The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
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Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#2[deleted]
Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#3Long after they’ve mastered its syntax and vocabulary, a lifelong accent may mark them as latecomers to the language. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the star of many American movies and the governor of the country’s biggest state, but his Austrian accent is a constant reminder that he could never run for president.
Unfortunate Daily Mail source[1], but Mr Schwarzenegger says he can speak unaccented English, but he keeps his accent deliberately because it's what people expect of him.
And the popular claim is that he uses a vocal coach to help him keep it, after using a vocal coach to lose it early in his career. Can't quickly find any source for this claim, but it's plausible enough that it's part of his brand and image and worth a lot, that it doesn't seem a good idea to use him as an example in this article. Doubly so when he did run for Gov. of California, the largest economy of the individual states, and his accent didn't stop his success there.
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3141778/Arnold...
Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#4Long after they’ve mastered its syntax and vocabulary, a lifelong accent may mark them as latecomers to the language. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the star of many American movies and the governor of the country’s biggest state, but his Austrian accent is a constant reminder that he could never run for president. Unfortunate Daily Mail source[1], but Mr Schwarzenegger says he can speak unaccented English, but he keeps h…
It’s not about whether the electorate would vote for him. It’s that the Constitution of the United States of America forbids anyone other than natural-born citizens from becoming President.
In theory, you can have natural-born citizens with other first languages; Bruce Lee would have been eligible to run for president if he had lived long enough; but the author was being rhetorical.
Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#5> But between then and now, research has shown the depth of the relationship all of us have with our native tongues—and how traumatic it can be when that relationship is ruptured.
I wondered what these research were.
From the additional readings section I see these two that could be related:
> Hallett, D., Chandler, M.J., & Lalonde, C.E. Aboriginal language knowledge and youth suicide. Cognitive Development 22, 392-399
> Wang, Q., Shao, Y., & Li, Y.J. “My way or mom’s way?” The bilingual and bicultural self in Hong Kong Chinese children and adolescents. Child Development 81, 555-567 (2010).
It seems that these studies were done in environments where language has a very strong cultural connotation and strongly binds to an identity.
Not discrediting it, but I wouldn’t expect the same to be true for a Belgian couple speaking NL first and French second but moves to France and switch to French only.
Put another way, I think the whole arguments need disassociation with contextual factors if the goal is to focus on language. Otherwise language is just a part of the whole picture, and we should talk about first cultures perhaps, and not first languages.
Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#6Long after they’ve mastered its syntax and vocabulary, a lifelong accent may mark them as latecomers to the language. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the star of many American movies and the governor of the country’s biggest state, but his Austrian accent is a constant reminder that he could never run for president. Unfortunate Daily Mail source[1], but Mr Schwarzenegger says he can speak unaccented English, but he keeps h…
It's a pretty common thing among non-native speakers who have nonetheless interacted or lived in the English-speaking world for virtually all their lives. I know a bunch of people who are in the same situation (although, clearly, not as famous :) ).
My slight Irish accent is an endless source of fun when I'm abroad -- I'm not a native speaker and wasn't born anywhere near Ireland, or anywhere near the English-speaking world for that matter. I haven't even lived in the English-speaking world. The longest time I've spent is an English-speaking country was two weeks, which I spent in Scotland during my honeymoon. When I tell people where I'm from, no one believes me. They're skeptical even after I show them my ID card.
But I've been reading, writing and speaking English, during work and leisure hours, for God knows how many years now, so I can read, write and speak it pretty well. The accent was an accident -- I have an ear for this sort of stuff but I didn't really try to develop one, I just acquired it because I ran into The Dubliners and Christy Moore at a time when I was very interested in this type of music and for some reason I ended up borrowing some of the sound. Frankly, it's a little embarrassing at times -- for example, I do my best to hide it when I'm speaking to someone who is actually from Ireland, because I'm always afraid it might sound like I'm mocking them or trying to hard.
But other than that, it's been one my biggest assets. I've spent some time in $bigcorp world, and I've met a lot of people who were smarter and more experienced than me but nonetheless didn't get as much credit or attention as I got, partly because their thick Eastern-European accents and improper use of English idioms made it hard for them to communicate and painted them in a stereotypical light.
Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#7Long after they’ve mastered its syntax and vocabulary, a lifelong accent may mark them as latecomers to the language. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the star of many American movies and the governor of the country’s biggest state, but his Austrian accent is a constant reminder that he could never run for president. Unfortunate Daily Mail source[1], but Mr Schwarzenegger says he can speak unaccented English, but he keeps h…
It's a pretty common thing among non-native speakers who have nonetheless interacted or lived in the English-speaking world for virtually all their lives. I know a bunch of people who are in the same situation (although, clearly, not as famous :) ). My slight Irish accent is an endless source of fun when I'm abroad -- I'm not a native speaker and wasn't born anywhere near Ireland, or anywhere near the English-speakin…
Only tangentially related, but having spent the past 6 months (and no doubt the foreseeable future) working with a senior engineer with a thick accent and only a so-so grasp of English, if you can't express yourself clearly or understand native speakers without them having to make allowances, then I don't think you should get credit for being smart. At that point, it doesn't matter -- the whole relationship is based on communication, and in a field like software engineering where discussing and exploring ideas is so paramount, it's at best a nuisance and at worst detrimental to productivity and working relationships. This isn't me stereotyping, either -- there are plenty of other people in the teams I work in with thick accents but a better grasp that I find it much easier to work with and learn from, even though they might not have as wide a breadth of knowledge.
I'm not saying it's easy to learn English to that level obviously, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem.
Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#8The entire article seems to be a refutation of its own title. It goes on and on about how easily first languages slip away and are replaced by the commonly spoken language of the region.
Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a pretty common thing among non-native speakers who have nonetheless interacted or lived in the English-speaking world for virtually all their lives. I know a bunch of people who are in the same situation (although, clearly, not as famous :) ). My slight Irish accent is an endless source of fun when I'm abroad -- I'm not a native speaker and wasn't born anywhere near Ireland, or anywhere near the English-speakin…
Only tangentially related, but having spent the past 6 months (and no doubt the foreseeable future) working with a senior engineer with a thick accent and only a so-so grasp of English, if you can't express yourself clearly or understand native speakers without them having to make allowances, then I don't think you should get credit for being smart. At that point, it doesn't matter -- the whole relationship is based…
> if you can't express yourself clearly or understand native speakers without them having to make allowances, then I don't think you should get credit for being smart
Why? Engineers have to "make allowances" for understanding what managers or people from other departments say all the time, even when it's said in perfectly-articulate, perfectly-accented English. I can't remember the last time I heard someone outside a technical department use "speed", "bandwidth" and "latency" correctly. And yet I've continued to write correct specifications and improve products -- even when that required entire meetings to get people on the same page, as opposed to a simple question to get me over the language barrier. Shall we stop giving credit for being smart to designers, marketing specialists and product managers, too?
> This isn't me stereotyping, either
Yes it is. Difficult communication is a major problem in our industry and it's an unfortunate reality even in teams where everyone is a native speaker of the same language. It's far less difficult for a designer or a product manager to learn correct usage of technical terms in their native language than it is for someone to learn a whole new language -- but you wouldn't tell a manager that the fact that they can't be bothered to learn what a few words mean is "at best a nuisance and at worst detrimental to productivity and working relationships", would you?
Re: The Strange Persistence of First Languages (2015)
#10Long after they’ve mastered its syntax and vocabulary, a lifelong accent may mark them as latecomers to the language. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the star of many American movies and the governor of the country’s biggest state, but his Austrian accent is a constant reminder that he could never run for president. Unfortunate Daily Mail source[1], but Mr Schwarzenegger says he can speak unaccented English, but he keeps h…
It’s not about whether the electorate would vote for him. It’s that the Constitution of the United States of America forbids anyone other than natural-born citizens from becoming President. In theory, you can have natural-born citizens with other first languages; Bruce Lee would have been eligible to run for president if he had lived long enough; but the author was being rhetorical.
There actually has been a natural-born US President whose first language wasn't English. Martin Van Buren, the 8th President of the US, was from the Dutch minority of New York and spoke only Dutch as a child.