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Emotional associations with languages | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | Motivation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 26 03 November 2014 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was just writing a post in my log on the subject, and I got curious about other people's similar experiences.
We invest a ton of time and effort into learning languages, and often the motivation for learning them in the first place is something quite personal, so I think it's natural to develop certain associations with certain languages. For example, maybe people have come to develop negative associations with the language of an ex-partner, or positive associations with one from their childhood and family, that sort of thing. Personally, I started to develop a negative association with French after getting frustrated at the difficulty of finding opportunities to practice it and bad experiences with French speakers. I then took a few months off studying the language, which helped a lot: I gradually remembered my original motivations for learning it and now my feelings towards it are more positive again. And Italian has always had some personal significance from friendships and relationships, and some of these friendships seem to have gone bad recently which has made me feel more negative towards the language. I associate Spanish with good parties with good people, and hearing Greek makes me think of my Greek relatives and times spent with them when I was a child. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4861 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 2 of 26 03 November 2014 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Studying Finnish has made me a linguistic purist and I find this very strange, because
some years ago I couldn't care less about these things. It seems that international words stick out like a sore thumb in Finnish (just my opinion) and I find them phonetically uncomfortable compared to the older, assimilated loanwords and Finnish words. Then I started to become critical of certain words in English and Spanish as well. Anyway, I theorize that this has happened to me because of the sheer amount of effort I have put into this language and how (in the past) there were forces always trying to hinder my studies. Every time people spoke to me in English I got rather annoyed and began to think negative stuff. So I guess I became rather obsessed with talking correctly and writing correctly and kind of erase English from my life (which was impossible anyway heh). So yeah, sometimes learning a language can affect you a lot. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 3 of 26 03 November 2014 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've developed quite negative associations with Mandarin after learning Cantonese and
seeing the destructive policy by which the PRC and Singaporean governments try to repress non-Mandarin Sinitic languages. When speaking with Mainlanders, it's hard for me not to make a point of saying that Cantonese is more beautiful, expressive and civilized than Mandarin, because of all the propaganda stuff about Cantonese being evil, uncivilized and giving people cancer (I'm not making this up). Conversely, Cantonese is colored by my love for Hong Kong, my great experiences with HK people and the freedom that the city represents for me. In a much less significant way, my perception of Spanish has been affected by my learning Portuguese. This has nothing to do with emotional attachment, but the more "compact" nature of Portuguese (words are shorter and often several function words are mashed together into one) has made me percieve Spanish as very ... redundant, I guess. Oh, and of course polyglottery in general has made me develop a dislike for English, due to its "imperialist" nature (the language, not the speakers). 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 26 03 November 2014 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's an interesting one, as some of my linguistic motivations have also come from negative thoughts from experiences like that. I work a lot on pronunciation and make an effort to use correct grammar, and that's partly because I think TL speakers will take me more seriously if I get these right. With pronunciation in particular I've been embarrassed about not being understood and been made fun of for having a dodgy accent. Bad experiences often boost my motivation, but at the same time I think they can also create resentment and make me feel like I need to prove myself, like the case I described for French. So it's perhaps motivation for the wrong reasons.
The sort of social and political reasons you mentioned are something I hadn't thought of, but makes sense. As for English, I can see your point, but I also have positive associations with English for it being relaxing, as it's my native language. After a few hours of speaking other languages, going back to English and being able to express myself fully and easily is a huge relief. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5235 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 5 of 26 03 November 2014 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I started learning Italian for fun and for holidays. I started learning French because I work for a French company. So for me Italian is associate with fun, sun, friends and laughter. French is associated in my mind with work, labour and drudgery.
So although I like French less (almost dislike) I feel that I have progressed further and more rapidly in French because in my mind I get on with my French study like a job that needs doing. Italian is a lot more as-and-when and carefree, so although studied longer, some aspects of study are falling behind French. I've only just started Mandarin and I have no real associates with it other than, "Oh that would be a cool thing to learn." I don't tend to associate languages with people, so I've not experienced the fluctuations you’ve mentioned regarding relationships. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 6 of 26 03 November 2014 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think I can honestly say that I don't have any negative emotional association with any language, and to the extent that I have language-related emotions they tend to be positive. I tend to associate a language with different forms of cultural expression, less with people and not at all with politics. There might be politicians or political systems that I intensely dislike, but that has no bearing on my view of the language they speak.
I take Ari's point about English, but my relationship with English is more ambivalent. I love English poetry and literature and I am a big fan of British comedy, drama and film, but I can also see the downside of the overall dominance of English in so many spheres of life, probably at the expense of other languages. On the other hand, without a common "world" language, which today happens to be English, I doubt that e.g. this forum would exist, and at least it would not be what it is with plenty of active members and interesting discussions like this one. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 26 03 November 2014 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, so far for me it has only happened when the politics are intimately tied with the language. If I was studying Russian I don't think I'd have such negative connotations with it just because I dislike Russian politics, but the politics I mentioned are distinctly tied in with the language, as the language itself is used as a tool of coersion and cultural warfare. After seeing enough signs with "Be polite, don't spit and speak Mandarin" and "I'm a Chinese child, I love speaking Mandarin", and hearing enough speakers apologising that their native language is so ugly and barbaric, or that university professor saying that Hongkongers who don't learn Mandarin are not human, but dogs and bastards that need to be beaten, all that has colored my perception of the language itself. All this is probably unfair to the millions of Mandarin speakers who have nothing against other Sinitic languages, but then we're talking about emotions, not logic. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 8 of 26 03 November 2014 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
I admit my ignorance about language policy in China, and I understand your reaction in view of the examples you give. Unfortunately history has pleny of examples of people (politicians and dictators mostly) trying to surpress minority languages. It happened here in France, it happened in Spain under Franco, and it even happened in Norway, where a lot of effort went in to "Norwegify" the Saami people far into the 20th century. Fortunately the situation has changed most places in Europe, but what you describe about China does not seem that different to the way French authorities went about attacking regional languages during the Third Republic and far into this century. Like this extract from French Wikipedia tells, children were even punished physically if they spoke a minority language. I strongly resent French Jacobinism, but I still love the French language though:
Edited by Ogrim on 03 November 2014 at 5:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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