Lesson 2 from our bumper sticker of last week:
Imagine a group of recent immigrants (with limited English skills) and lifelong U.S. citizens in a room to discuss language issues. Before the dialogue has any chance to make progress, a citizen lets loose with the statement in our bumper sticker.
That’s bad dialogue practice. Obviously. But what makes it bad? There are many answers, but one in particular may help us think more clearly about how we do dialogue.
Let’s start with the basics: the people involved. Each of us is exactly one person. We bring exactly one person’s perspective to any dialogue: a perspective that feeds (and is made up of) our heritage, our experiences, our unique thought processes, our relationships, our time in history, our gifts, our faith.
Outside of hard evidence and factual statements, this is all we can bring to any dialogue. In other words, we speak from what we know. The process of dialogue is, in part, about getting to know more—specifically the perspectives, insights, histories, etc., of the other people in the room. Â
See how this might work in our hypothetical example. The immigrants in the room could relate their struggles with learning English, or the pain they feel when disparaged by English speakers like our bumper-sticker fellow. The citizens might share their disorientation in a suddenly multilingual culture, or their frustration when talking to tech support experts with limited English skills.
All these sentiments, even the hot-button ones, come from personal experience and—when spoken civilly and deeply heard, without defensiveness or anger—can advance the dialogue. It is sharing with.
Contrast that with “You need to learn English.†By saying this, our bumper-sticker guy is suddenly prescribing an action for someone else—whether it fits her experience or not, whether it even makes sense for her or not. He is now speaking at.
Speaking at objectifies the listener. Mr. You Need To might as well be talking to a wall for all the listener matters in this conversation. He is also assuming that he knows what’s best, not only for the non-English-speakers in the room, but for the society at large. That’s more than one person can know with certainty.
Do “you need to†statements ever have value? Sure. People in interventions can tell their alcoholic loved ones they need to quit drinking. Doctors should tell concussion victims they need to follow instructions. More often than not, however, we know less about what x should do than x herself. We can suggest, we can ask careful questions to help her find her own solution, but rarely can we get anywhere by speaking at.
As our bumper sticker (and its many cousins) make clear, we do a lot of speaking at. We need a lot more sharing with. Only through sharing with can we learn from one another, draw more perspectives into each discussion, and build the collective wisdom that, often, has the best chance of bridging divides and solving dilemmas.
I just lived through an example of speaking at, and I’ll share it next week. But what about you? When’s the last time somebody talked at you? When has someone talked with you? How did you feel in each case?
I think it confuses the issue(s) to fall into a short-hand in which “immigrants” are synonymous (for the purpose of this post) with people who can’t speak English, and “citizens” are synonymous with people who can. You start out by referring to “immigrants (with limited English skills)” and “lifelong U.S. citizens.” But by the second paragraph, the qualifiers are dropped, and it becomes “immigrants” versus “citizens.”
Clearly, there are many many immigrants who speak English better than many lifelong U.S. citizens (including immigrants from Africa, England, Canada, and any number of other countries where English is taught and spoken). And clearly there are many citizens who aren’t fluent in English. (There is an English competence requirement for naturalization, but there are exceptions for older residents.)
For clarity and precision, we might use “people who are fluent in English” versus “people who aren’t” to keep the discussion focused on language.
As for the bumper sticker, the fact remains: Uncle Sam want you to learn English. Demonstrating basic English competence is a requirement for naturalization. Citing U.S.Law.com, “In 1999, the U.S. Census Bureau surveyed 14,000 people and concluded that an estimated 47 percent of documented immigrants who had been here at least ten years had not become U.S. citizens. Inability to speak English is the primary barrier.” The law has not changed, and English competency is still a requirement for citizenship.
Basic English competency is also supposed to be a requirement for graduating from American public high schools; however, the fact remains that an astonishing percentage of community college and college students require remedial support to meet basic standards for English and math.
Also confusing to the issue is the line about people expressing their frustration with tech support people who have limited English skills. Aren’t these tech support people located in India and other countries? This raises the issue of labor out-sourcing — which is an interesting issue, but in the context of this post, it only seems to confuse the issue when mixed in with a discussion of a language, immigration and U.S. citizenship. Is the main topic “language issues” or is it immigration, or citizenship, or out-sourcing, or what?
Finally, I have to wonder about the general premise of this scenario. “Imagine a room full of people who can’t speak English and people who can, gathered together to discuss language issues.” Okay, what language will these folks be discussing language issues in anyway?
If the purpose of the gathering is to dialogue — to learn more about “the perspectives, insights, histories, of the other people in the room” — exactly how effective is “dialogue” going to be between people who can’t communicate in the same language? When I have a conversation with someone who speaks another language, it generally takes ten minutes to communicate a thought as basic as “I heard it might rain tomorrow” — even then, neither party is entirely sure that they understood what the other person intended.
It is an ironic image –“Let’s get together and discuss the issue of speaking English — in a room full of people half of whom can’t speak English.” The distinction between talking at and talking with is beside the point if half the people can’t understand what the other half is saying to begin with.
If the basic frustration on both sides is the language barrier — then maybe isn’t the best medium for them to increase their understanding. Maybe they should get together and dance, or cook, or build a house, or play jazz or soccer or something.
Thanks for a really thoughtful comment. You make an excellent point about cooking, playing soccer, etc., as a better medium for increasing mutual understanding. That’s the reason I like volunteering or joining a hobby with people who are completely different from me; it can only make my perspective (and my spirit) larger–which is a big reason for dialogue anyway.
Yes, the language issue makes the scenario a bit of a stretch. My goal was simply to create a hypothetical to make the larger point, but it could have been better constructed. As for the qualifiers, I dropped them after the first paragraph for the same reason that “Secretary of Defense Robert Gates” becomes “Gates” in news stories: for brevity and ease of reading. Sorry for the confusion, but I stand by that construction.
For me, one of your most interesting points concerns U.S. naturalization law. I think in some ways you’re making the same point I’m trying to make. The facts are the facts, and here the fact is that the law requires a certain level of English proficiency. That strikes me as a legitimate point to make in any discussion of the issue. But making such a point feels completely different from some guy in a truck blithely telling people (via bumper sticker) to “learn English, dammit.” And that’s really where I was going with this post: to point out the general folly of “speaking at.”
“Uncle Sam DOES want you to learn English.” (I used the arrow keys to highlight “does” in the original message, but apparently the blog host interprets the arrow keys as some sort of HTML coding, and the word “does” was dropped altogether.)
“If the basic frustration on both sides is the language barrier — then maybe TALKING isn’t the best medium for them to increase their understanding. Maybe they should get together and dance, or cook, or build a house, or play jazz or soccer or something.” (Same issue, the word “talking” was dropped in the original due to use of arrow keys.)
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