Linguistic Snot Knots
I attended a "Dual Language Education" seminar this week. No, silly, of course the seminar wasnae in two languages. It was in a single language, talking ABOUT other languages. In the Americas, from Canada to Argentina, language classes are typically ABOUT the other language rather than IN the other language. We more often learn language phobia than linguistics. When the flyer for "Dual Language Education" came home with Big Bro's school work, of course I had to attend.
Weird synapses began popping in my head as I attempted to listen to the presentation. I wasnae able to hear much of the earnest young woman's presentation. Her body language spoke of performance anxiety, but those popping synapses are a noisy phenom. I dunno if I am describing the phenom well, but it is a phenom I have lived with for as long as I can remember. Listening through ^it^ could be likened to hearing through a string of firecrackers. Did you say something?
Since my Biology studies in Ecuador in 2007/8, I often donae know what language I am thinking in until human interaction requires me to pick a language and make it work. Mix in some emotional conflicts, past and/or present, and the threads get psychotically colorful and tangled at the speed of thought. Like I need more psycho snot knots floating around my skull right now. ! ! !Me duele a la cabeza! ! !
The good news is that so far the mindfulness exercises have contained the mental chatter far enough that the spillover has come out as speaking more Spanish when talking to Hubs and the children. At least, I **think** that is what is happening. Observation in progress.
Are we normalized yet?
Replies
I teach Spanish and psychology both at my little community college, arfie, and yet I have a tenured colleague with whom I have lunch weekly who still doesn't believe I speak both English and Spanish. I'm not any genius, I'm just a missionary kid with Appalachian parents who happened to grow up on the mission field in Mexico and Uruguay. As you know, it was a mixed blessing: it gave me Spanish but it also gave me PTSD because our Uruguayan mission field was a war zone.
It's just funny how I've known this colleague now for 9 years and he still can't believe I'm bilingual, even though I've spoken in Spanish in the cafeteria to our college baseball players from the Dominican Republic right in front of him. It's no big deal on the job, it's just that it points to how difficult it is for me to find any other bilingual like myself with whom I can talk about the personal experience of being bilingual.
I find in my PTSD recovery that sometimes I have language for my feelings in English, and sometimes since the trauma happened in a Spanish speaking country, the more direct language for my PTSD about it is Spanish. That's why I count myself lucky to have a psychiatrist for my PTSD who has gotten his permanent residency to retire in Panama. He gets that when I have to switch languages I'm not showing off or anything, it's just about which mindfulness context I'm speaking from in our sessions.
It sounds like your experience of English/Spanish language and feelings is similar, for which I'm really grateful. It connects my support group experience at DS PTSD with my sessions with my psychiatrist. Thank you.
One of my therapy tools for thought loops is to translate the thought loop of the day into my weakest language. It doesnae stop the intrusive thoughts, but at least I can call the dreary thought loops, "Practice" when I let them play in another language. Is it good news that I can now obsess in three languages? Mandarin is my current therapy language. Is it good news that my Mandarin studies are lagging because I donae obsess anywhere near as much as I did when I was learning German and Spanish?
Over the course of wandering Europe, I developed a pretty cavalier approach to languages. There's nothing spectacular about speaking 4 or 5 languages there. Here in the Americas (from Canada to Argentina), your co-profie seems to be the norm. My efforts to study language in college (both in the U.S. and in Ecuador) were miserable. I had far better success in language immersion schools. Those profies were in complete agreement that the Americas are a hotbed of language phobia. I hold it as an immigrant phenom. Here in the Americas, from Canada to Argentina, even the natives keep waking up to find a foreign country in their living rooms. The pressure is enough to make the most gifted linguistics go phobic. Phobia makes learning wa-a-a-ay harder than it has to be.
I can relate when you say you don’t what language you’re thinking in till human interaction, lol I’m the same way. I also feel like my voice is a little different when I speak in English than in Spanish but maybe it’s self esteem like I’m thinking too much how I sound or if it sounds funny (maybe I’m loca who knows :)
I’m bilingual in Spanish English
& tiny trilingual in a mesh of creole French
Hugs <3
I have a *learning* voice which comes out in the languages I havenae achieved fluency in. I think of it as a baby voice for those under-confident expressions.
But my thoughts change radically when I shift between English (1st language), German (2nd) and Spanish (3rd language). In English, I am an anally retentive grammar nazi who reflexively invests more time in being right than being helpful. I verily embody the belief that grammar is the art of using the words to discredit the message and I am a master. I'm not saying that like it is a good thing. Works in progress.
In German I am mostly a tourist. I's just here for the beer, folks. Prost. . .
In Spanish? ? ? I donae really have a handle on the personality changes which overtake me in Spanish. I miss my Ecuadorian Alanon network and classmates more than I can say. Here in the Spanish saturated SW where Hispanics are far from the most benevolent majority in the US and "Los gringos no se pueden hablar," those language shifts are wild, unpredictable and hard to contain. When I hear Spanish, my mind reflexively shifts to Spanish but I have been verbally attacked often enough for even understanding Spanish, much less speaking it that my Spanish language files are seriously repressed and explosive. ! ! !Viva la revolucion! ! ! Where's my gun? ? ?
Leave it to a cultural collision to make understanding a faux pas. . . Alas, those language files donae disconnect on a dirty look. It is far easier to change seats than disconnect my understanding capacity. The folks who treat Spanish like a private code have some seriously grody conversations in their "secret" code. You discuss these things in public? ? ? Que barbaridad!
Having studied many languages, both living and dead, I found the most successful experiences were the learning not by translating but by conceptual learning, thinking it rather than translating it. By and far Russian was the most successful for me because of learning it conceptually.
Unfortunately for me..., I likely took too many language courses over my years. They have a tendency to jumble together now. Most of my learning was for professional purposes, just enough French, Italian, and Japanese to translate a vendor line sheet to place orders.
The multiple languages have had the effect of preventing me as of yet to be fluent in anything. Even living in Germany for over 3 years didn’t help my German but then again I was in deep Bavarian where even the locals advise not to try learning their German or even bother trying to speak it there. Shockingly the whole time I lived there, my Russian came easily but could I remember any German..., nope.
Hugs Arfie
Yea, West Germans might be even bigger language snobs than the French. Maybe. Tough competition. They are, at the very least, equals in snobbish discouragement. They are cousins, after all. I learned how to actually speak the language during Oktoberfest and Fasching. Alcohol and a party spirit helps. It was East Germans and Poles who made the best teachers in my own studies. Snobs seldom make good teachers.
Sounds like you've studied linguistics far more than language, V. For my own strictly personal approach, studying language structures and words is a whole different study than communications/language. Speaking the same language is far from a guarantee of communication. Just ask a divorce lawyer or politician.