Language Proficiency and Social Acceptance

Resumen

In this paper, we have presented the theoretical foundations, the method and the results of an experiment conducted with students of both the University of Lleida and the University of Sussex. The initial hypothesis was that the greater the language proficiency of non-native speakers of a language the greater the social acceptance by native speakers. We took 16 different variables in order to specify the term `social acceptance' and we asked 14 English native speakers to evaluate the taped voices of 18 non-native speakers according to those variables. After analysing the results, we have reached the conclusion that variables related to intellectual capacities are highly correlated to language proficiency, whereas variables associated to personal charm are only partially correlated. These results should be confirmed by further research, but they suggest that communicative efficiency without linguistic competence is not enough for positive interaction among speakers of different languages. Therefore, the achievement of language proficiency is a key factor to be taken into account when learning a foreign language.