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+--- Thread: Unexpected benefits of getting lost in translation (non-native language community) (/thread-4270.html)
Unexpected benefits of getting lost in translation (non-native language community) - C C - Oct 1, 2017
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-unexpected-benefits-of-getting-lost-in-translation
EXCERPT: [...] About 20 per cent of the United States population (60 million out of 300 million people) are non-native speakers of English. [...] in American public life, underestimate the advantages of complete and total incomprehensibility.
Suppose you are at a cocktail party, and your conversation partner – someone with power in your field – wants to know your view about a potentially scandalous issue at your company. You don’t want to divulge what you know, but want the power player on your side. By speaking with a strong accent and using ungrammatical syntax, you can lead your listener to think that you are supporting a political view while discouraging them from pressing you for more information, because people generally avoid asking a lot of questions of someone whose utterances are difficult to understand. If there is confusion over what you had meant, you can later say you meant to convey something else!
To test the idea that L2 speakers get the benefit of the doubt, my team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had people listen to poorly formed English sentences such as....
MORE: https://aeon.co/ideas/the-unexpected-benefits-of-getting-lost-in-translation