Posts Tagged: native language
Spanish speakers express themselves more positively
The selection of positive words was higher among people who express themselves in Spanish than among people who speak the nine other languages examined in the study: English, Portuguese, German, French, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, Arabic and Korean.
Communication among Spanish-speakers is not only very positive but also “the emotional content of the Spanish language is the highest” among the languages studied, University of Vermont scientist Peter Sheridan Dodds, one of the leaders of the study, told Efe.
He emphasized that in all the languages analyzed, the selection of positive words was greatest among Spanish-speakers, and they are learned more easily, used more frequently and are considered more meaningful.
The research team, headed by Dodds and Christopher Danforth, found after eight years of study that “the words of natural human language possess a universal positivity bias.”
Proof of that is the “very frequent” use of positive words in university literature classics such as “Moby Dick,” “Don Quixote,” “Ulysses,” “Oliver Twist,” “Crime and Punishment” and “The Count of Monte Cristo.”
In this sense, the report suggests that humans tend to remember gratifying information better than disagreeable experiences and that positivism plays an important role in human psychology.
The team analyzed 100,000 words in 24 different formats or media, including Twitter posts, song lyrics, subtitles on television programs, radio broadcasts and literature classics.
The study also catalogued about 50 evaluations per word analyzed - and the 10,000 most-frequently used words were the ones examined - with the evaluations made by native speakers, who were paid to assess how positive or negative they deemed the words to be.
Using a database containing about 5 million evaluations per person, Dodds and Danforth plotted results according to the words' favorable or unfavorable perception in each language analyzed.
Source: Hispanically Speaking News, Study: Spanish Speakers Express Themselves More Positively, Print Page September 2, 2014
Native Language in School Benefits Students
![LatinoPreSchool LatinoPreSchool](http://ucanr.org/blogs/LatinoBriefs/blogfiles/9031.jpg)
Mexican-American students who spoke in their native languages had higher grade point averages.
“A real educational disparity exists because Mexican-Americans, along with other Latinos, are now the largest minority; yet, they still have the lowest high school and college graduation rates,” said David Aguayo, a doctoral student in the Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology in the College of Education. “I understand the reasons behind English-only efforts, but the research shows that if we don’t accept the cultural identity of these students in our schools, such as tolerating their native language, Mexican-Americans may not succeed.”
Aguayo compared survey results of 408 Mexican-American students. He examined whether the students were born in the U.S. or Mexico; the students’ grade point averages; and the students’ abilities to perform college-related tasks. He found that students who embraced their cultural heritage and spoke in their native languages had higher grade point averages than those that only spoke English while in school and at home.
“It’s a simple correlation, but living and learning within your cultural heritage is a benefit,” Aguayo said. “It could be speaking the language in school, eating certain foods, or interacting with other people who share your heritage. The stress level of being in a new culture will decrease if these students have a support system in school, while they are adjusting to other cultures.”
In the future, Aguayo will study the motivations of Mexican-American students who move to the U.S. Statistics show these students have more success in school than Mexican-American students who have lived in the U.S. their entire lives.
“Educators need to be aware of students’ home lives,” Aguayo said. “Immigrant parents, in particular, tend to put more trust in educators, rather than being involved in the child’s education like we normally see in the U.S. If educators can take the time to learn about the parents’ culture, the educators can have a positive impact on the students’ future.”
Source: University of Missouri, “Culture Predicts Mexican-Americans’ College Self-Efficacy and College Performance,” September 22, 2011.