there
that it wasn't about the food only it
was about the stopping it was about the
taking time for others culture starts to
press us culture molds us it bends us
over time so does that mean that I'm
really different when I speak in French
or Spanish or Portuguese or English
perhaps I haven't made my point don't
take it for me though in 2006 dr. nitron
but I made it as his sparsa and a team
of researchers from the University of
Connecticut did a study they asked
speakers bilingual Mexican Americans to
take a person
test the Big Five personality test see
there's another one and they took it two
times they took it once in Spanish and
once in English and the results were
shockingly different I'm guessing you
guessed that by now when they tested in
English they showed higher scores for
extroverted nests and for
conscientiousness but they didn't stop
here they did a follow-up they asked the
speakers to write two times once to
write in Spanish about their
personalities and wants to write in
English about their personalities
15-minute writing exercise guess what
they wrote different things when they
wrote in Spanish they wrote about
themselves in relationship to others and
relationships to friends and families
and to their hobbies when they wrote in
English they wrote about things like
their daily activities their colleges
their achievements we've been pressed
were pressed were pressed by culture so
now back to me
in French I feel a little more elegant
more poised maybe perhaps a little more
intelligent in Spanish and I feel
powerful and strong and maybe more fun
in Portuguese I learned perhaps a little
bit more about humility and tenderness I
also realized that I could be
confrontational when I needed to not
something that's natural to me and in
English I'm more dutiful and more
pragmatic so they tell us language is so
useful it's useful on your resume it's
useful on vacation it makes your brain
more flexible you'll be a better
problem-solver maybe it even prevents
Alzheimer's but what if I say it might
be the key to a more complex you a more
complete you a you with more lenses to
see the complex world that you live in
and connect with those people that live
in it so I say do your personality and
yourself a favor
unleash it with a little bit of language
class let it be nudged and pressured by
another language another culture and who
knows where that will take you maybe
you'll discover your higher purpose than
self
but of which self thank you