Language, Culture, and the Brain

September 28th, 2017

I'm no linguist, and am therefore unlikely to have anything profound to say, but I have been thinking about language a lot lately.  I've been thinking about the mechanics, like how language is acquired and how the brain switches between languages.  I've also been thinking more broadly about our visceral reactions to languages, and how language interacts with social structures, connecting, dividing, and stratifying us.  One interaction in particular got me thinking.

I was standing on a sidewalk with a group of parents of children at Kate's school.  There were a few Americans, two Turks, a Colombian, and a Mexican, I believe.  Although some of us spoke French to varying degrees, our common language was English, and that's what we were using to converse.  We were not speaking loudly or being obtrusive.  A French man, whom we did not know, walked over to us and chastised us for speaking English.  "This is France," he said.  "You need to learn French and speak French." 

We thanked him for his kind advice and he moved on.  I was annoyed.  I thought of all of the times that I have heard foreign languages spoken in the United States:  in my neighborhood, in restaurants, on the subway, in my office, at my children's schools, etc.  I would never dream of scolding any of those people---they have every right to speak in whatever language they choose.  Why did this man feel like he could and should scold us?  

I could dismiss his absurd behavior by classifying him as an ignorant xenophobe.  (Note that France has no monopoly here.  I'm sure one could find many equally boorish Americans who would admonish foreigners for speaking languages other than English on the street in the US, even though I certainly would not be among them.  And, furthermore, most French people I have encountered have not said anything about my speaking English.) 

I could also think of the political and historical content of his attitude.  Immigration is not in France's DNA like it is in that of the US.  Americans do not always live up to the ideals inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, but we do, more or less, all believe that immigration has made the US what it is.  It is a crucial part of our national narrative (unlike whatever the French national narrative is).  That relationship to immigration and the role that it has played in our national history could be part of the reason for a different reaction in France to hearing a foreign language on its streets.

I think some truth lies in both of these notions.  But I wonder if it might be helpful to make another, more basic and even neurological, point about our visceral reaction to hearing foreign languages:  perhaps it is simply more mentally taxing to hear language that one does not understand.  I suppose it's because our brains are trying desperately to place some structure on or ascribe some meaning to the noise and failing.  So it is just noise.  It is not unlike overhearing someone speaking on the phone to a third person.  The conversation has some meaning, but you cannot quite make it out because you can only hear half of it.  The annoyance-through-mental-taxation theory could explain signs in waiting rooms forbidding cell phone conversations but, by omission, being entirely tolerant of other conversations.  It must be because there is something fundamentally annoying or taxing about hearing one half of a conversation instead of the whole thing.  And it seems to me that some of the annoyance that people experience when hearing foreign languages could be similarly explained.           

Update:  Upon reading this post, my friend Elaine, who does not speak Hebrew, said that she found going to Israel and being surrounded by Hebrew speakers relaxing, almost like background music.  I suppose one's reaction to foreign languages must be a very complicated combination of setting, state of mind, cadence, register, familiarity of the sounds, and so forth.  My theory is certainly not complete!