Welcome to the November/December edition of TLT Interviews! For this issue, we bring you an enlightening interview with Professor Sayuri Hayakawa. Professor Sayuri Hayakawa is currently an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University and is an expert in psycholinguistics. She is one of the foremost authorities on the Foreign Language Effect (FLE), as well as several other aspects of bilingualism and multilingualism. Her publications include The Foreign Language Effect: Thinking in a Foreign Tongue Reduces Decision Biases (Keysar et al., 2012), Your Morals Depend on Language (Costa et al., 2014), Measuring bilingualism: The Quest for a “bilingual quotient” (Marian & Hayakawa, 2021), and Speakers of Different Languages Remember Visual Scenes Differently (Fernandez-Duque et al., 2023). Her research interests were inspired, in part, by her own bilingual upbringing in Japan. She was interviewed by Robert Andrews, who is currently an instructor of English as a Foreign Language at Kwansei Gakuin University’s School of International Studies, in Nishinomiya, and who has taught English in various universities since 2015. His research interests include the foreign language effect, critical thinking, philosophy, pragmatics, and academic writing.
Bilingualism and its Effects: An Interview With Sayuri Hayakawa
Bilingualism is an area inherently important to all teachers of a second language given that ultimately the goal is to achieve bilingualism or multilingualism. I had the privilege of speaking with Assistant Professor Sayuri Hayakawa of Oklahoma State University, who is an expert in psycholinguistics. Her publications include those on the foreign language effect (Keysar et al., 2012), the moral foreign language effect (Costa et al., 2014), the concept of bilingualism quotient (Marian & Hayakawa, 2021), and how people using different languages may remember visual scenes differently (Fernandez-Duque et al., 2023). We had a wide-ranging discussion of these topics as well as what it means to grow up biculturally, and some tentative suggestions on how these topics may apply to students in situations such as homestays, negotiations or Model United Nations (UN).
Robert Andrews: You have been a big researcher in the field of the foreign language effect. Would you be able to tell me what that is?
Sayuri Hayakawa: It’s actually a collection of phenomena. Simply put, it’s how bilingual speakers often make different kinds of choices when they’re using a native versus non-native language. This has been found in a lot of different domains. Some of the earliest findings were that people are perhaps less risk-averse when using a non-native language such as willingness to accept some bets when they’re using a non-native language compared to their native language. We’ve also seen it when people are making moral decisions, and more recently, in real-world contexts, such as when people are making medical or legal decisions. So, there’s a lot of potential practical implications of this, that people might have different preferences depending on which language they’re using.
When you say people might be less risk-averse, does this mean that they will be more reckless? Or, does it mean that they are more strategic in their risk aversion?
It doesn’t seem to be super straightforward. In the original finding that we had, back in our paper in 2012, we explicitly designed it, so that these were good bets to take. What we mean by that was that the potential gain was always greater than the potential loss. If you are homo economicus, a perfectly rational, robotic-thinking human being who is unaffected by emotion, you should accept these bets every time. But that’s not how people work. If I give you a bet of a fifty-fifty chance of winning $120 versus losing $100, even though it’s technically a good bet to take, most people will not want to take that bet because there’s loss aversion; the prospect of losing $100 hurts more than the prospect of gaining $120 feels good. What we find is that in those contexts, where it’s advantageous to take a risk, people were more willing to take a risk in a foreign language. So, that makes it seem like it might be strategic. But it’s an understudied area of the foreign language effect.
If I was to talk about my students going to study abroad, what sort of effects might the foreign language effect have if they’re meeting their homestay family or studying in a university there? Is there any kind of effect that you could imagine happening to those students?
I don’t want to hypothesize too much because a lot of this work has still been very lab focused. It’s still a pretty open question as to how much this translates to real-world, messy contexts. With that said, what you can imagine, and this is backed up by a lot of anecdotal evidence, people often just feel less emotional when they’re using a non-native language. And that applies to a lot of things like social interactions. So, it might not be unexpected that when you are getting to know somebody in a non-native language, at least for me, we’re not speaking mind-to-mind. And some of the emotion can get so called “lost in translation.” However, if it’s true that using our non-native language makes you a little bit “rational,” more rational than your native tongue, it might be advantageous in some situations. As you’re getting settled into a new life and a new country, you’re going to have to make a lot of different choices, whether it has to do with your finances or where to live and all of that. And it’s possible that the increased psychological distance that’s afforded by the non-native language could allow you to evaluate all of that with a more dispassionate and cooler mindset, which may be beneficial. But I don’t want to bet money on that yet because it’s a little bit untested at this point in that kind of context.
Okay, but would you bet on it if you’re using a foreign language? Just kidding. In a paper you wrote on the mechanism of the foreign language effect, you asked if the reason for it was because of thinking more about the stakes, or if the emotions are duller than they otherwise would be in your L1?
This was one of the main original questions about what’s driving the foreign language effect. In the moral domain, one of the earliest findings was that when people are presented with something like the trolley dilemma, where you’re essentially asked, would you sacrifice one life to save five, people really have difficulty saying that they would do that usually in their native language because it’s a tricky choice. You’re pitting this utilitarian concern of wanting to maximize the greater good against the more deontological, rule-based concern that there’s certain sacred laws that you don’t violate —that it is inherently wrong to harm or kill a person. In that situation, we find that people are more than twice as likely to say that they would sacrifice one person to save five when they’re using a non-native tongue. The question we had there was, Is it because they are thinking more in the sense that they are really concentrating on this cost-benefit analysis of five outweighs one coming at it in a cooler, rational way? Or, is it that they just feel less bad about violating that deontological rule of harming somebody? And, even though both of those things predict the same outcome in a lot of situations, they are separable things.
From a teaching point of view, I was wondering about how discussing certain topics and sensitive topics in a more dispassionate way might happen in a foreign language rather than in your first language.
I could definitely see that and in fact there is a research basis to make that prediction just primarily in therapeutic settings. Some of the earliest studies, I think, going back to the 70s, have shown that when bilingual individuals are in therapy sessions, or talking about traumatic or embarrassing memories, they’ll often prefer to use their non-native language, presumably because of this psychological or emotional distancing mechanism. If you’re bilingual, and you can talk about something bad that happened to you in a language that provides that kind of buffer, you may be able to process it in this cooler, less emotionally messy way. You can see how that could translate to something like classroom discussion if you are talking about a sensitive hot button issue that just hearing the word, let’s say, something like abortion, which in the United States, at least, just that word is going to evoke some kind of emotion in a person. Now, if you were to use or hear that word in a non-native language, even if you know what it means, it might take the bite out of it, and you can think of it as basically the mechanism underlying even euphemisms in one language. When you hear the words like “pre-emptive strike” or “collateral damage”, even if you know what it means, it’s effective in changing the way people feel about it because you are not activating the emotions that are stimulated by a word such as, say, “genocide” or “war.” I think that a bilingual has just additional tools at their disposal to not only increase their communicative competence with each other but also potentially mould the way that they think themselves.
Like their attitudes towards say, euphemisms, or dysphemisms?
My guess would be that the difference between say a euphemistic term and its more kind of aggressive partner would be reduced in a foreign language, presumably because even the more emotional term will be already dampened. And, you do see this, for instance, with taboo words. This is one of the early examples of how people feel differently in a native versus non-native language, when people are using and listening to taboo words. They just don’t have the same emotional response to it as they do in their native tongue. I can think of that as being sort of the far end of the spectrum in terms of emotional words, something like euphemisms on the weaker end. And so, if you aren’t even feeling very reactive to the strongest version of that word, then you can assume that making it a euphemism would have less of an impact.
Some students will have had some experience of using taboo words in situations where they had no idea of the strength of that word. So that would possibly be an example of the foreign language effect where people will blurt out something then say, “I didn’t know I couldn’t say that word!”
Yeah, the foreign language effect is downstream from there, was grounded on these earlier findings showing that people do have this reduced emotional response. And absolutely, I think that because of that, there are some potential pragmatic issues when you’re using a foreign language.
The foreign language effect is something that may have applications in diplomacy, such as the United Nations. In terms of the foreign language effect being applicable to language teachers, how about Model United Nations?
I think this would be such a fascinating place to do a study because when you start finding that people make different moral or risk-related decisions in a native versus non-native tongue, like the UN where people are constantly making very high stakes choices often with everyone speaking a non-native language or in some cases where you have this imbalance. So, in cases that English is the lingua franca, decisions are often made in English, potentially, between a native English speaker and a non-native English speaker, which introduces some potentially interesting variables. It could be that, in some situations, using that non-native language is a superpower in a sense; you might be able to have a less knee jerk response to things that are against your agenda. There is, in fact, some evidence suggesting that people might be open to evidence that goes against their opinion. That essentially might allow you to approach things with a more open mind. In the moral domain, there’s some research showing that when people are judging the moral reprehensibility of different sorts of violations, people seem to be a little less confident in their judgment in a non-native language, which again speaks to potentially greater humility that people just might be more open-minded. This has huge implications for your ability to maybe come to a peaceful resolution or during negotiations. With that said, you have to think about all the other messy variables that are involved with language. If you are using a non-native language with somebody who’s using their native language, there’s this power imbalance because they don’t have the same kind of cognitive load and effort that you have going into this. Also, there’s the pragmatic usage of speech where people can manipulate you with their words and dance circles around you if they’re using their native tongue or something that they’re more experienced with. So, I think all of these different variables could potentially contribute to how something like a Model UN would play out.
In negotiations, can an L2 user ask for something that is difficult to ask for in their native language?
I definitely think it’s possible. Again, this is an under-researched area. With that said, I could certainly imagine that. On the one hand, it’s easier to express yourself in your native language, but I’m reminded of Linda Babcock’s great book on Women Don’t Ask, which is all about women in negotiations and the taboos around being assertive and asking for what you want. It’s possible that when you’re using a non-native language, that the norms, and stereotypes might not be activated to the same extent as your native tongue. I could imagine that that might actually make it easier for a woman to be assertive and go against what is typically expected of her. It’s an interesting question that can be resolved by someone in the future.
Can I ask about your own language background?
I was actually born in the US, my mother’s American, but I was raised in Japan until I was 18. However, I was attending an American School in Japan, so all of my education was in English. I would say that the household language was mostly English. With that said, I grew up speaking both, but Japanese was pretty much in a very colloquial context, speaking to friends, family, shopkeepers, etc. For me, Japanese is a highly emotional language for me. It is my native tongue, and I learned it at the same time as English. It’s associated with my father and with my Japanese obaachan [grandmother], all sorts of things that are highly emotional to me. And yet, because English has been the language of my schooling and my professional work, it’s my much more dominant language.
Do you see any examples of the foreign language effect in your life?
I actually do in some ways, not necessarily in this reduced emotional capacity way. But the reason why I got into the foreign language effect to begin with was I was really interested in this phenomenon of cultural frame switching. It’s essentially this idea that bilingual people are often also bicultural. There are all sorts of norms and values, memories and associations, that are tied up with each language. The language that you’re using can essentially prime all of these associations, ways of thinking and being, and even thinking of yourself. Something that I noticed very early on as a bilingual person and bicultural was that I just felt different when I was speaking English versus Japanese, that I felt bigger. When I was speaking English, I felt like I could take up more room, I would speak more loudly, I would speak in a lower voice.
Does this mean that when you’re speaking one particular language, you feel as though you’re somewhat adopting the norms that are expected of you in the culture that uses that language?
It’s not necessarily always going to be straightforward. In fact, there’s some really interesting research showing that how people respond to linguistic primes might depend on how they view their two cultures and how compatible they are. For instance, there is an idea of a bicultural identity integration index (Benet-Martinez & Haritatos, 2005), which is basically how much you feel like your two cultures are compatible versus in conflict with each other. What they showed was that when people think that their two cultures are compatible—I can be both Japanese and American, is that when they hear English—they’re more likely to act like an American. And when they hear Japanese, they’re more likely to act like a Japanese person, as in whatever that means to them in terms of activating cultural norms or social norms about body language or tone of voice. It could be about likelihood of feeling one type of personality versus another. But when people feel that their two cultures are in conflict with each other, as if, “my Japaneseness is a threat to my Americanness.” They sometimes have a reactive response, so that when they have an American prime, such as hearing English, they actually might want to reaffirm their Japaneseness and behave more like a Japanese person would and vice versa. There are potentially some interesting interactions between language and culture there. In fact, when people are talking about the causes and functions of code switching, one of them is how functional is that language for a particular use. I often hear that even though typically it’s a foreign language that’s less emotional, Japanese speakers will feel more comfortable saying, “I love you,” or expressing themselves emotionally in English, just because it seems to be a more emotional language. But it could also be because seeing something like aishiteru (“I love you” in Japanese) feels too strong.
Regarding the work that you’ve done on bilingualism quotient (Marian & Hayakawa, 2021), everyone in my family has had different ages of acquisition and exposure to a second language, would this tell us something about how bilingual we are?
That’s the big question. In that paper, we proposed this almost mythical idea of a bilingualism quotient, and is it even conceivably possible to boil down how bilingual a person is to a single number like we could with IQ in theory, even though that’s fully debated as well. In fact, we make that parallel because in both cases, you’re taking what is inherently a very complex construct and trying to distil it into a number. It’s almost philosophical as to whether it’s possible. I honestly would, if anything, argue that it’s not really possible. What it even means to be bilingual is so multi-dimensional, there’s so much variability in things like age of acquisition, manner of acquisition, you learn it through immersion, did you learn it through school, and even if you try to break it down to those, it’s not consistent across a person’s lifespan.
However, as you mentioned in the paper, there are a lot of areas where studies on bilingualism don’t seem to be replicated, and that it could be because of trying to compare different levels of bilinguals.
Precisely, and the way that they are bilingual. For instance, there’s a whole contingent of researchers who are arguing that it may not have to do with something like proficiency or even age of acquisition, so much as how often you’re having to sort of juggle the two languages. Consider two different types of bilinguals. You can think of one as being a very sort of siloed bilingual, maybe I speak English at home, but speak Japanese at work, so not really mixing the languages very much when at home. I can pretty much reduce my activation of Japanese because it’s not really useful in that context. Likewise, when I’m at work, I’m pretty much not going to be using English so I can really have Japanese in the front of my mind. Compare that to somebody who is constantly surrounded by other Japanese-English bilinguals. They’re switching in and out of Japanese and English, they’re hearing Japanese one minute and English the other. In those cases, the two languages are much more likely to be active at the same time, potentially competing with each other. And that takes a little bit more mental gymnastics, potentially, to inhibit one, activate the other, and switch back and forth. That might actually be the activity that’s conferring executive function benefits because you’re constantly juggling languages during the day, that your brain just gets good at juggling and managing conflicting information in general, even beyond language. In that case, in order to find that effect, you need to be able to isolate what are the sorts of activities that these bilinguals are engaging in throughout the day that are conferring these benefits. And you can’t just say, a blanket statement that knowing a second language is going to give you these benefits.
That is definitely very interesting because I suppose no matter how much you might have a proficiency in the two languages unless you’re engaged in that kind of activity of code switching that you mentioned, it may not confer the purported executive function benefits, right?
Exactly right. Within the field, they’re getting much better about defining bilingualism looking at the intricacies and nuances of it. When we have this debate about the bilingual advantage, it’s been a very reductionist argument. You often see that with cultural research saying that all Americans are more outgoing than all Japanese, something like that would be very reductionist. I think the same sort of more nuanced work needs to be done with this question of the bilingual advantage. So, instead of just asking, “Do bilinguals have a better executive function than monolinguals,” we should also ask, “what kinds of bilinguals?”
What is the LEAP Questionnaire mentioned in the paper?
That would be the language experience and proficiency questionnaire (LEAP-Q). It takes this more nuanced perspective on assessing language background. Oftentimes, people will just ask questions like age of acquisition and self-rated proficiency in general, whereas the LEAP-Q will ask not only about acquisition in general. It will ask about age of reading acquisition. It will ask about your proficiency in speaking, reading, writing, just because these are different. I think probably the most critical aspect of it is that it also includes a lot of questions about manner of acquisition: “Did you learn it in a formal context?” “Did you learn it through friends?” “How much?”; or “How often did you learn it through friends and family versus in a classroom?” In this way, because you are breaking down all these different components of your language experience, you can have a better chance of potentially equating people or identifying what the factors that matter are. So, taking this example of the executive function, you could take a group of bilingual speakers, give them a bunch of tests, and cognitive function, attentional control, and so on. And then, you could see what are the factors that predict this increased cognitive control: “Is it the extent of language switching or is it the extent of language immersion?”; “Is it the extent of speaking proficiency?”; “Is it at the age of acquisition?” and so on. So, you might be able to explore and tease apart the factors that matter.
Interesting. So, what are you researching these days?
I’m really interested in moving back to the foreign language effect on decision making. In particular, I want to go deeper and broader. What I mean by that is, there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding what exactly is causing this effect. It might actually have something to do with less emotion, per se, and more to do with the activation of associations more broadly. So, really trying to drill down into what is causing the effect is something that’s really exciting and interesting to me. The broader aspect is about the implications, where I feel very reluctant to say what would happen out in the real world because there hasn’t been a ton of real-world studies. I’m really interested in looking at contexts such as when people are making medical decisions, when people are negotiating, and say Model UN or when people are making legal judgments or political judgments. How does the foreign language affect or manifest in much more kind of ecologically valid contexts?
Thank you. I look forward to reading more of your papers.
References
Benet-Martínez, V., & Haritatos, J. (2005). Bicultural identity integration (BII): Components and psychosocial antecedents. Journal of Personality, 73(4), 1015–1050. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00337.x
Costa, A., Foucart, A., Hayakawa, S., Aparici, M., Apesteguia, J., Heafner, J., & Keysar, B. (2014). Your morals depend on language. PLoS One, 9(4), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0094842
Keysar, B., Hayakawa, S. L., & An, S. G. (2012). The foreign-language effect: Thinking in a foreign tongue reduces decision biases. Psychological Science, 23(6), 661–668. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41489753
Fernandez-Duque, M., Hayakawa, S., & Marian, V. (2023). Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently. Science Advances, 9(33), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh0064
Marian, V., & Hayakawa, S. (2021). Measuring bilingualism: The quest for a “bilingualism quotient.” Applied Psycholinguistics, 42(2), 527–548. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0142716420000533
