Schofield is too full of his own self importance to realise that he'd gone too far with the 'joke'. He was never going to leave it go, taking to Twitter after the show ended confirmed that.

Growing up multilingual is very different from acquiring a second language later on. I grew up speaking three languages, yet I struggled when I had to learn another language in my twenties. That's why I can sympathize with Sylvain. You admit you haven't listened to his interviews, yet you are quick to assume his proficiency in English merely because he's been living in the UK for three years with an English woman? LOL.

As I've already pointed out there is NOTHING much wrong with Sylvain's English

As others have said the whole thing speaks not to only how the show treats contestants at times, but also viewers. Jorgie and Sylvain going may be irreversible, and the show closing, but, again as others have said, maybe this sort of thing is partly why.

Again you assume things about me, without asking any further questions. English is my second language, that doesn't mean that I'm not an early bilingual learner or that I don't speak other languages in addition to my second language. In fact, I have published scientific papers on bilingualism and language acquisition and my PHD was about this topic. You chose to make judgements about people's wit and language ability based on short interviews related to a reality programme. I won't do that. Before I make my judgements, I would like to speak to the person in more detail, however, I won't get that opportunity and listening to a short interview in a stressful situation won't give me any real insight into someone's language ability. Based on what other people who seem to know him have said and his twitter account responses, it seems that his English is proficient. Heavily accented speech does not imply problems with a language. Living in a country for three years and working in that country can be sufficient to learn a language to quite a high standard (of course it depends on individual differences)


I think this has been said a couple of times now, and as far as I remember TraceyUK knows Sylvain, so I tend to believe her.

No matter how good Sylvain's English is - he isn't as proficient in it as he would be in his native French in the same situation .

I can speak pretty fluent French, but put into a situation where I have to deal with an excited French person speaking fast and possibly with a strong regional accent and I have problems keeping up with the conversation, however - lat me have the same conversation via email I'm absolutely fine. I can fully understand Sylvain's decision to keep quiet.

I'm in the "Sylvain was victimised" club. Why the poor bloke had to have his love life put up for scrutiny not only by his new partner and her tittering mates, but also the presenter, who then kept up the attack.

There have been numerous romances as a result of the show, but they have never been mentioned on screen during the run of the show before - no matter what appeared in the tabloids/ media about those concerned so it's not fair to treat Sylvain's relationship with Samia like they did.

Whatever the intention, the whole thing backfired spectacularly on the show as they lost a good looking couple who could potentially have gone all the way.

Personally - regardless of his command of English - I think he did the best thing saying nothing. He clearly looked uncomfortable so silence was his best policy (sooner than telling Philip where to go and what to do when he got there!).
Someone else has mentioned that in the dry run the VT was different than we were shown which means neither of them would have been prepared. I honestly believe that Jorgie thought it was just going to be a bit of teasing. Put together the way it was it looked spiteful. As they both seemed to have developed a good enough working relationship for Sylvain then to see that for the first time - so much said behind his back (including the claws behind his head!) it could well have ruined that anyway.
I dont think he's a saint - nor evil - his love life is irrelevant to the show and shouldn't have been allowed to dominate it.
I think it is just as well they have gone under the circumstances, obviously nothing can be done about that but it's not a good way to start the last series. Hopefully now that is out of the way the producers and Phil will draw their claws in and concentrate on making this a celebration.

I was at the dry run and the video was exactly the same as in the live show! I mentioned in my write up that I found it extremely tacky at the time. Whether SYLVAIN saw it on the Friday dry run I don't know though it was shown immediately before they skated, but JORGIE obviously knew what she said and all the judges and Philip saw it too. But it was the identical vt which was shown on Sunday with no changes or editing at all!

You claim to be some expert in linguistics, yet you were so quick to make assumptions about Sylvain's proficiency in English without seeing his interviews? Pull the other one.

Great post from someone who clearly understands multilingualism.

I've spoken English plus two other languages all my life, lived in UK half my life, yet there are still many English expressions/jokes/accents that I don't get first time (or ever). If I had been in Sylvain's situation, I too would have kept quiet rather than say something that could be taken the wrong way (and on live TV too).

So in other words it wasn't a surprise to Jorgie that it was included in her VT last Sunday. She had plenty of time to argue for it to be removed. Surely when she saw it the first time, it must have made her think, but then maybe not. Some of the other contestants I am sure would have demanded it be removed. That's the difference between Jorgie and some of the others. As much as I liked watching her and think she is a very good dancer as well as a skater, I think she is a very silly girl.

it's unlikely she had any final cut rights under her contract

Is there a need to be borderline insulting? I have not questioned your claims of multi-lingualism either.

I don't know why you only respond to my point about not listening to short or long interviews. In scientific studies, language acquisition in L2 learners and multi-lingualism would not be investigated by listening to short interviews in stressful conditions (unless your research question is related to stress and this would be part of your experimental design). In order to understand a person's proficiency, you need to look at a longer more natural speech samples and then you can investigate different dependent variables (e.g. acoustic properties for accent identification and intelligibility, phonology, syntax, morphemes, word choice). That's the empirical, scientific way.

Language proficiency and accent are not necessarily related, although early bilinguals who have learned their second langauge from birth or during infancy have no detectable accents. Mainly because they have been exposed to the sounds of their second language during a critical developmental period, and their perceptual systems (neural pathways) are better geared towards understanding the sounds of their second language. Sylvain quite clearly is not an early second language learner, because of his heavily accented speech. He makes some grammar mistakes in the short interviews with Philip, but guess what so do the native speakers. I assume this is due to nerves and physical exhaustion, which might take up necessary attentional processes that would normally be used for retrieval of language. It happens to everyone and explains why people sometimes have Anomia problems in interviews or presentations. This doesn't mean that he hasn't got the ability to be witty in English, if he choses to and if he is normally witty in his own language. After all, not all of the native speakers on DOI are able to give witty responses in their interviews.

I actually thought you were interested in multi-lingualism. I'm not sure why you are so defensive, just because I don't happen to agree with you. It's not a big deal, and maybe I'm wrong. You cited your experiences, I cited mine. Of course, you can chose to not believe me. However, you will see that, in the past, I have talked about language and scientific studies. It's what I do for a living.

She knows what she said, but she had no idea how it was be edited/presented. 'Chart Throb' by Ben Elton - a piss-take of X-Factor - has a great section where a completely innocent contestant interview is edited in such a way that when the VT is played they're pretty much voted out on the spot.

For all we know Jorgie made the 'Am I going to be his next girlfriend comment?' and promptly dissolved in a fit of laughter.

There's no way the producers (and Phillip) let what happened on Sunday proceed without knowing (or at least having a fairly good idea) what the outcome would be.

delete

i don't think the outcome was as they'd expected

i think they were hoping for a repeat of some of the publicity from Samia & Sylvain's romance last year

It's common knowledge that if you want to gauge a person's proficiency in English, you speak to him or at least in Sylvain's case, listen to his unscripted interviews. That's one of the reasons why employers conduct job interviews.

You did not speak to Sylvain nor listen to his interviews, long or short. Yet, you were able to conclude that (i) he's proficient in English because he's been living here with an English woman and (ii) he can be witty in English if he's witty in French. Where's the scientific/empirical basis for your conclusions, especially when you claim to be a published linguistics expert?

Firstly, I gave you the scientific answer of how to investigate language. It doesn't matter what people's common knowledge is. You cannot catch a "cold" from being chilled or cold, because it's a virus. It's still common knowledge that people catch a cold from being chilled and cold (hope this makes sense).

I answered to your first claim that as a non-native speaker he might not be witty enough, and I pointed out to you that you cannot conclude this based on the interviews you see on TV. That's the whole point of my posts. My claim about being an expert were in response to your questionning my knowledge and your insistence that you being multi-lingual somehow gives you more knowledge. I'm multi-lingual and I happen to know a lot about language acquisition, and how the brain and language work and so forth.

I agree I can't conclude that he is witty enough either, because I haven't spoken to him. I just gave my opinion based on what I have seen (his short interview with Philip on Sunday). But my main point remains, unless we have spoken to him and observed him in longer, more natural interviews, we shouldn't conclude anything! We can only speculate. My speculation happens to disagree with yours! However, at least I didn't automatically assume that he wasn't proficient. I gave him the benefit of the doubt (e.g. I didn't say I won't listen to his interviews and automatically conclude that his English isn't proficient). His proficiency can only be investigated in longer discussions with him (which neither of us can have with him!). It's always easier to assume that someone is not capable of doing something. I'd rather believe they can until I'm proven wrong (it's called positive thinking). Additionally, TracyUK knows the skaters and I think also knows Sylvain, and she seems to think, his English is quite proficient. I happen to agree with her.

I think we are going round in circles now. Let's agree to disagree. I'm very interested how some of the non-native skaters deal with the stress and attention when they have to give interviews. That's why I answered to your post. I thought it would result in an interesting discussion, and in part it has. It also taught me to avoid small comments that can become the main focus of the discussion (e.g. don't listen to interviews), when my overall point is something quite different (e.g. don't assume someone is not proficient at something based on a short interview).
Last edited by lach doch mal : 11-01-2014 at 10:38

You're contradicting yourself. Now you're saying that you can't determine Sylvain's proficiency in English without speaking to him or listening to longer interviews. Yet, this was exactly what you had done in your original post. At least I had listened to his unscripted press interviews while you relied on a short interview which you yourself had discredited. A real linguistics expert would never have indulged in speculation nor rely on hearsay wrt a person's language proficiency.

No I'm not contradicting myself, you chose not to understand my point (maybe I'm not articulating it well). To me Sylvain is proficient (he works in this country, he lives with someone who speaks English - unless they are communicating in sign language, he can speak English). I assume that any foreigner is proficient in the language of their chosen new home country, unless they prove me wrong. However, I don't base my judgements on short interviews on DOI (that's why I made the point about not having to listen to his interview). You decided that based on the short interviews you listened to, that his English is not proficient enough to make witty responses (maybe based on accent or grammar, which is why made my points above about accent and grammar).. Fair enough, I happen to disagree with you about this. There is nothing more to it.

As mentioned before, circles. If you want to believe that his English isn't good enough to give witty responses, then carry on. I will carry on thinking that he deliberately gave short "No", "Yes" responses to Philip and that this was the answer he intended to give to cut Philip short (in my mind a much more effective way and not) an indication of his lack of English language skills.

This will be my last answer, as we are really just going round in circles now.

Looks like you know that you've been well and truly found out.

I wish FMs would stop pretending to have eminent professional qualifications when they clearly don't, as it only makes a mockery of this forum.

This forum is already a mockery. Where's the DOI Final Series chat and news? The Front Page is full of the same few posters starting threads about voting averages from past series (who cares?) and silly games. Where is all the type of discussion about the show and performances you get on the Strictly forum when the series starts and used to get on here in past years? It's dead.

No I'm not being found out, and may I state that you were the one starting the whole "I know best, because I'm bilingual" discussion. You are just annoyed, because I told you that I'm bilingual myself and happen to know a lot about language acquisition.

I'm not pretending to be anything I'm not, and it's up to you to believe me or not, but stay on the right side of polite, please, to follow the forum rules.

To be back on topic. The producers decision backfired. Sylvain and Jorgie should not have been partnered with each other in the first place, and now she is gone. In the context of the show and the uncomfortable situation, it's probably the best and I would not have wanted to listen each week to the sensational VT's or Phil's inappropriate comments.

I wasn't really aware of the backstory regarding Sylvain/Jennifer/Samia but what I saw on the programme was two people who were clearly very uncomfortable with each other and had no chemistry as a partnership. I think that Jorgie is one of the better skaters and would have liked her to stay longer in the competition (if she had had a different partner). However, I am glad that she and Sylvain have gone as I would not have wanted to watch that level of discomfort for several weeks.

Didn't you say that your previous post was your last answer LOL?

You were the one who claimed that you could determine Sylvain's proficiency in English without speaking to him or listening to his interviews because you were a published linguistics expert. I'm merely gleeful that your answers and subsequent backpedaling have negated your own claims.