“If You Don’t Speak English, I Can’t Understand You!”: Exposure to Various Foreign Languages as a Threat

Abstract

The number of non-English speaking and bilingual immigrants continues to grow in the U.S. Previous research suggests that about one third of White Americans feel threatened upon hearing a language other than English. The current research examines how exposure to a foreign language affects White Americans’ perceptions of immigrants and group-based threats. In Study 1, White Americans were randomly assigned to read one of four fictional transcripts of a conversation of an immigrant family at a restaurant, where the type of language being spoken was manipulated to be either Korean, Spanish, German, or English. In Study 2, White Americans read the same fictional transcript—minus the Spanish; however, there was an addition of two subtitles conditions in which the subtitles were provided next to the Korean and German texts. The two studies suggest that exposure to a foreign language—regardless of whether they are consistent with Anglocentric constructions of American identity—lead White Americans to form less positive impressions of the immigrant targets and their conversation, experience an uptick in group-based threats, and display greater anti-immigrant attitudes. Moreover, there is evidence that the (in)ability to understand the conversation (i.e., epistemic threat) influences participants’ perceptions of immigrants and group-based threats.

Keywords

• foreign language
• anti-immigrant attitudes
• group-based threats
• American identity