Language use

Interesting patterns of language use can be observed across the sample. Participants with reported proficiency in the given language, either as an L1 or an L2 or even one that they currently studied, were asked to rate the frequency with which they used the language in question in different contexts. Their overall answers show that French was the language respondents used the most frequently, followed by English. German and Italian were spoken significantly less frequently, although their respective frequency scores were very close to one another. The results in Table 4.7 also reveal that the disparity among participants’ responses was highest in the case of English, and only a little lower for German, underlining strong tendencies toward a few of the options. Questions about French and Italian resulted in average levels of standard deviation and thus in more harmonious distribution.

A closer look at the different contexts investigated, offered in Figure 4.16 below, shows that, in line with the overall results, French was the most often used in all situations. This was not surprising but, interestingly, English scored second in all categories, with Italian as the third most frequently used language in informal contexts. This indicated that the four languages had clearly different uses across the contexts investigated.

Table 4.7 Descriptive statistics for overall language use, all speakers.

Language M N SD

French 4.74 375 0.59

German 1.86 205 0.89

Italian 1.77 63 0.61

7 Seven students reported affiliations to more than one faculty and were thus removed from these comparisons.

Language M N SD

English 3.04 343 0.94

Indeed, in more formal situations such as studying and work, English was overtaken by German. Although French was the prominent option throughout the spectrum of settings examined, participants used it more often when talking to friends and at university. English followed the same pattern, with both languages peaking at university and showing the lowest frequency in home usage. By contrast, German and Italian displayed to different profile,

displaying the highest scores when used with friends. These trends indicate that students made use of their languages in distinct ways. Whereas French and English proved useful in all situations, German could be more associated with friends, home use and the professional environment. Italian was most often used when communicating with friends.

Further descriptive measures, shown in Table 4.8, confirmed these observations. The figures reveal that the lowest disparity was found in questions related to French, while those on English tended to yield more strongly grouped results. In line with my conclusions above, the lowest mean value was that of the frequency of Italian in the university setting, while French as the language used at work reached the highest score overall. These results indicate a predominantly

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At home With friends At university At work

French German Italian English Figure 4.16 Frequency of language use in different contexts

French working environment, where English was used sometimes, while Italian and German respectively are spoken almost never or rarely. This description of language use patterns raises an interesting question. As work environments can differ considerably from one field to another, it is worth investigating whether the four faculties presented any differences in this respect.

Table 4.8 Language use in different contexts

French German Italian English

M N SD M N SD M N SD M N SD

At home 4.52 375 1.15 1.69 205 1.23 1.89 63 1.21 2.47 343 1.47 With friends 4.86 375 0.50 2.02 205 1.17 2.30 63 1.12 3.18 343 1.20 At University 4.88 375 0.49 1.88 205 1.05 1.40 63 0.79 3.54 343 1.19 At work 4.69 375 0.96 1.85 205 1.12 1.48 63 0.90 2.94 343 1.45

However, before moving on to examine that angle of the data, I would like to draw attention to one more aspect of the figures in Table 4.8. Participation rates in this part of the questionnaire reflected characteristic trends among the respondents, as in each case the number of answers also corresponds to the number of students who spoke or studied the language in question. All respondents (N = 375) had some proficiency in French, while most (N = 343) also spoke English, either as an L1 or an L2. Last but not least, the majority of participants (N = 205) reported skills in German and a significant number (N = 63) spoke Italian at one level or another.

Although these numbers were discussed before, I believe they are important to mention here as they confirm that skills in the four languages included in the questionnaire were widespread among participants. At the same time, the data presented here also showed that not all of these skills were put to use in all environments. Indeed, students’ competence in German and Italian was less frequently applied in their university milieu, although these could constitute an asset in many fields.

In order to continue my earlier observations, I now examine these patterns in the context of the different faculties. The comparisons of the frequency of language use at the university, summarized in Figure 4.17 (see also Appendix 1), yielded some unexpected results.

Participants were asked how often they used their various languages in the university environment, and their responses reflect the predominantly French-language context of the

University of Geneva. Interestingly, second place was occupied by English, which scored highest at the Faculties of Science and Medicine. Italian was most frequently used by medical students, in which category it almost matched the use of German. The latter, on the other hand, was most often spoken where Italian obtained its lowest score, namely at the Faculty of Law.

These results are interesting because they hint at a few themes that did not emerge from

previous testing. First of all, while English skill levels were not particularly high at the Faculty of Science, that subsample reported the most frequent use of the language in the university setting. Similarly, the somewhat higher score that the use of German obtained among law students might testify to a more regular need for skills in the language in order to study Swiss law. This might also explain the fact that self-reported use of English at the university was the least frequent among members of the latter group.

The last aspect of the language data that I would like to address in this cursory manner before proceeding to a more in-depth analysis is the differences in Swiss students’ and foreigners’

language practices. The figures in Table 4.9 below suggest that the place where participants had completed their secondary education might have played a role in the way they used the languages they spoke. As could be expected, Swiss students appeared to speak German and

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Law Medicin Science SES

French German Italian English Figure 4.17 Frequency of language use at different faculties

French more often in all contexts, while their foreign peers used Italian more frequently in most settings. The figures for Italian were closest in the university environment, where both groups used the language rarely on average. Not so surprisingly, it was foreigners who used English more often, with the only exception of the home, where their overall score was lower than that obtained by the Swiss group.

Table 4.9 Frequency of language use per language, context and place of secondary education Language/context Place of secondary

Switzerland 3.44 234 1.16

English at work Abroad 3.08 109 1.55

Switzerland 2.88 234 1.40

For a clearer visual, these results can also be displayed as in Figure 4.18, which better shows that answers among members of the two subsamples largely followed the same trends. This representation also invites further interesting conclusions, some of which I address in the next chapter. Nevertheless, although the statistical analysis of the questionnaires yielded a wealth of information on participants’ language portfolio and linguistic practices, unfortunately not all

of that data could be examined in this dissertation due to space and time constraints. I intend

Figure 4.18 Frequency of language use per language, context and place of secondary education

One of the reasons for this, as I mentioned, is related to the physical limitations of this work.

On the other hand, not all results were equally important to the research questions outlined in Chapter 1. Therefore, while a detailed contextual description of participants’ language profile was central to the arguments of this dissertation, certain angles were left out for a more streamlined presentation of the results. Last but not least, the question of statistical significance arose as to the comparisons presented above. Below, I will examine this aspect of the data further, as it also poses considerable limitations on the relevance of the results.