I’ll Be A Monkey’s Uncle

Freshman Peter Agboh of Ghana saw many monkeys in Africa, he says, but never heard of a monkey’s uncle until he came to the United States. “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle?” he says. “Who is he?”

Junior Benjamin Adida of France would like to know one thing, s’il vous plait. “When you are a teenager, it is very typical to hear people say, ‘Don’t have a cow.’ It doesn’t fit any language pattern for me. What is it?”

International students often say they feel excluded from conversations and from groups because their English is imperfect, but sometimes what Americans say simply makes no sense. Barriers to communication arise when we are vague, wordy, and imprecise, they say, but the biggest barriers are idioms. How is it possible, they wonder mystified, to wear your heart on your sleeve, put your foot in your mouth, or throw the baby out with the bath water?

Good communication is the bedrock of human relationships. It lowers and removes barriers of misunderstanding that separate us from each other. Good communication creates harmony, unity, and advances global peace. Yet, students from around the world say while some communication may lead to greater understanding, a lot leads to confusion, distortions, and misunderstanding.

Linguistics Prof. Samuel Jay Keyser says: “What’s at the heart of language is that it’s so creative. When you consider most sentences you hear are ones you never heard before, no wonder people who are trying to master a language have difficulty. The wonder is that they’re able to do it at all.”

See You

Luis Garcia-Delgado of Madrid would like to know why it is Americans say, ‘See you soon,’ and then you never see them again?

Or why, asks Krzysztof Gajos of Poland, do Americans call out ‘Hi, how are you?’ and walk away? “I was so confused, culture-shocked by this,” Gajos says. “I’d answer, ‘Gee, I’m a little tired,’ and they would be gone.”

Keyser calls it phatic communication. “It has absolutely no content value other than to say, I acknowledge you. You ask how I am but really don’t want to know that I’ve just gotten over my operation. It would be far less friendly and disrespectful not to say anything.”

What breeds misunderstanding, students admit, is when they feel confused, they seldom ask questions. It is embarrassing to say you don’t know–all the time. So, they guess.

When Salal Humair of Pakistan heard a friend say, “I have a frog in my throat,” he first guessed his friend was speechless, then, because he already was speaking, thought he must mean he’s hopping from one topic to another.

Peter Agboh knew from living in Africa that monkeys jump and get excited, so he figured maybe, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, means to calm down.

Humair, whose first language is Urdu, is no stranger to miscommunication. “This happens all the time. All over the place. I want to say what is in my mind, and people have no clue what I’m saying. Sometimes I’m unwilling to make the extra effort. I think, okay, if you don’t understand, then just forget it.”

Naohiro Suga, who thinks in Portuguese, says: “When I listen for the phrase and context, I miss the point. When I listen for the point, the speech is continuing, and I miss the context.”

Keyser says: “People devalue how hard it is to learn a new language. They think because they learned their own, they ought to be able to learn a second one just as easily, but it’s just not the case.”

“What’s striking about language is children master it by the time they’re four. It’s very much an innate ability, but once you reach puberty that ability disappears. Then, learning a language becomes as hard as learning fluid mechanics.”

Not Funny

Gajos says what he misses most about speaking Polish is being able to express his wit. “In Poland, I was very proud to give witty responses, but it is hard to be funny when you’re using half sentences. People are not willing to wait and be patient with me while I think and construct the proper grammatical sentences.”

In ways, Gajos says, speaking English has given him insight into the beauty of Polish. “My language was too common to me. Now, hearing English, I look back on books written by my country mates who I thought were boring; I look at the verses, syntax, vocabulary, and I realize they really are masterpieces.”

Keyser says: “People take knowledge of their own language so for granted. Because we’re skillful, we have no awareness.”

“Language is not like dropping a quarter into a machine and getting out a bag of peanuts. It’s an imperfect mechanism for communication. The character of it has built-in ambiguity and vagueness.”

Gajos says it is not easy, but he tries every day to understand us more. “Americans say, ‘Oh, I love your hat. I love your hair.’ Love is too strong for these trivial situations. At first I was so offended,” he says, “but now I am becoming more tolerant.”

by Liz Karagianis

On Topic: linguistics