Home-Culture Images May Impair Second-Language Skills, Study

A new study shows that exposure to home culture images may impair second-language skills in bicultural individuals.

Asian Scientist (Jul. 8, 2013) – A newly transferred associate from the Shanghai office nails his presentation to Mr. Smith from Chicago but stumbles in his pitch to Mr. Chen from San Francisco. A visiting professor from Taiwan lectures fluently about a slide of a Grecian urn, but falters and struggles to recall the word “translucent” when discussing a Ming vase. What is it about seeing a Chinese face or even a Chinese vase that can disrupt a Chinese immigrant’s fluency in English?

Research on how cultural knowledge operates in the mind is increasingly focused on the dynamics through which our cultural frames are evoked by particular situations. One dynamic is “frame-switching”— the shifts in judgement that bicultural individuals make as they move between settings governed by different cultural norms. A new immigrant may speak Chinese at home, for example, but will speak English and adopt Western mannerisms when in school.

New research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that biculturals’ ability to frame-switch without consciously thinking about it means that it sometimes interferes with their performance in a second language.

In the study, researchers ran a series of experiments to explore this disruption in more detail. In the first experiment, which simulated a conference call, they found that Chinese immigrants speak English less fluently when speaking to a Chinese versus a Caucasian face.

A second experiment found the same effect from exposure to images of Chinese culture such as a Buddha statue or the Great Wall, versus of American culture, such as the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore.

To test their theory that such Chinese-culture images cause Chinese-language concepts to interfere with English-language processing, they ran several experiments that required individuals to name objects. Chinese immigrants exposed to visual icons of Chinese culture became more likely to name pictured objects with literal translations from Chinese (e.g. labeling pistachios as “happy nuts” or a bulldozer as an “earth moving machine”).

The researchers also found that exposure to Chinese cultural images resulted in faster recognition of these literal translations, indicating heightened cognitive accessibility.

The study builds on previous research on the cognitive dynamics that enable people to operate effectively in multiple cultures. Cultural knowledge can be thought of as lenses for interpreting events and scripts for guiding actions.

“Our cultural lenses and scripts activate automatically in response to cultural cues in the setting—sights, sounds, and even aromas that are highly associated with a given cultural tradition,” said Professor Michael Morris, the leader of the study.

“But in culturally complex or mixed settings, this cultural chameleon-like response doesn’t always serve us well.”

The researchers had previously identified similar effects of exposure to cultural images on social behaviors that differ between East Asian and Western cultures, such as modesty versus self-enhancement in taking credit for projects.

The article can be found at: Zhang et al. (2013) Heritage-Culture Images Disrupt Immigrants’ Second-Language Processing Through Triggering First-Language Interference.

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Source: Columbia Business School; Photo:Tang Yew Chung.
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