They should have titled this paper, “The Borat Effect”:
This research examined the effect of language fluency on the evaluation of culturally inappropriate behavior. A series of video vignettes were created in which a nonnative speaker either followed or broke social rules while displaying varying degrees of fluency in English. Results demonstrated a shielding effect of poor language fluency, such that when the nonnative individual acted in a culturally inappropriate manner, poor fluency in English shielded the individual from negative evaluation.
Source: “Training Wheels for Cultural Learning: Poor Language Fluency and Its Shielding Effect on the Evaluation of Culturally Inappropriate Behavior” from “Journal of Language and Social Psychology”
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