Embedded Files
Link to form: https://tinyurl.com/HDanielLanguageBarriers Link to data in Excel: https://tinyurl.com/HannahDanielData
Language Barriers are a relevant topic in the US today. A language barrier is when two people speak different languages and one cannot understand another. There is a breakdown in language and communication. Hannah's form above was used to conduct research on how language barriers exist in people's everyday lives. Also, to see how many people on and off Fisk University's campus knew other languages and have had interactions with people of various cultures. From the data of 31 participants, it was concluded that majority of people had exposure to different languages and cultures although they might not be fluent. With the language barriers still existing, it is good to know that some people are acclimated to learning and gaining more exposure in languages/cultures they are not familiar with.
In the survey, most people were not fluent in multiple languages. This was surprising but also not surprising. Although, multiple languages are offered and people can learn them throughout the US, many people might not be "fluent", but have general knowledge (yes-10 no- 21).
The question above asked what languages do the participants speak. All of the participants spoke English while 8 spoke Spanish also and 12 spoke another language that was not listed in addition to English. For example, a few people responded with Yoruba or Nepali as their other language. It was nice to several languages represented within the survey.
The next question asked how would you rate your language abilities. Meaning how well would you rate yourself whether that's an expert level (5), somewhere in between (3-4), or you have little to no knowledge (2 or less). The average rating was a 3.87 which means people rated themselves on average as a pretty good or average speaker in general.
Number 4 asked if people believed that language and the ability to comprehend a language affects your everyday life. Whether in interpersonal interactions or just being able to read signs, languages do play a role in our lives. The rating was 4.13/5 so most people believed it was a definite yes it does affect our lives, but the slight variance from 5 was probably due to personal bias/ thinking of each participant based on personal experiences.
Number 5 then asked have you had an encounter with someone of a different language/ culture and how hard was it to understand them. This was to get a small gauge of how much exposure people might have if any to people of different backgrounds and how they were able to handle said interactions. Most people responded that they could somewhat understand the person (59.3%).
With this question, the objective was to see if people believe that language affects who people talk to and/ or associate with. These results were interesting because majority of participants (75%) stated they had friends from many different cultures and languages. While 21.4% of people said they only hang around people of their cultural/language background. Then, only 3.6% of people didn't know if their friends spoke other languages. These results show that most people in the survey knew where their friends originate from and what languages they speak.
Number 7 asked how comfortable the participants are to learn about different cultures and if it is an interest. Majority of people said it was an interest (20) while 8 people were possibly comfortable or have a respect for other cultures, but do not have interest to learn more and 3 people had no interest whatsoever.
For this question, people were asked do you believe language barriers exist. 97% of people responded with yes and 3% said maybe, but no one said no. Language barriers do exist, but the severity at which they exist is subjective from person-to-person. This might be why a person said maybe because they might not have the personal experiences/ knowledge to say whether or not they exist definitely.
This question asked what's the best solution to eliminate language barriers. Participants were given 3 options along with a space to provide an answer other than what was provided. 23 people (74%) said to make languages more accessible, 1 person (3%) said "acknowledge it is a problem, but cannot be fixed", 3 people (10%) said "I don't know", and 4 people (13%) provided a different response.
The final question was just a poll to see if people would be open to learning more languages if provided the resources. 28 (90%) of participants said yes while 3 (10%) said maybe. This was surprising and a good result that people in the survey are willing to learn more languages which could help combat the language barrier in the US.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse