The Power of Words

Time really flies; it’s already end of Jan!

I had so many insightful discussions lately that would like to talk about the power of words and psycholinguistics.

Living abroad and communicating in English mostly outside of home it becomes very clear that some thoughts are much easier expressed in English, and some in Russian. Which is interesting by itself.

For example, all my posts I write in English first, and then translate in Russian. Also, I have noticed that the word with the same meaning in both languages has a different “strength” in my emotional understanding of it.

Example: the word “victim” – it came up in the discussion of impact of maternity/paternity leaves on carriers. In that context and in English for me it has “mild” strength, like we have a choice to be a victim of circumstances and social setting, or to make a conscious decision of priorities and impact. However, if I think of it in Russian, same word seems to be a bit too strong, like almost “life and death” situation. And based on my conversations with some people this is not always the same emotional connotation for this word.

And that means that when I communicate to someone and I think I am delivering my message clear, that might not be the case because of different calibration of our understanding of certain words.

What do you think? Have you noticed something similar?