Beyond proficiency: How early English exposure influences non-native speakers

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Non-native speakers exposed to English before moving to America are more likely to use the language in their daily lives in the United States, according to a report led by Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.Such early exposure — through newspapers, books, TV and classes as well as traveling — may help determine an immigrant’s socioeconomic mobility, as English proficiency is strongly tied to cultural and social assimilation. The report, featured in the journal Social Science Research, is one of the first to examine English proficiency among immigrants before moving to the United States.”English-language ability is one of the most important determinants of socioeconomic mobility in the United States, with strong effects on employment, earnings and occupational status,” said lead author Douglas Massey, the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. “For immigrants relocating to the United States, English usage is paramount to their cultural and social assimilation.”Massey and his collaborators — Ilana Redstone Akresh from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Reanne Frank from The Ohio State University — used data collected by the New Immigrant Survey, a nationally representative sample of non-native speakers who were granted legal permanent residency in the United States between May and November 2003. Before immigrants can apply for U.S. citizenships, they must be permanent U.S. residents for at least five years.To determine the influence of early English exposure, the researchers analyzed a set of pre-migration behaviors including trips to the U.S. before moving, how often the respondents consumed English media like newspapers or TV and whether the respondents were educated using English. To measure social assimilation, the researchers evaluated the participants’ responses to a series of questions in which they were asked to list the languages they use at work, with friends and at home.Massey and his collaborators ran a series of mathematical regressions to see whether any patterns or relationships emerged. Overall, they find that English proficiency is not rare — nearly 50 percent of respondents are proficient. …


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