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What to avoid when learning a foreign language
By Janet Fang | June 26, 2013, 1:24 PM PDT
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Sometimes, a familiar face is the last thing you need to see. Reminders of
home can disrupt your ability to process a foreign language, a new study
says.
The findings help us understand why cultural immersion is the most effective
way to learn a new language, and how immigrants and expats can gain fluency
in non-native tongues.
Previous studies have found that culturally evocative stimuli from your
homeland — like celebrities or a landmark — can subconsciously trigger
native cognitive patterns.
Shu Zhang from Columbia University and colleagues investigated whether
visual cues also trigger the use of your native language, and thus interfere
with processing an adopted language. ScienceNOW explains:
They recruited Chinese students who had lived in the U.S. for less than a
year and had them converse with a computer screen displaying the face of a
Chinese male called Michael Lee, who spoke to them in English with an
American accent about campus life.
Then the team compared the fluency of their speech when they spoke to a
Caucasian version of Lee.
They found that for Chinese immigrants, addressing a Chinese face increased
social comfort but reduced English fluency. “It’s ironic” that the more
comfortable volunteers were with their conversational partner, the less
fluent they became, Zhang says.
When chatting with the Chinese version of Lee, the volunteers produced 11
percent fewer words per minute on average.
Viewing iconic images of Chinese culture (such as the Great Wall) also
interfered with their English fluency, causing a 16 percent drop in words
produced per minute.
This “cultural priming” also made the volunteers 85 percent more likely to
name objects with literal translations from Chinese — such as calling
pistachios, “happy nuts.”
Understanding how subtle cultural cues affect fluency could also help
employers design better job interviews. For example, says study coauthor
Michael Morris of Columbia, taking a Japanese job candidate out for sushi,
although a well-meaning gesture, might not be the best way to help them
shine.
The work was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
last week.
[Via ScienceNOW]
Image: Michael Morris & Shu Zhang, pistachio nut by Dmitry Rukhlenko/
iStockphoto.com
Start your week smarter with our weekly e-mail newsletter. It's your cheat
sheet for good ideas. Get it.
RSS
What to avoid when learning a foreign language
By Janet Fang | June 26, 2013, 1:24 PM PDT
4
Comments
more +
Sometimes, a familiar face is the last thing you need to see. Reminders of
home can disrupt your ability to process a foreign language, a new study
says.
The findings help us understand why cultural immersion is the most effective
way to learn a new language, and how immigrants and expats can gain fluency
in non-native tongues.
Previous studies have found that culturally evocative stimuli from your
homeland — like celebrities or a landmark — can subconsciously trigger
native cognitive patterns.
Shu Zhang from Columbia University and colleagues investigated whether
visual cues also trigger the use of your native language, and thus interfere
with processing an adopted language. ScienceNOW explains:
They recruited Chinese students who had lived in the U.S. for less than a
year and had them converse with a computer screen displaying the face of a
Chinese male called Michael Lee, who spoke to them in English with an
American accent about campus life.
Then the team compared the fluency of their speech when they spoke to a
Caucasian version of Lee.
They found that for Chinese immigrants, addressing a Chinese face increased
social comfort but reduced English fluency. “It’s ironic” that the more
comfortable volunteers were with their conversational partner, the less
fluent they became, Zhang says.
When chatting with the Chinese version of Lee, the volunteers produced 11
percent fewer words per minute on average.
Viewing iconic images of Chinese culture (such as the Great Wall) also
interfered with their English fluency, causing a 16 percent drop in words
produced per minute.
This “cultural priming” also made the volunteers 85 percent more likely to
name objects with literal translations from Chinese — such as calling
pistachios, “happy nuts.”
Understanding how subtle cultural cues affect fluency could also help
employers design better job interviews. For example, says study coauthor
Michael Morris of Columbia, taking a Japanese job candidate out for sushi,
although a well-meaning gesture, might not be the best way to help them
shine.
The work was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
last week.
[Via ScienceNOW]
Image: Michael Morris & Shu Zhang, pistachio nut by Dmitry Rukhlenko/
iStockphoto.com
Start your week smarter with our weekly e-mail newsletter. It's your cheat
sheet for good ideas. Get it.
