Language Influencing Emotions

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Writer and journalist Olivia Judson has an interesting question. Does speaking certain languages automatically make us feel certain emotions?

Writing in the New York Times, she explains her thinking. First, we know that forcing ourselves to smile can actually make us feel happy.

Right, Martha?

Right, right.

So just try it right now. Draw your lips back into a smile. Kind of exaggerate it. You really, like, put on a fake smile. Hold it for a few seconds.

Yeah, and you giggle, right?

Yeah.

You do. You can’t help it. Part of it is because you’re making a silly face, but part of it is there’s some influence there. Your body is influencing your thinking and your brain and your emotions.

And the opposite is also true if you put on a frown. Try it. Go ahead. Scowl.

Oh, I can stop the smile, Amy?

Yeah, yeah, you can. Put on the full scrooge.

Okay. It’s like, you know, like, you know, furrow your brow. Go away, little kids.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that. Get off my lawn.

Oh, now you’re laughing. No, but if you did it in earnest, if you really tried to make yourself feel sad or grumpy, you could do it by putting on a really just terrible frown. And then if you hold that long enough, you should feel just basically evil.

Now, her theory is, and this is just a theory, it’s a question she threw out there because she couldn’t find an answer. Olivia Judson wants to know, since some languages have more sounds that kind of force your face into kind of smiles, right? Certain vowels will draw the lips back in a way that’s kind of like a smile. Does that language then mean that you would be happier?

Speaking that language, would it make you feel more up about life? And the opposite, too. If there’s a language that has sounds that lend themselves to making kind of, you know, make you kind of make frowny faces, would that language make you feel sad more often?

It’s an interesting question.

Yeah, it is. It’s a pretty sweeping idea, don’t you think? I mean, just because you use a lot of umlauts doesn’t mean that you’re screwed.

Well, there we go. And that’s why she proposes it. She’s not trying to say this is the case. She’s asking the question. Because we have research, and Malcolm Gladwell has done a great New Yorker piece that kind of summarizes up this research on, we know that the composition of your face, if you willfully change your face into a smile, you can improve your mood.

And so if I’m making a lot of, like, E sounds, like cheese or me or whatever, does that mean my, you know, my face is kind of smile-like? Does that mean I’m going to be happier? I don’t know. It’s something I’d like to see studied.

Yeah, it’s a really intriguing question. I know that I don’t speak a whole lot of Brazilian Portuguese, but I think it has to be the sexiest language on the planet because you have all these sounds where you’re puckering up. It’s like you’re puckering up the kiss. A language of kissing.

The first word I learned in Portuguese was gostoso, which means delicious. I mean, it’s just, you know, so you have all that vibrating at the front of your mouth and the puckering. And I don’t know. I think you do feel kind of sexy when you’re.

I think her speculation is interesting. We’ll link to her article, her blog entry, actually, on the New York Times website, as well as her follow-up and the thousands of comments from people who had something to say on this. And I’ll also dig up that Malcolm Gladwell article where he just kind of summarizes the research about the influence of one’s emotions when one changes one’s face.

Do you have a language that makes you feel happy when you speak it or one that makes you feel sad? Is it something that it does to your face? Is it the connotations of the words you use? Or maybe it’s the people you speak it with.

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