Different domains for different languages

As I move in and out of different languages I'm struck by how it just isn't right to translate. I have different domains in my head to talk about different things. My internal dilaogues with different people take place in different languages. So I think different things to different people.

This made me think today of Fernando Pessoa. He was someone who explored different domains to the extreme. He had a series of heteronyms - or rather, he was a series of different authors/poets, each of whom had their own character, likes and dislikes and styles of writing. Each of his personalities had their own "language" (linguagem) and some had different languages (línguas) - English and Portuguese. In a book he wrote about "A Língua Portuguesa" (Assírio & Alvim, 1997) he wrote: "Usando do inglês como língua científica e geral, usaremos do português como língua literária e particular. Teremos, no império como na cultural, uma vida doméstica e uma vida pública. Para o que queremos aprender leremos inglês; para o que queremos sentir, português. Para o que queremos ensinar, falaremos inglês; português para o que queremos dizer." (p.151)

But I want to explore the idea of different domains (and therefore different languages) being related to different internal dialogues (to different audiences) - not necessarily to related to fixed domains like cultural domains.