How does language affect your life?

Group A9: Lauren Miller, Xingyue Wang, Xinlei Zhang

EDT 180 A MWF 11:50 am-12:40 pm

Gary Lewallen

April 20, 2018

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How does language affect your life?

For our research project, our group decided to see how language affects people in their

lives. We wanted to see how different factors in a person's life changes how many languages

they know and if it affects their attitude towards language in general. Because ASU is such a

large university we knew we would get a whole range of answers and students from all over the

world. It was very cool to be able to have the opinion to ask this question because of the diverse

audience we were targeting. We were able to take a sample survey through Google Forms and

we surveyed Professor Lewallen’s EDT 180 classes. In this survey we asked many different

questions that connected to language and let us see different factors that could go into affects

one's opinion on language. We asked; what is your gender?; where are you from?; is English

your first language?; how many languages do you speak?; do you think knowing more than one

language benefits your life?; and how interested are you in learning other languages? We

received a total of 138 responses, this allowed for a very large array of answers.

We first compared how gender would affect language. While there were many more

females surveyed than males, we are able to see that males rise above female in knowing more

languages. Over half of females only know one language, while only 42.31% of males knew one

language. Approximately 31% females know two languages while 34% of males knew two

languages. In addition, about 10% females know three languages whiles 23% of males knew

three languages. Finally, in our survey two people who identified their gender to be ‘other’

contributed and one of them knew one language while the other knew two languages. For, this

data we collected we could come to the conclusion that males in Professor Lewallen’s EDT 180

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How does language affect your life?
courses know more languages than the women. However, another interesting found in both men

and women is that there was a decline in knowing languages. With the largest percentage of

people knowing one language, then two and finally three.

We then compared if where someone is from affects the number of languages they know.

From our data were we able to see that 60% of people from English speaking countries knew one

language, while only 7% of students from non-speaking countries spoke one language. This

makes sense because if someone was born in a non-speaking English country, the odds English

wasn’t their first language would be very high, and then if they now go to an American

university they would need to learn English. About 30% of people from English speaking

countries knew two languages, while 53% of those from a non-English speaking country spoke

two languages. Finally, only 9% of those from English speaking countries are able to speak 3

languages. While 40% of those from non-English speaking countries can speak 3 languages. I am

not surprised by this data. We are able to see that those from non-English speaking countries

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How does language affect your life?
know more languages than those from English speaking countries. This makes sense because

those students have more likely had to adapt to the american culture when moving to the United

States, and part of that is by learning English. Or even if they were taught English as a child,

their parent might speak another language, and so they have been around that language from a

young age.

Then, we looked to see if English being someone's first language would affect how many

languages they know. This data gave us results that weren’t too surprising as well. 63% of

students have had english be their first, and only language they know. Out of those who also had

english be their first 23% knew two languages, and 8.4% know three languages. We are able to

see that those who had english as their first language either only know english or there is a

minimum amount of those who know more than one language. While those who were surveyed

to have another language as their first language, 63% knew two languages and 37% knew three

languages; and 0% knew just one language. From this data we are able to see that depending on

whether or not your first language corresponds to the main language in the country you live in

you will or will not know more languages. This is supported by the fact that 0% of those who

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How does language affect your life?
didn’t first speak English knew one language and that the majority of those who had English be

their first language only knew one language.

We then wanted to see if the fact that multiple languages are beneficial or not would

affect how many languages someone knew. Not surprisingly 100% of those who said no only

spoke language. This makes sense, because if someone knew more than one languages there is a

very low change they would find knowing more than one language to not be beneficial.

However, 52% of those who said yes spoke one language. 34% of those who said yes spoke 2

languages, and 13% of those who agreed knowing more than one language was beneficial spoke

three languages.

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How does language affect your life?

Finally we surveyed people to see how interested they were in learning another language.

Here is the percentages for those who picked how interested or not interested they were in

learning another language. 1 means they were not interested at all. While, 5 means they are very

interested in learning another language.

1: People who could speak one language is around 75%. People who could speak two languages
is around 25%. No one could speak three languages.

2: People who could speak one language is around 65%. People who could speak two languages
is around 35%. No one could speak three languages.

3: People who could speak one language is around 60%. People who could speak two languages
is around 35%. People could speak three languages is around 5%.

4: People who could speak one language is around 60%. People who could speak two languages
is around 30%. People could speak three languages is around 10%.

5: People who could speak one language is around 50%. People who could speak two languages
is around 35%. People could speak three languages is around 15%.

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How does language affect your life?

I think if we could do this research all over again we would want to add in more

questions in order to get a wider range of data and answers and even better understand what

affects how many languages people know and their overall attitude towards language. We could

ask questions about people’s GPA, major, and extracurriculars to see if that has any impact on

language. I think we could also ask to see why students decided to learn another language. To

see if they learned a second language because they were required to in school, their parents

wanted them to, they moved to a new country, or just for fun. We could also survey to see what

the different languages people know. I think adding this to our survey could’ve added to our

overall analysis and we could get an even better understanding of how language truly affects our

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How does language affect your life?
lives.