- Will improving your English change your identity?
(zooming electronic tones)
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
hello and good morning.
I am your beloved host, Julian Northbrook, doingenglish.com.
A couple of days ago, I was chatting with
one of my coaching clients.
And she told me that, over the months
as her English has improved, in leaps and bounds I may add,
her identity has changed,
along with the quality of her English speaking.
There is a concept in psycholinguistics
called linguistic determinism,
also often called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,
after the two people who
really first came up with the idea.
The premise behind linguistic determinism
is that the language that we have in our heads
defines what we are able to think about.
Of course, as with any kind of scientific theory,
there are degrees to which people believe
this idea to be true.
At the most extreme end of the scale,
we would say that thought and language
are well and truly meshed together,
to the extent whereby, if you don't have the words
that you would need to articulate something,
you would be unable to think that thing.
On the other end of the scale, we have the exact opposite,
whereby thought and language are completely separate,
and they are not connected at all.
Then, of course, we have degrees,
along the continuous scale.
I would put my thinking somewhere around about the middle,
but slightly veering off to the stronger form
of linguistic determinism.
I believe, and I have plenty of evidence of back this up,
that learning a new language changes the way that you think.
Language, you see, is very, very closely connected,
meshed together with, intimately entwined
with knowledge and our culture.
Put simply, just because you have the words
and the phrases and the expressions that you need
doesn't mean you're going to be able
to talk well about something, if you have no content,
no knowledge, no ideas for things to talk about,
regarding that thing.
This is why I am pretty useless
at talking about, say, politics.
Whereas something like psycholinguistics,
I could outtalk even a Japanese person
in their native language
because I have a very deep understanding of the field.
At the same time, we also have
a third element at play, culture.
Culture is defined as the way that human beings
act and behave, as they're human beings.
But, of course, animals have a culture, too.
Then, we have a third element, culture.
Culture is defined as the way that we act and behave.
That affects the things that we say
as well as the way that we understand
the things that other people say.
But it's a two-way process.
Not only does culture define the things that we talk about.
A great example of this would be something like
my stepping into a person's house and saying,
"Is it shoes on or shoes off?"
Something that is not common to say, here,
because the majority of people
are used to wearing shoes inside the house.
I am from Japan.
Well, I'm from the U.K., but I spent a long time in Japan,
where shoes in the house is a big no-no.
So, for me, I'm still stuck, somewhat, in Japanese culture
with this kind of feeling that
wearing shoes in the house is a little bit dirty.
That, in a sense, is an odd thing for me to say,
here in Ireland.
But in Japan, as a Westerner stepping into someone's house,
it's a given that you would take your shoes off.
This element of culture, as simple as it is,
defines the way that we talk about this particular topic.
But I believe it is also a two-way process,
whereby learning the language
also changes the way that you think.
As you acquire more words, a richer vocabulary,
phrases, expressions, things that are not said
in your first language but are expressed in English,
so too, will your understanding of the culture
that is meshed together with that language
expand and change the way that you think
and perceive the world.
So the simple answer to the question of,
will improving your English change your identity
is, well, yes.
Because as you are broadening your horizons,
as far as the language is concerned,
so too, are you learning to see the world
and yourself in a different way.
With that, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
it is time for me, your beloved host,
Julian Northbrook, to once again,
sign out from another video.
If you are struggling to improve your English
as an intermediate to advanced English learner,
check out my bestselling book, Master English Fast:
An Uncommon Guide To Speaking Extraordinary English,
which will show you, step by simple step,
everything that you need to know
to take your English, as it is now,
and drag it up to the level of extraordinary.
If you like this video, found it useful,
give it a big ol' thumbs up.
If you hated it, hit that thumbs up button, anyway.
And I will see you, my friend, in the next one.
Thank you and goodbye.
(lively band music)