Brief dissertations on English language 3: the language impact

Language Impact definition

Language Impact (LI) could be best described as the sense of being smashed, hit or overwhelmed by the rush of words and phrases coming from the native speakers: the impact. This is the result of the uncapability of an English Language Student (ELS) to understand authentic spoken language when traveling to an English-speaking country. It is just like being in the middle of a group of whales trying to decipher their chants. So the sense in the ELS is that of frustration, confusion and isolation.

Who suffers language impact?

Language Impact (LI) is not only suffered by someone who has studied a foreign language and then travels abroad to practice his suppossedly new acquired language skills, but also by anybody traveling to a country in which the language is different from their own. Imagine yourself in barbershop in Russia trying to explain the hairdresser how you want your hair done, with sign language, because you don’t speak russian. It is very likely that you end up with a hair cut different to the one you wanted. Or a tougher case, a tourist in China whose tour guide left him by accident in a small town 300 miles (it has to be miles, this is English) away from his hotel in Beijing. Explain the clerck at the small grocery store down the street you need information on how to return. And if he says something, what is he saying? But if you never went to a russian school or a chinese school, what the heck? What were you expecting?

However, LI affects more to the ones who had already studied a second language than those who hadn’t. Why? Because this latter ones didn’t have any expectations about language proficiency. And because the first ones experience a deeper level of frustration, disappointment, isolation and, most of the times, rejection towards the studied language. Another aspect involved in LI is the speaking level of the student. When a student has a low speaking level the expectations about communicating with native speakers are not really significant. On the contrary, when the student has a very good speaking level the expectations are very significant. Moreover, native speakers (let’s call them locals) are, somehow, aware about the speaking level the student has, without even knowing about their students status. If the student has a poor speaking level the response tends to be, let’s say, comprehensive, kind, gentle and helpful most of the times: in other words, the native speaker speaks slow, uses sign language and if necessary writes directions on a piece of paper to help the student; but if the student speaks very well, the native speakers answer very well, that is with a normal fluency. ¿Why? Simple, because the native speakers don’t think there is something wrong with the other’s language abilities. And that means trouble to the student walking down Grosvenor Road in London.

This could be explained with the following equations:

English Student + low speaking level = Softer Language Impact
English Student + high speaking level = Harder Language Impact

And this other equation explains a misbelief in English learning

English Student + high speaking level is not always = to a high listening
comprehension level
Or otherwise

English Student + high listening comprehension level is not always = to a high
speaking level

to be continued...