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Lack of languages stifles Brits and USers | ||
Tags: Monolingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4702 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 81 of 95 16 July 2014 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree with your second paragraph Patrick, which is why I think the gender point is relevant. If salary is an argument against bi-lingualism, the same logic should apply to the gender gap in salaries. But, as you say, companies will pay as little as they can get away with, and this applies to paying employees skilled in another language as well as to paying women. I think in the US and UK when a company does need a speaker of a foreign language, they can find an immigrant and pay them less. Or simply outsource that part of the job to an overseas contractor, again paying a lot less. Obviously there are benefits to a company when they pay lower salaries, but there are also costs in the long run.
But thank you for bringing up the idea of the Invisible Hand of the Market. I have been trying to argue against it on this thread, but wasn't quite able to describe it properly. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5223 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 82 of 95 16 July 2014 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Again I think this gender salary gap is a red herring in the debate here. I don't even see salary as an argument
against bilingualism. I believe that in countries like the US (and probably the UK) companies will hire immigrants, heritage speakers and use readily available offshore foreign language services not because they are necessarily cheaper --I'm not talking about English-language call centers here -- but simply because these resources provide better language capability. If a US company wants to expand into the Chinese market, at some point they have to deal with the language issue. There are various options. For example, there may be a need for a Mandarin speaker in the US to help with cultural and linguistic adaptation of the product line. Is the choice between an American graduate of the Pimsleur / Michel Thomas / Assimil school of Mandarin instruction or a native Mandarin speaker a question purely of salary? Or maybe the company wants to open a branch office in China headed by our Mandarin second-language speaker who, in line with some earlier comments here, is able to create good rapport with the locals and then switches to English when the discussion becomes serious. Whatever the option chose, I don't think salary is the main issue. Edited by s_allard on 16 July 2014 at 10:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Irish_Goon Senior Member United States Joined 6208 days ago 117 posts - 170 votes Speaks: English* | Message 83 of 95 16 July 2014 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Man, this thread is still going? And becoming more attenuated every second.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5223 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 84 of 95 17 July 2014 at 1:41am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm always amazed how some people who have nothing to say go out of their way to say any thing.
For those who may be interested, one question raised obliquely by this thread is the professional and financial value of studying foreign languages in North America. It's a given that there are all sorts of personal and individual benefits. That's why most of us are here. But considering the considerable time and effort necessary to achieve anything like a C1, which I consider a minimum for professional use, what is the economic payoff? Contrary to what the language teachers and academics would have us believe, I think that a foreign language for most people has no economic value. The time spent studying any language to a decent level would be better spent on other forms of training. For a small number of people who are entering areas of the foreign service, military, certain law enforcement agencies, academia, international organizations such as the Red Cross and the United Nations, foreign language proficiency is valuable and often a requirement. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Irish_Goon Senior Member United States Joined 6208 days ago 117 posts - 170 votes Speaks: English* | Message 85 of 95 17 July 2014 at 2:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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I had something to say...and I said it.
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5168 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 86 of 95 17 July 2014 at 3:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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Patrick Wilken wrote:
"Perhaps companies just aren't smart enough to work out that they need bilingual workers" And maybe they are smart enough to see that their customers are simply not willing to pay more money for bilingual employees. Why aren't customers talking with their wallets and doing business with the "smart" companies that cost more but have bilingual employees? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5223 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 87 of 95 17 July 2014 at 4:03am | IP Logged | |||||
I totally agree. There is no reason to think that companies aren't smart enough to see they need bilingual workers. Furthermore, in many situations today, at least in the US, bilingual employees do not cost more than monolingual ones. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4326 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 88 of 95 17 July 2014 at 8:48am | IP Logged | |||||
I didn't actually say this, as the second half the sentence was removed from the quote: Perhaps companies just aren't smart enough to work out that they need bilingual workers - at least in the subset of companies that work in the UK, and who are sufficiently small that they aren't multinationals with sufficient non-UK workers to fill whatever language gaps they may have. I certainly think some smaller companies employ bilingual workers, and of course all the big multinationals do so as a matter of course. BUT I simply don't believe that the market is as efficient as laid out by Adam Smith, which most of you seem to be agreeing with implicitly. I do not believe it is completely inefficient either, but it's verging on economic religion to think that in all places and in all times the market adjusts immediately and perfectly to prevailing conditions. If you don't believe if the perfection of the market then there is no reason to believe that the need for bilingual workers is perfectly met. Edited by patrickwilken on 17 July 2014 at 8:51am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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