45 is actually helping...

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Politics Chatboard

45 is actually helping...

by Chalky

Apr 2, 2017

immigrants to learn English.

:::quote:::

...Trump’s language—all the middle-school-level vocabulary and grammar of it—is actually serving a greater purpose. It’s helping early English learners grasp this country’s complicated language.

Though his speeches may be hard to translate into foreign languages, listening to Trump and reading his subtitles can actually be a boon for people learning English as a second language, due to his low-level vocabulary, constant word repetition, and discussion of basic concepts.

--snip-- “It’s really easy for me to imitate Trump’s speech,” he says, noting some of his favorite phrases: “make America great again,” “so sad,” and “so huge.” And linguists have a pretty good idea why that’s so. “What learners are finding helpful is Trump’s relatively slower speech and his use of repetition,” says Derek Denis, a linguist at the University of Toronto Mississauga. “These are both benefic...See More immigrants to learn English.

:::quote:::

...Trump’s language—all the middle-school-level vocabulary and grammar of it—is actually serving a greater purpose. It’s helping early English learners grasp this country’s complicated language.

Though his speeches may be hard to translate into foreign languages, listening to Trump and reading his subtitles can actually be a boon for people learning English as a second language, due to his low-level vocabulary, constant word repetition, and discussion of basic concepts.

--snip-- “It’s really easy for me to imitate Trump’s speech,” he says, noting some of his favorite phrases: “make America great again,” “so sad,” and “so huge.” And linguists have a pretty good idea why that’s so. “What learners are finding helpful is Trump’s relatively slower speech and his use of repetition,” says Derek Denis, a linguist at the University of Toronto Mississauga. “These are both beneficial for learners of English because they provide more time to parse the speech stream, helping with comprehension.” Trump’s relatively small vocabulary helps, too, says Denis. “The fewer unfamiliar words, the better the comprehension.”

--snip-- And though early learners can find comprehension in Trump’s repetitive and simple language, advanced learners and native speakers are often confused by his rambling, tangential style, another reason linguists say Trump might not be the best learning tool.

“When speaking off the cuff, he seems to lack cohesion, jumping or circling from one topic to the next and often mistakenly assuming a shared context with his audience,” says Georgetown University Department of Linguistics linguist Luke Plonsky. “This lack of a linear progression of ideas would present a challenge for anyone, not just those individuals listening in their second language.”

Trump’s mistaken shared context means he has a tendency to assume his listeners understand what he’s saying exactly as he means it, and he then makes gestures or provides visual cues to enforce that meaning. But for learners at all stages, that can be confusing—like someone shaking their head no as they’re saying “yes.”

The limitations of Trump’s speech have a somewhat hidden benefit: They can show non-native English speakers just how little fluency they need to make it in America. Henk Wolf, member of the Facebook group Omniglot Fan Club and a native Dutch and Frisian speaker, considers that an advantage. “It helps me get used to a register of American English I do not encounter all that often,” he says. “Use and knowledge of formal language is apparently not a necessity to reach the top of the political pyramid in the New World.”

:::end quote:::

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