Yesterday at my conversation circle, one girl brought up a linguistic feature of English that I thought was a great example of the difficulty in bridging culture and language; the word in question was, "literally."
The girl said that she heard people using it all the time and, while she technically understood what it meant, she had no idea how to use it like a native English speaker. During the discussion, I came to realize that if I weren't a native English speaker myself, I would have had no idea how to use it either. Not only is the word defined in two different, polar meanings, but Americans use it in such specific instances of hyperbole that it's extremely challenging impossible to definitively outline rules for its usage; it can't always just be freely switched out for "very" or "really" or other intensifiers like I was originally thinking when trying to explain its more common or recent usage.
I think being surrounded by people in their early twenties who are more likely to be using challenging slang like this and using langauge that is only more recently entering popular usage is a very particular obstacle that international students face when it comes to language barriers. I try to be very candid when speaking with my conversation circle, using the same slang and references that I might with my friends so that I can better find openings to pick out things that might need cultural translation. That seems to have worked pretty well, but I feel sometimes that I'm relying too heavily on the others to stop me when I've said or referred to something that they don't understand; it's often hard to recognize things that are normal to me that might be foreign to others.
That said, I definitely think that Sweetland and chat cafe is such a great opportunity for casual conversation and meta-discussion about the way English conversation plays out. I always leave my circles hoping that something we've talked about helps them understand this language and this culture better.
I have had the same conversation with my group, Sarah! It's funny because the word "literally" now shares a definition with "figuratively" due to how its use has transformed since our generation's adoption of it. Whenever one of my participants pauses conversation to ask me to define a slang word, I oblige and move on. I often find myself choosing my words carefully in order to make sure they are able to understand me. In retrospect, I really appreciate your alternate approach. Not purposefully avoiding slang during your conversations - fostering your participants' exposure to it - is a very useful strategy. I know that many members of my group also feel insecure about talking to American students, fearing that they will not be able to understand them. Your method is probably much more helpful in alleviating that anxiety. Awesome job!
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