Language, identity and self-expression
Why Don’t I Sound Like Myself When I Speak English?
You are funny, quick, warm or expressive in your first language. Then you switch to English and somehow become more careful, more formal or simply less like yourself.
Perhaps you are naturally funny in your first language.
You tease people. You tell stories. You know exactly how much sarcasm you can get away with. You can disagree without sounding hostile, show affection without sounding sentimental and make a dry comment at exactly the right moment.
Then you speak English.
Suddenly you are perfectly polite.
Perfectly understandable.
And perhaps slightly boring.
So where did you go?
This article is informed by research on
Language does more than carry information. It can also shape how parts of ourselves are expressed.
Research with bilingual speakers suggests that language, cultural context and the person we are speaking to can influence how aspects of personality and identity are expressed. These effects vary considerably between individuals, so they should not be interpreted as evidence that bilingual speakers have two separate or fixed personalities.
Personality expression
Cultural frame switching
Pragmatic competence
Interpersonal communication
First, the important distinction
“I don’t sound like myself” can mean several different things.
You might mean:
- I cannot express the same range of ideas
- I become quieter or more formal
- I cannot be as funny or spontaneous
- I cannot show emotion in quite the same way
- I actually feel slightly different when I speak English
These experiences can overlap, but they are not identical. Sometimes the problem is linguistic. Sometimes it is social or cultural. Sometimes English has simply become associated with a different part of your life.
Three different experiences
What exactly changes when you switch language?
“I can’t express myself”
You know what you would say in your first language, but you do not yet have the vocabulary, expressions, speed or pragmatic resources to reproduce it naturally in English.
“I behave differently”
You become more serious, more direct, less playful, less argumentative or perhaps even more confident when you speak English.
“I feel slightly different”
English may be connected with work, travel, education, particular friendships or another period of your life. Those associations can influence how you communicate.
Do you have a different personality in English?
Probably not in the simple way that question suggests.
Studies with bilingual speakers have found differences in self-reported and observed personality expression when people use different languages.
- some behaviours may become more or less prominent
- different cultural expectations may become relevant
- the social situation can change how you present yourself
- the person you are speaking to can matter
This does not mean that one language contains your “real” personality and another contains a second personality. A better interpretation is that different contexts can make different ways of being yourself easier, more familiar or more appropriate.
Language comes with a social world
Switching language can also mean switching context.
Ways of sounding friendly, confident, modest or polite are not identical across languages and cultures.
You may use English mainly with clients, teachers or international colleagues rather than with childhood friends or family.
English may be associated with particular places, periods of your life or communities.
You are still you, but some parts of your normal communicative repertoire may become easier to access than others.
It is not only vocabulary
Self-expression depends on many small interpersonal choices.
“I suppose…” “To be fair…” “I’m not completely convinced…”
Being able to distinguish between mildly annoyed, frustrated, furious and simply fed up.
Knowing how to disagree, interrupt or challenge without sounding harsher than you intend.
“No way.” “Seriously?” “You’re joking.” “That’s brilliant.”
Understatement, exaggeration, irony, teasing and timing can all depend on much more than knowing the literal words.
The small expressions that help you build suspense, change direction, imitate somebody or deliver the point of a story.
The same idea can reveal different versions of you
Communication is not only about transmitting the basic message.
Direct
“I don’t agree.”
Diplomatic
“I see what you mean, but I’m not completely convinced.”
Sceptical
“I’m not sure that’s going to get us where we need to be.”
Playfully doubtful
“Well, that’s going to end brilliantly.”
“I’m funny in my language, but not in English”
Your sense of humour has probably not disappeared.
Humour can depend on:
- timing
- wordplay
- shared cultural assumptions
- understatement and exaggeration
- knowing what can safely be implied
- understanding the relationship between the speakers
You may understand that something is funny in English while still lacking some of the linguistic and pragmatic machinery needed to create the same effect yourself.
Humour is part of identity
A joke is not merely an entertaining sentence.
Humour can signal confidence, closeness, group membership, playfulness and attitude. Losing easy access to humour can therefore feel like losing a visible part of your personality.
Playfulness
Confidence
Social closeness
Shared knowledge
Attitude
Group identity
What about emotion?
Your second language does not automatically make you less emotional.
Some bilingual speakers report that emotions feel different across languages, and research has examined differences in emotional resonance between first and additional languages.
- some emotions may feel easier to express in a first language
- another language can sometimes create useful emotional distance
- certain topics may feel more natural in the language associated with a particular social context
- individual experience matters enormously
There is no simple rule that says your first language is emotional and your second language is detached.
You never speak a language in isolation
You don’t simply speak English. You speak it to someone.
You may monitor yourself more closely and become more careful.
Your professional identity may become particularly prominent.
You may share assumptions and humour that change the way English is used between you.
Greater familiarity may allow more playful, relaxed and individual language to emerge.
Context changes everybody
You already have more than one communicative version of yourself.
You probably do not speak exactly the same way to your closest friend, your manager, your parents and a stranger. Changing language adds another layer to something humans already do naturally.
Family
Colleagues
Clients
Relaxed situations
Conflict
Playful interaction
From ability to expressive freedom
The question changes as your English develops.
Not only
“Can I disagree?”
But
“Can I disagree in a way that sounds like me?”
Not only
“Can I tell a story?”
But
“Can I tell it the way I would naturally tell it?”
Not only
“Can I express sympathy?”
But
“Can I sound genuinely warm rather than as if I learnt the phrase from a textbook?”
Try a different kind of language check
What are you like when you speak your first language?
Perhaps you are:
- funny
- sarcastic
- warm
- direct
- enthusiastic
- diplomatic
- self-deprecating
- affectionate
- a natural storyteller
Now ask yourself a different question: which of those qualities can another person actually hear when you speak English?
A self-expression check
What can you already do naturally in English?
Can you be playful without worrying that the comment will sound rude?
Can you choose how strongly or softly you want to challenge an idea?
Can you control pacing, emphasis and the final point rather than simply report what happened?
Can you sound genuinely excited without feeling that you are imitating somebody else?
Can you show the degree of irritation you actually feel?
Can you express closeness or sympathy without relying on a memorised formula?
How do you start sounding more like yourself?
Do not only collect more words. Expand the ways you can position yourself in conversation.
Notice and practise language that helps you:
- soften and strengthen opinions
- react spontaneously
- signal humour and irony
- tell stories naturally
- show warmth and enthusiasm
- change register
- repair something that came out wrong
- express the same idea in several different tones
The objective is not to imitate a native speaker’s personality. It is to increase your own range of choices.
Practise choice, not just correctness
Take one meaning and find several ways of being yourself.
Neutral
“I don’t think that will work.”
Softer
“I’m not sure that’s quite going to work.”
More direct
“I really don’t think that’s going to work.”
Diplomatic
“I can see the logic, but I think we may run into problems.”
Dry
“Well, I can’t see anything possibly going wrong there.”
The goal is not imitation
You do not need an English-speaking personality.
You do not have to become louder, more informal, more sarcastic or more emotionally expressive simply because you have heard other English speakers communicate that way.
More control
More nuance
More authenticity
More expressive freedom
Beyond whether your English is correct
Can another person hear the version of you that you intended?
A traditional language test can tell us a great deal about vocabulary, grammar and comprehension. It may tell us less about whether you can sound warm, diplomatic, humorous, confident or appropriately direct in spontaneous interaction.
A Speaking Check can explore not only what you can say, but the range of communicative choices available while you are speaking.
A Speaking Check can explore:
- how naturally you express opinions
- how you soften or strengthen a message
- how your English changes during spontaneous interaction
- whether you can vary register and tone
- how easily you tell stories and react
- where your expressive range currently becomes narrower
It is not a lesson and it is not an exam.
So, where did you go?
You are probably still there.
But another person can only experience the parts of your personality that your English, the situation and the relationship allow you to express.
As your expressive repertoire grows, you gain more than vocabulary or grammatical accuracy. You gain choices about how you sound, how strongly you react, how much warmth you show, how you tell a story and how you position yourself towards another person.
Advanced English is not about becoming somebody else. It is about having enough freedom in the language to decide how much of yourself you want to bring into the conversation.
Is this what is happening to you?
Your English works, but it doesn’t always sound like you
You can communicate successfully, yet your humour, warmth, confidence or personality seems to become smaller when you switch to English.
That may not be captured by a traditional level score. It can involve the range of interpersonal choices available to you during real communication.
- Self-expression
- Register
- Tone
- Pragmatic range
- Spontaneity
- Interaction
Explore not only whether your English is correct, but how much communicative freedom you have when you use it.
