Linguistic Distance: A Quantitative Measure of the Distance Between English and Other Languages

Chiswick, Barry R.; Miller, Paul W.

doi:10.1080/14790710508668395

Cited by 312 publications

(300 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(10 reference statements)

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“…For the purpose of this investigation, language difficulty refers to the complexity of the host country language itself as well as to the extent of difficulty with which resident adult foreign nationals may be able to learn the host country language due to some country-specific circumstances (Chiswich & Miller, 2005). For example, the former could include the degree of 6 intricacy of grammar, phonetics and the case system of the language.…”

Section: Language Difficultymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The difficulty of speaking a new language can be measured along different dimensions. Linguistic distance refers to the relative difference between two national languages (Chiswich & Miller, 2005). Linguists have developed models of the origins of languages, 'language trees', to explain the historical relations between 'families' or 'groups' of languages being structurally relatively similar.…”

Section: Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Host country language ability and expatriate adjustment: the moderating effect of language difficulty

Selmer

Lauring

2011

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

107

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Research has shown that expatriates' host country language ability is positively associated with their adjustment. But does the advantage of expatriates' language ability depend on the difficulty of the host language? To examine this issue, data were collected from expatriates in two European countries, one with an easy, relatively simple language and the other one with a difficult, highly complex language. Consistent with Goal Setting Theory, results indicated a relative advantage of expatriates' language ability in terms of their adjustment in the host country with the difficult language as opposed to the host country with an easy language.

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Section: Language Difficultymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Host country language ability and expatriate adjustment: the moderating effect of language difficulty

Selmer

Lauring

2011

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

107

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“…Regressions (1), (3) and (5) in Table 9 first show that the baseline results in section 4 remain unchanged when restricting the analysis to the mother tongues in Dyen, Kruskal, and Black (1992) or Chiswick and Miller (2005). Next, regressions (2) and (6) include as regressors for respectively English-and French-majority cities the measure of similarity of Dyen et al (1992) instead of the group fixed-effects used in (1) and (5).…”

Section: Some Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our case, we can thus use the information on the distance of English and French with respect to the other Indoeuropean languages available in the sample. 24 The second measure, constructed by Chiswick and Miller (2005), is based on the difficulties a sample of Americans have in learning other languages and provides us with a measure of distance of English with a different set of languages in the sample. 25 We normalize both measures to have a standard deviation of one in the sample.…”

Section: Some Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assimilation in multilingual cities

Ortega¹,

Verdugo²

2015

J Popul Econ

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: AbstractWe characterise how the assimilation patterns of minorities into the strong and the weak language differ in a situation of asymmetric bilingualism. Using large variations in language composition in Canadian cities from the 2001 and 2006 Censuses, we show that the differences in the knowledge of English by immigrant allophones (i.e. the immigrants with a mother tongue other than English and French) in English-majority cities are mainly due to sorting across cities. Instead, in French-majority cities, learning plays an important role in explaining differences in knowledge of French. In addition, the presence of large anglophone minorities deters much more the assimilation into French than the presence of francophone minorities deters the assimilation into English. Finally, we find that language distance plays a much more important role in explaining assimilation into French, and that assimilation into French is much more sensitive to individual characteristics than assimilation into English. Some of these asymmetric assimilation patterns extend to anglophone and francophone immigrants, but no evidence of learning is found in this case.JEL classification: F22, J15

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“…An individual's economic performance may consequently be interrelated with how distant his or her mother tongue is from the dominant language of the host country (Chiswick and Miller 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Native Language and Immigrant Labour Market Outcomes: An Alternative Approach to Measuring the Returns for Language Skills

Rooth¹,

Saarela

2007

Int. Migration & Integration

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In contrast with the conventional approach of studying the interrelation between immigrants' language skills and their chances of succeeding in the host country labour market, this article explores the relevance of having and not having a mother tongue in common with the native population for otherwise similar immigrants. This is accomplished by using linked register data from two countries, which makes it possible to separate people according to their native language. We find that immigrants who have their mother tongue in common with natives have substantially higher employment and income levels than immigrants who originate from the same country, but whose native language is linguistically different from the dominant language of the host country. The results support the view that language is a fundamental part of immigrants' human capital and thus promotes their labour market outcomes.Résumé Contrairement à l'approche traditionnelle à l'étude de l'interrelation entre les habiletés langagières des immigrants et leurs chances de réussir dans le marché du travail du pays qui les accueille, nous abordons la pertinence de partager ou de ne pas partager une langue maternelle avec les personnes nées dans le pays (la population native) en étudiant des immigrants qui sont semblables autrement. Nous nous appuyons sur les données de registres de deux pays, ce qui permet de distinguer les gens selon leur langue maternelle. Les résultats indiquent que le niveau d'emploi et de revenu des immigrants qui ont la même langue maternelle que la population native est grandement supérieur à celui des immigrants originaires du même pays mais dont la langue maternelle est très différente de la langue dominante du pays hôte. Ces conclusions appuient la théorie voulant que la langue constitue un élément fondamental du capital humain des immigrants et influence ainsi leur réussite au sein du marché du travail.

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Linguistic Distance: A Quantitative Measure of the Distance Between English and Other Languages

Cited by 312 publications

References 13 publications

Host country language ability and expatriate adjustment: the moderating effect of language difficulty

Host country language ability and expatriate adjustment: the moderating effect of language difficulty

Assimilation in multilingual cities

Native Language and Immigrant Labour Market Outcomes: An Alternative Approach to Measuring the Returns for Language Skills

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