What sparked this blog posting was this graphic that I came across on Facebook:
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| Seriously? |
I must admit that it didn't shock me in the least. Since age 12, I have seen some variation of it throughout school or in my personal life. However, at age 35, it's getting tiring seeing it. This has to stop.
On the surface, the message makes sense: Speak the language, or be prepared to experience difficulties until you do. That makes sense, of course. If I were to move to Bolivia but didn't speak the language at the time of my move, life would be decidedly difficult for some time, at least until I achieved a level of proficiency that would allow me to ask where the bathroom is.
It's the second option that eradicates any notion that this graphic is anything but xenophobic. It's the second option that makes no consideration of the concepts of second-language acquisition and the difficulties people experience when learning a new language. To make the connection between xenophobia and this graphic, we should spend a bit talking about just what language acquisition entails.
Most people reading this blog will have had English as a maternal language. Generally, there's not much thought that goes into structuring the sentences that emanate from our mouths. We simply respond to what we see. Noam Chomsky, who is one of the most prominent linguists in history, had much to say first-language acquisition.
In the interest of not turning this posting into a Nirvana for linguists, I'll reduce his many arguments to this: Language acquisition is an inherent ability for humans, who are hard-wired to make accurate deductions about how language is used in various scenarios. In other words, first-language acquisition isn't very much of a concerted effort and happens naturally. Second-language acquisition is a different matter, however.
Learning a second language is a decidedly concerted effort that does not enjoy many of the benefits of learning a first language. For example, with first-language acquisition, a child starts with a blank slate ready to be colored by social interactions with other people. A child simply learns the rules of the language he/she's immersed in speak and, therefore, has no reason to compare them with existing rules learned in another language.
In second-language acquisition, one of the principle issues language learners experience is the normal and understandable tendency to compare speaking patterns and grammars of the foreign language to those of the native language. Early on, this results in a tendency to directly translate when speaking in the foreign language. Here's an example in French:
English: I am 35 years old.
Direct French: Je suis 35 ans. (Incorrect.)
French: Quel âge avez-vous? (Correct.)
In English, we express age using a form of "to be." In French, it's expressed using a form of "to have." It's normal for someone learning French to apply our English rule to French; it's what we're used to. It's wrong but still normal.
But why do the two languages use different verbs to express the same thing? That's too big of a question for this posting, but the short answer is that language and culture are inextricable. In fact, language is culture. This why learning a new language is truly an enlightening but intensely difficult experience. You're not just learning new words and new placement of those words; you're learning new ways of thinking and acting.
I make this point to also make the point that when people in this country--or in any country, for that matter--make absolute demands such as what's in the graphic above, it demonstrates a lack of appreciation for the difficulty of learning another language. Telling a language learner to get the hell out of the country until she learns to speak the language is simply ignorant. We shouldn't pretend that the graphic is a positive encouragement for non-native speakers to learn the language. It's a graphic to choose the source culture and ignore their own.
When it comes to learning language, a little compassion and appreciation of the difficulty of learning another language go a long way. But it's impossible to be compassionate when no time has been spent learning another language and, as a result, learning about someone else's culture.
Learning a second language is a decidedly concerted effort that does not enjoy many of the benefits of learning a first language. For example, with first-language acquisition, a child starts with a blank slate ready to be colored by social interactions with other people. A child simply learns the rules of the language he/she's immersed in speak and, therefore, has no reason to compare them with existing rules learned in another language.
In second-language acquisition, one of the principle issues language learners experience is the normal and understandable tendency to compare speaking patterns and grammars of the foreign language to those of the native language. Early on, this results in a tendency to directly translate when speaking in the foreign language. Here's an example in French:
English: I am 35 years old.
Direct French: Je suis 35 ans. (Incorrect.)
French: Quel âge avez-vous? (Correct.)
In English, we express age using a form of "to be." In French, it's expressed using a form of "to have." It's normal for someone learning French to apply our English rule to French; it's what we're used to. It's wrong but still normal.
But why do the two languages use different verbs to express the same thing? That's too big of a question for this posting, but the short answer is that language and culture are inextricable. In fact, language is culture. This why learning a new language is truly an enlightening but intensely difficult experience. You're not just learning new words and new placement of those words; you're learning new ways of thinking and acting.
I make this point to also make the point that when people in this country--or in any country, for that matter--make absolute demands such as what's in the graphic above, it demonstrates a lack of appreciation for the difficulty of learning another language. Telling a language learner to get the hell out of the country until she learns to speak the language is simply ignorant. We shouldn't pretend that the graphic is a positive encouragement for non-native speakers to learn the language. It's a graphic to choose the source culture and ignore their own.
When it comes to learning language, a little compassion and appreciation of the difficulty of learning another language go a long way. But it's impossible to be compassionate when no time has been spent learning another language and, as a result, learning about someone else's culture.
