Job Discussion Forums

[GabeKessel]

The Linguo-Racial complex is a phenomenon that I (and many other
people, I guess) discovered while learning foreign languages. It refers
to how average people associate a language with people's racial
characteristics and have confusing reactions to the speaker of the
language if he/she does not have the appearance that a "normal" speaker
of such language has. Here are some examples:


A White American took years of Spanish and is now fluent in it. He
talks Spanish to some Mexican or Cuban immigrants in the US. They make
a wry face and answer in broken English. He again speaks Spanish to
them. They again answer in English (which is much worse than the white
American's Spanish).


A Brit learns Japanese and speaks it very well now. He stops people on
the streets of Tokyo and talks to them. They look at him like they have
seen E.T. -with eyes wide-open and jaws dropped. Some smile sheepishly
and walk on. Some look irritated and say in Japanese- "the language, I
do not speak the language". Some answer in bad English, some walk by
saying "I do not speak English", some asking him: "Do you speak
Japanese?"(And what is he speaking now, Bantu?).


A European gentleman sits in a restaurant in an Arab country. He calls
a waiter and asks for "thom"- garlic. The waiter looks shy and makes
gestures at the customer- "One moment please, one moment please" and
walks away. Thinking that he went to get garlic, the customer patiently
awaits his food. Guess what? He brought another waiter who addresses
the customer with "May I help you, sir?" "I asked for bloody garlic in
Arabic, why are you here asking me again?" "Sorry sir, we did not
realize you could speak Arabic". "But I was speaking Arabic to the
first waiter!"


The first waiter's mind did not register the fact that in spite of the
speaker's European appearance he was, in fact, speaking Arabic.


An American man who spent 15 years in the Philippines is with his
girlfriend. He stops a taxi and talks to the driver in Tagalog. The
driver ignores him like he does not exist and starts talking to his
girlfriend about the taxi fare and all. People with high noses and
white skin speak English. People with flat noses and brown skin speak
Tagalog. People with high noses and white skin speaking Tagalog are
absurd and probably unreal. Let's talk to the girl- her nose is flat
and her skin is brown. She is a Tagalog speaker.


Here is another example: an Australian has spent half of his life in
Thailand and speaks Thai fluently. He stops at a street stall. The
hawkers look at him incredulously as he begins speaking Thai. One of
them lights up and starts yelling out to others: "He can talk! He can
talk!"


The Lingo-Racial complex can take ugly extremes such as people ignored
at restaurants and not served. People not being rented apartments
because the landlord is afraid that he cannot communicate with English
speakers (who speak his language very well) and friendships and dates
being denied because, you see, I can't speak English. "


"But I can speak your language!" A dull and incredulous look and
silence are the answer.


In a place that has many tourists and foreigners of a particular
"stock" people form a stereotypical reflex about how a person who looks
like that should talk and behave.


In places that are excessively provincial and or/nationalistic people
cannot even conceive of a person who is clearly of another race being
able to speak their language.


In some Latin countries particularly in the Caribbean and Mexico the
speakers see Spanish as "their" language and become shocked and even
insulted if a person of "another (non-Latin) race" speaks it.


Anglo-Saxon countries such as the US , UK, etc. do not have that
complex but the opposite of it- in their cultural view the whole world
speaks English and if they don't they should and soon will. So there is
no surprise if a Japanese person speaks English- he should.


Argentina, being an immigrant Spanish speaking society will have a
similar attitude and will lack the Complex. So, I guess, would Brazil.


Good news? Well, not everyone has the complex. There are many people
who are happy to see that you speak the language and many people who
will not even be surprised that you do. Many will treat you as an equal
especially after they got to know you. However, when one studies
languages of nations where the majority of people do not look like you,
one has to get ready to face the awkwardness of it.


It's all in the expat's day's work. What's to do?

[Guy Courchesne]

Interesting stuff!

[ls650]

[Henry_Cowell]

On the Latin American forums, this is known as "JonnytheMann" syndrome.

[spidey]

It's not difficult to see that we are dealing the human condition of familiarity and expectation. We will always respond first to the familiar in most situations. Also due to the fact that our senses are tuned into the expected, we tend to get confused when the unexpected happens. ie: the 'high nose, white skin' is speaking the native lingo but the listener is looking like he just saw a dog in high heals. He wasn't expecting it. For all he knew the white guy was speaking English. He therefore took the easy road and responded to the familiar, the 'the flat nosed, brown skin.'
Best to accept that we are all human and that we would all typically react in the same manner, given the same situation.

C'est la vie.

S

[Jizzo T. Clown]

In China it was commonplace for my (and other foreigners') efforts at speaking the language to be met with an almost-too-hasty "Ting bu dong" (don't understand).

It seems as though the Chinese fully expect not to understand anyone who is speaking their language who isn't Chinese.

[Gregor]

I've experienced this phenomenon, and it can be frustrating, but it's easy to exaggerate.
I mean, a lot of Chinese people are surprised to find non-Chinese people speaking their language, but 99% of the time, if they seem to just refuse to acknowledge that you're speaking it, if they "pretend" not to understand you, then it's not a racial shock or something. It's that you're not speaking it very well. That's all there is to it. If you speak it well enough, and with enough confidence, you will get through to them in a matter of the few seconds it takes them to get over their surprise.

The guy who says "garlic" in Arabic - that's not "speaking Arabic." If he could say, in clear, reasonably unaccented Arabic, "Waiter! Excuse me, could I get some extra garlic please?" using local idiom, that would be a whole different story.

I'm pretty sure of this. For a year or so when I first lived in Shenyang, it was maddening that I could not get a taxi driver to understand me., Later it wasn't a problem. Maybe these people started to get to know me. But then, when I moved to an unfamiliar town, my spoken Chinese gave me no trouble at all. That was speaking with some people with no exposure to foreigners at all.
Same thing with my Spanish in Mexico. In my first eight to twelve months, it was enfuriating. But later - and in other locations, INCLUDING SPAIN! - I had not the slightest amount of trouble making myself understood.
One clue that the OP may be projecting the speaker's problem onto the listener is that Spanish is widely known to be the native language of any number of races, i.e. a white Spaniard wouldn't have the briefest moment's trouble dealing with a mestizo in Mexico.
It's frustrating, but learning a language - even the predominant local one - takes a long time. There's more to it than learning that this in English means that in whatever the language.

[Teacher in Rome]

Good points Gregor!

One thing I'd like to add to the OP is that "Anglos" can be just as surprised to hear Chinese or Indian looking people speak English with a broad Glaswegian accent. (Rather than with a Chinese or Indian type accent.) Works both ways!

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[nomadder]

I haven't found this to be a problem in Spanish speaking countries. Almost every traveller I met knew some Spanish. It's one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn at least the basics of. Also we may look like some Spanish speakers. In Japan for sure it can be a problem-the language is so different and we don't look like them. Not to mention the island mentality.

[MO39]

My experience has been the opposite of many of the posters on this thread. I'm living in Mexico City at the moment, and though I don�t look particularly Mexican, I am on the short side for a woman from the United States, making me of average height here. In the street I am often stopped by people asking me in Spanish for the time or directions; luckily for them, I do speak Spanish fluently!

[Gregor]

Jizzo has a point that those of you in Latin American countries probably don't realize, and I'd be remiss to deny it, as a resident of China - the Chinese CAN be very xenophobic, and in fact tend to be.
That's not to say, of course, that ALL Chinese are xenophobic, but it's a national characteristic, due no doubt to the country's reletively recent open door policy. Some Chinese people in some areas have been exposed to foreigners since before the Cultural Revolution, but those foreign people who are still in China are pretty famous for being VERY rare exceptions.

Still, I submit that xenophobia isn't the issue when dealing with a taxi driver, or other Chinese service person who doesn't have access to an English-speaking collegue. I've had taxi drivers AGONIZE over where I was trying to tell them to go. Just agonize. I'd make up tones (knowing the pronunciation was otherwise correct), and once I stumbled onto a tonal pattern they kinda/sorta recognized, they'd repeat it, with a cartoon lightbulb over their head, repeat it over and over, just to make sure, and then take me there (home).
Another problem with Chinese is that a surprisingly huge number of foreigners who actually live here refuse to acknowledge the importance of the tones. THEY can't see why one tone makes such a difference.
And yet they also can't understand when a Chinese person can't hear the difference between peanuts and {similar sounding word for the male member}, or between sit and {scatalogical word refering to human waste}, or little and riddle, and on and on, we can have a Forever Thread on THIS topic.
The problem is that in one language you have very different phonemes, while in another language the two sounds are simply allophones - acceptable variations on the same sound without altering the meaning of the word. /l/ and /r/ in Cantonese comes to mind, or /v/ and /b/ in Spanish.

The point is, though, yes, if they have someone to help with English, they'll get that. Put yourself in his or her shoes - you're dealing with a foreigner. LAST time you dealt with a foreigner, you COULD NOT figure out what he was saying, so he said it LOUDER, and in an angrier and less patient tone. That just escalated until you wanted to cry. You only wanted to help, and this guy just blew up at you, you lost the foreign business for your shop, and almost lost your JOB for your efforts.
This has either happened to you or else you've heard about it from a friend or collegue. It's FRIGHTENING.
Along comes a foreigner who speaks a bit of Chinese - the worst. Because they KNOW they're saying it right...AND THEY ARE NOT. So you get some help.
NO HELP AROUND!! OH NO!! WAIT a minute...I understood that! Whew! A foreigner who speaks Chinese!
And THAT is why they are so unbelievably relieved to discover it, but so reluctant to in the first place. I understand that completely.

[Guy Courchesne]

[Jizzo T. Clown]

What argument?

[Guy Courchesne]

oh, right. The Phenomenon I meam.

Gimme a break, it's still Saturday night here, and I'm 5 beers into a hockey thread.