Some travelers return from abroad not only with photographs and souvenirs but with a different accent, freshly borrowed expressions, or a new way of dressing and gesturing. Scientists say the behavior is less of a pose than it looks.
Writer David Farley experienced it directly. After spending three years in Prague, he returned to the United States with a changed appearance and habits picked up during his stay. Looking back, he believes the changes partly reflected a need to show, even to himself, how deeply the experience had affected him.
The underlying mechanism is well documented. People unconsciously adjust the way they speak to match those around them, and that tendency can intensify in an unfamiliar environment. It is why some travelers come back from London using British expressions, from Italy gesticulating more than usual, or from Paris pronouncing certain words with a French inflection.
Psychologist Charlotte Russell adds an emotional dimension to the explanation. She says some words and customs are kept because they allow a person to hold on to part of the experience. Russell herself uses the Greek word parakalo when in Greece or speaking with Greek friends, connecting it to the memories she built there.
There is also a social element. Adopting foreign habits can project an image of someone who travels often or has a special relationship with a particular culture, whether that means saying Namaste after a trip to Bhutan or repeating pura vida after visiting Costa Rica.
Anthropologist Gareth Barkin links the broader phenomenon to mimetic desire, a concept developed by René Girard. Under that framework, some travelers want to absorb part of a culture they admire rather than simply observe it. Social media, the source notes, has extended that impulse to less conventional destinations as well.
