One of Luisa's students, Manuel, asked the following question in class: What do English people hear when they listen to Italian?
So, my question to you all is How is Italian perceived by other cultures? And, how do Italians perceive English and English cultures?
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28 comments:
Well, first of all, stereotypes are a really bad things. For instance if you ask an American about Italian music, he’ll probably think about melodic Neapolitan singers, that I sincerely hate, while I love many Italian musicians, above all Fabrizio de Andrè. However, the only way stereotypes can be won is by increasing reciprocal knowledge.
Anyway some stereotypes could also have a kernel of truth. A typical thing we believe about UK is that English cuisine is terrible (but roast beef). Have anyone ever tried it? After all we think so of many other countries, too, such as Germany, and when I went there I liked food.
Another stereotypes about English: maybe we think they’re not too clever. This is probably due to the fact that mainly elder English people come to Italy as tourists, and unfortunately age is not often a friend of smartness.
Italian people are all spaghetti and mummy’s boy.
English people always drink tea at five o'clock.
Intelligent people have no friend and are bad in sport.
People good in sport are stupid.
and so on...
There are three kind of reasoning:
-deductive
-inductive
-abtuctive
Deductive reasoning is start from the causes to find the consequences: Socrate is a man, men are mortal: Socrate is mortal or it's raining so the grass will be wet.
Inductive reasoning is: to see a little portion of something and then to generalize. For example I see some cats with four legs, so all cats, also the ones I've not seen, have four legs (in my reasoning).
Abductive reasoning is starting from the consequences to find the causes: the grass is wet so it has rained.
But.. only the first is correct!!!.
Stereotypes perhaps are the results of the inductive reasoning. You know an Italian who like pasta so you think all Italian like pasta!!
Other stereotypes are the result of the different cultures.
For example if we start to drink more tea we'll not relize any more that English drink so much tea, that is just because we would behave in the same way and we notice more the things that are different from ours.
All this just to say not to believe in stereotypes but try by yourself what it's the true.
I hope not to have bored anyone with logic and knowledge!!
welly... welly... welly...
what about stereotypes ?
I read sara comment on induction. What a clever example. Strange because girls are not so clever..
ooops I'm doing sterotypes..
By the way ( sorry sara... ;)) stereotypes means something fixed or something hard to be moved...
They are not a bad thing at all. They are useful to catalog facts and persons under fixed rules. Clearly with a negative perception.
I don't think in terms of sterotypes.. because I look at me as an open minded person: the opposite of sterotypes. What else ?
stereotypes are atavic, they belong to the DNA of people such as many other thinks. People use stereotypes to avoid the other.
remember that when the omosexuality exploded, eterosexual stereotyped omos as bad, not good, strange and so on.. This is way omos started to call themselves gay : Good As You
By R
I think that stereotypes are due to a simple reason: In every culture there are some typical things that involve a piece of the population. These typical characteristics don't concern all the population and not even an half of the population but, in a certain nation or place, they are more frequent with respect to other nations. For this reason, in my opinion, born the stereotypes. They are a generalisation but they have a basis of truth.
For instance, the Italian people appear as spaghetti pizza and mafia because these characteristics are really typical of a part of the nation. These phenomena are present in other countries as well, but in Italy more frequent. Many Italian people have other characteristics and other lifestyle but, these things are not so peculiar and, for this reason, they don't cross the Italian borders.
I think men need to simplify reality, probably because life can be sometimes very complex. So it’s quite normal that people make stereotypes, to have an easy and more simple idea of other cultures and habits. When English people criticize Italy they emphasize our faults and defects: it’s a generic and superficial point of view but there’s something true. And at the same time when we criticize English people. So It’s not so strange if people have in mind stereotypes. But It’s very important to judge people not by their appearance but by what they do or by their actions, so if you have a generic stereotype please wait a moment: it could be true, but it’s necessary to compare your generic, preliminary idea with the real context, the real problem… And if you are not completely right, change immediately your opinion !
Stereotypes
I consulted the online etymology dictionary, who gave me a very interesting story of this word. This word originally came from French, and meant "printing by means of a solid plate of type". In origin it was a typographic process. The meaning of "perpetuated image without change" took place in the use of this word and first dictionaries registered this use at the beginning of the 20th century by writing "preconceived and oversimplified notion of characterstics typical of a person or group".
Stereotypes, by the way, are much older than this world! I think that probably they have always existed, in any culture or population.
Mainly because they reflect a lazy (but common) way of thinking and atavic fears of what men consider "other".
How Italians see English people?
I'm risking to fall in a stereotype by myself if I talk about
"Italians" as a homogeneus group of people who has the same stereotypes about English people:) I can tell
about me and the people I leave with...
English people appear to be very polite and cold tempered* in every situation, even at the risk of appearing a bit insensitive.
Then, of course, many preconceived ideas (reinforced by every italian who has been in England..) are about the quality of food. One of the first things that come in my mind when I think about English people is the strange breakfast they do... and the other, of course, is London Tower and punctuality.
*can I say "cold blooded"?
@matteo
>For instance if you ask an >American about Italian music, >he’ll probably think about melodic >Neapolitan singers, that I >sincerely hate, while I love many >Italian musicians, above all >Fabrizio de Andrè.
I agree with your tastes,I too prefer de André to Neapolitan singers.. but perhaps the first musical stereotype of Italy, as our teacher said last time, is about opera... This stereotype comes from a truth: a certain form of "melodrama" has been mainly composed by italian composers, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, and so on. Even if their music can be very different, they all have in common some "italianity" in the melody, and of course, in the plot. But stereotypes has trasformed this thing in the preconceived "italian opera thing" which is :"fat chicken screaming while fat guy is dying stubbed", or something like that:) It was true for me too: before starting to listen to opera I had some similar preconceived idea about musical theater of my country.
Hi everybody!
I know it’s quite late…but I’ll try to give my opinion, since I believe it’s a very interesting subject! Well, first of all, I read previous posts and I noticed that there’s not a single definition of what a stereotype is… in my opinion, stereotypes are generalized concepts commonly accepted by groups of people sharing something in common. Or rather, stereotypes are not the same all around the world, nor in the same country or city: it depends on the context were people live, on their culture and on their knowledge. Maybe stereotypes can change in time and evolve, but I think it’s nearly impossible to live without them. Riccardo wrote: “I don't think in terms of sterotypes.. because I look at me as an open minded person: the opposite of sterotypes”…this sentence assumes a series of commonly accepted and standardized ideas: isn’t this a stereotype? Personally, I don’t believe that stereotypes can only be used with a negative meaning: lots of jokes are based on stereotypes, and we often laugh because of them… let’s think about carabinieri, politicians, footballer…
Finally, I found this definition on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype):
“A stereotype is a simplified and/or standardized conception or image with specific meaning, often held in common by people about another group. A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the other group hold in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely if at all correlated. Stereotypes may be positive or negative in tone. They are typically generalizations based on minimal or limited knowledge about a group to which the person doing the stereotyping does not belong. Persons may be grouped based on racial group, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age or any number of other categories.”
See you later
Bye!
I just had a quick look at your comments, but it seems to me that we all (in some way) share the same opinions. Maybe because we are living in a period in which it is easier to really meet and know people from many countries. In this way, we know different persons before different cultures or ways being. Of course there some ways of behaving, or dressing, or else that we PROBABLY we will notice when we meet a person coming from a certain country, but we are not sure that the whole population will be so homogeneous.
Starting from the point of view that most people are in some way similar to others coming from the same country, but above all different, stereotypes could even become something positive. They can help many people to remember and associate some countries they've never gone to. They can be sometimes funny or help people of different nationality starting talking together and confronting them. I think that people who believe in many stereotypes should travel and try to see how many of them are real, how many totally false and how many have (as most of them) a link to reality but are excessive.
An other time 2:30 pm.... Italians are always in late...
Riccardo said "I think that people who believe in many stereotypes should travel and try to see how many of them are real, how many totally false and how many have (as most of them) a link to reality but are excessive..." I agree with him, in my post I've said something similar, but I wish to add that it's absolutely a normal process when we meet new people or cultures:
1. we have in most case a first generic idea because of our experience of life, lectures... (and this idea about other cultures can be considered like a stereotype)
2. we correct our opinion through a comparison between the generic rappresentation and the reality
3. we change and "up-load" our thought, if reality and mind-rappresentation are quite different
I think people have to remember all these points, normally they stop at first.
..Here is some typical sterotypes found out in internet:
Asians have generally been portrayed in the media as intelligent but unsociable. They have also been portrayed as asexual, martial artists, geeks, exotic women, and foreigners
The English people are stereotyped as inordinately proper, prudish, and stiff and as having bad teeth.
Especially in European countries, Americans are stereotyped as brash, ignorant, self-important, unintelligent and obese.
Stereotype of the Irish people: drunkards, dullards, incompetent, sexually naive or overly fecund or a combination of all or some of these characteristics
To this day Jewish people are sometimes stereotyped in media as being intellectually gifted, and focused on money.
I think that stereotypes are not that good in general, since they reveal a sort of narrow-mindedness. When you go abroad, I think you should make only a comparison between different traditions and habits, but without judging or generalizing. Also, I think that generalization is one of the most serious problem of modern society... but this is another story...
Anyway, the question was "How do Italians perceive English and English cultures?" When I went to England for the first time, besides all the things you have written, I also noticed a sort of musicality in English speech. Indeed, some people (maybe not young people...) speak in a very quiet way, with slow and continuous dynamic variations. This brought me to keep my hears open to get all the words (hopefully)... In Italy I think we speak louder, isn't it?
Stereotypes don't mean necessary offending people. If someone say me I love pasta because I'm Italian it's not a problem, it's true. And if it isn't true I only say no it's not. Some people say me it's impossible that a computer engineer dislike coffee but I don't like coffee even though I'm a computer engineer. But this supposition doesn't offend me. I just want to say that stereotypes are bad only when we are influenced by them in the relation with other people. Then if you laugh for a joke it doesn't mean necessary something bad.
Sometimes stereotypes are based on the traditions of a country like Italians people who generally eat pasta and this is not bad, it's something that belongs to the traditions. Then you can behave in a different way...
I was thinking about stereotypes through history... and I found an example of someone who really was above everything: Oscar Wilde. With his aphorisms, he used stereotypes to joke on his standardized society. People watching his shows had fun without understanding that he was joking on themselves...he was simply a genius!
"A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?"
"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."
"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."
Can we call these reversed-stereotypes?
I thank Cristina that gave the definition of "Stereotype" from Wikipedia. I indeed use it and ask: what about the risk of speaking a stereotyped English?? I mean, Manuel asked how Italian sounds like, and I would like to know if Italian students learned during school just a common and bad style of English. What is the role of school, since secondary to high-level school, in my English style? Did teachers teach us a good English or an old-fashioned, boring and stiff English??
Barbara C.
STEREOTYPE ABOUT INDIA:
Mainstream global media are busy portraying India as the new superpower. But while they're challenging some stereotypes they're still blaming India and the rest of the developing world for most global problems, including overpopulation, global warming and pandemics
In recent months both New Scientist and the New Statesman have published special editions challenging stereotypes about India. In January the New Statesman offered its readers 'everything you need to know about the new superpower' -- from the economic boom to the sexual revolution. Earlier, New Scientist had been more measured: not only does India now possess the most sophisticated technology – nuclear power, satellites, etc – but much of this is being used to enable the poorest sections of society to improve their lot. It was also pointed out that India's president, a Muslim, is a top-ranking expert in both space and nuclear science.Such publications challenge the familiar stereotypes – India as backward, superstitious, poor, etc. We are given actual evidence that shows, for example, how new technology really does address the needs of remote communities by offering them electrification, access to basic education, the Internet, and so on. But the accurate presentation of a balanced picture of what is happening in many parts of the world, especially the poorer ones, is an ongoing struggle.
Some time ago The Independent published a major article claiming that India is more to blame for greenhouse-gas emissions than any European country. Taken at face value, the statement sounded disturbing. But on reflection the argument fell apart. So one of reporter wrote to the newspaper to point out that with a population of more than a billion, India should be compared, not with any European country, but with the whole of Europe.The average Indian produces only 10% of the amount of carbon dioxide generated by the average North American. In fact, the average English child consumes eight times as much of the world's natural resources in terms of energy as a child born in any non-G8 country.
So how about some good news – about India? Many major Indian cities now have legislation to oblige all transport to use compressed natural gas for fuel. The improvement of air quality with consequent reduction in respiratory illnesses is enormous. But do we see any reference to this in British newspapers or on television? Of course not: anything that challenges the ambitions of the car industry doesn't stand a chance.One of the reasons why India can carry through some of its most sweeping environmental legislation is that the Supreme Court, which ultimately determines it, is superior to Parliament and has considerable powers.India's heads of state have included Muslims, Sikhs and high- and low-caste Hindus, but so far no Christians, though the current Congress party leader, Sonia Gandhi, is a Roman Catholic. Democracy is in good shape,
Environmentally, India has been a world leader – at least at the political level. Indira Gandhi was the only head of state to take part in the first UN conference on the environment in 1972; she was one of three to attend the UN conference on new and renewable energy sources in 1981.The 1970s and 1980s saw an upsurge of environmental and developmental concern in India – Project Tiger and the setting up of new national parks, for example. But stereotypes remain, and will only change as people confront them. They feed on ignorance, but are often driven by vested interests, political expediency and collective self-indulgence.
If only the West can convince themselves that the people of the so-called developing world are to blame for overpopulation, global warming, pandemics and other major problems, then it's for them to change their ways before we need to do anything.In fact it is the affluent, consumer-oriented industrialised world – and some urban pockets of the non-industrialised world – that are responsible for our current global crises. How convenient, then, to find solace in a few useful stereotypes which absolve us from blame, enabling us to continue our unsustainable lifestyles.
I see you have done your homework. We will talk tomorrow in class.
I'm in late for my comment, maybe, but I'll add my 2cents.
As we were saying during last lesson, stereotypes represent the prejudice -usually a negative one- the group of people that elaborated them has with respect to other groups.
Just a few days ago, for example, a German consumer-electronics retailer released a series of spots where an Italian fellow in a shop acts in all the bad ways they think we act (being a cheater with friends, being astute to avoid queus, and so on), resuming their stereotypes about us.
Fortunately, even some German people complained about those non politically-correct ads, asking for removal (which did not happend).
So, stereotypes are alive, still, but not everybody shares the view stereotypes impose.
People need to have stereotypes to simplify the things. How can we describe something or someone using only few words? We need to use some adjectives and particular words to be brief, if we don't want to bore the people or appear tedious. Often we use very common adjective used by everybody.
The American people I met in the USA think that the Italians can be identified well with few words such as 'pizza','spaghetti' or 'mafia'... , but they didn't know anything else about our country. All they know the have learned in internet or on TV. I think that it's not correct to use a specific adjective to identify a whole country. But I can say 'the American people I met are, for instance, very friendly', this is related my experience and it's not a common opinion spreaded by media.
So it's better to make experience and know people very well before to judge them or give opinions.
Sorry guys and girls...I had not time to read all your comments about stereotypes and that's a pity because I'm sure that they are really interesting as always! But now it's time to make the exam :-( :-D and so, I'm a bit on hurry :-D
Reading the comments from Andrea, Sara and Filippo, I can say to fully agree with them. I don't like stereotypes but we have to admit that they are part of our culture. Nowadays, in fact, mass-media allow news running quickly from Earth's North to Earth's South and it implies making stereotypes. Let's think, e.g., at Naple's refuses problem; someone (not Italian) hearding about it, immediately, link the problem to Italy in general and not just to Naples. Thus, immediately, they think that Italian are "dirty" and not civilized! Therefore, it is demonstrated that making stereotypes is really simple! As Sara argued, it is the most simple form of deduction!
Another stereotype that comes into my mind is about Italian's way of speaking. Once again, (sorry Neapolitans, nothing personal :-) ) most of foreign people link Italian to Naples or South of Italy; a friend of mine, in fact, who is Scottish was used to mimic Italians's way of speaking speaks in Neapolitan dialect!!! She was funny but if I think that this is the image that Italy gives of itself...well...I don't like it at all!!!
What I think about stereotypes in a nutshell?!?
It's better to go through the appearances and try to get the better of all the different cultures. I say that also thinking to my brief experience abroad. When I was in Netherlands for four months, at the beginning it was not at all simple to understand and accept their habits. The twice week collection of rubbish, with all its involvments like seagulls opening the bags and scattering refuses across the street, or the extremely grease food or the harsh behaviour of Dutch people or the required frenzy to put food in the bags at a supermarket cash...But, at last, I learned something from Dutch...I learned their directness in making decisions and their conciseness...even if it does not seems looking to the lenght of this writing :-D
So...I have finished, more or less, my dissertation on stereotypes...thus I wish you all to have nice holidays ;-)
Elisa C.
Have you ever thought about the death of your language? if your answer is no, this is the time to start.A lot of languages are disappearing and many others will in the next century.But there is someone who wants to save them, Frederik Kortlandt a dutch Professor of Linguistics. He made a lot of expeditions in some of the most inaccessible places of our planet just to document threatened languages. He says that it is very dangerous and difficult to document a language often because tribes are very proud of their language and they are afraid he wants to rob their language.Professor also says that now he has fourteen Phd students describing unknown languages. He says that a language will die out if it is spoken by fewer than forty people. Unfortunately many people don't care about languages loss that means culture loss. For example all the knowledge about medicine that comes from rain forest tribes could be lost if their languages died.At the end Professor says that no major culture in the history has ever cared about minority languages.
Mind your languages
Thousands of the world's languages are dying: they are the languages spoken by tribes or small ethnic groups living outside the developed world (e.g. Native American Indians or New Guinea peoples). The problem is how to prevent this: in fact many of them are sceptical of the "white man" because they believe he wants to rob them of their language. Moreover it's also hard to properly describe a language because it takes many years. It's important to prevent the death of a language because it carries a lot of knowledge that could be lost if the tribes and their languages die out without being documented (e.g. there are hundreds of known remedies for several diseases that could be lost). Kortlandt is one of the several linguists who have faced this problem. He has stressed that if you want to understand human species you have to take the full range of human thought into consideration and so those cultures are important too. Emanuele, Mario and Daniele
Why is "rock art" important? Without rock art, we would miss centuries of prehistoric men life.
Fortunately we know a lot of information about these men just from their rock art. Etchings and paintings show groups of hunters chasing beasts, religious ceremonies with dancing people, and many important situtations of their life. Scattered rock arts are around the globe from Africa, Europe, Asia, and America documenting and showing diversity or similarity among cultures and people. Art rock ROCKS.
Emanuele, Ahmed and Daniele
why is rock art important?
Well, first of all we should ask ourselves "is rock art important"?
According to who you ask the question to, you surely obtain many different opinions.
Here are some of them, arisen during our short-but-intense discussion...
in my point of view Rock Art is very Important, because those days there were no scripts to write some important information. so they drew figures on rock which shows their life style and social life they lived, and many arts tells us impressions of their life style like hunting, agriculture, wars between them and celebrations. The artists who created them who lived thousands of years ago. and it also represent the human origin and social life of early humans.
different opinion comes from different point of view: for someone, stone art could be important to understand "how", along the time passing the languages evolved, in fact we can consider stone art as the first form of written language..for other this form of art containing some essential information about the society useful for the understanding of style of life, costumes ect... instead for other people it is not important at all! Thinking: why should I care about things happened in such a distant time in the past?? however that is a part of own heritage and it must be protected and studied....
Chaitanya, Giovanni, Mario
Hi all,
thought of replying on any one of the topic posted here in the blog, Being an Indian it gives me a immense pleasure to write about an interesting ideal person for the world , He is officially honoured in India as the Father of Nation, his birthday, 2 October is commemorated as the International Day of Non-Violence.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of Satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. He is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi (Sanskrit: mahâtmâ or "Great Soul", Bapu ("Father"). He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and world-wide as the International Day of Non-Violence.
Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers in protesting excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, for expanding women's rights, for building religious and ethnic amity, for ending untouchability, for increasing economic self-reliance, but above all for achieving Swaraj—the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in protesting the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (249 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on numerous occasions, in both South Africa and India.
Gandhi practiced non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and social protest.
Gandhi influenced important leaders and political movements. Leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States, including Martin Luther King and James Lawson, drew from the writings of Gandhi in the development of their own theories about non-violence.[56] Anti-apartheid activist and former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was inspired by Gandhi.[57] Others include Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan,[58] Steve Biko, and Aung San Suu Kyi.[59]
Gandhi's life and teachings inspired many who specifically referred to Gandhi as their mentor or who dedicated their lives to spreading Gandhi's ideas. In Europe, Romain Rolland was the first to discuss Gandhi in his 1924 book Mahatma Gandhi, and Brazilian anarchist and feminist Maria Lacerda de Moura wrote about Gandhi in her work on pacifism. In 1931, notable European physicist Albert Einstein exchanged written letters with Gandhi, and called him "a role model for the generations to come" in a later writing about him.[60] Lanza del Vasto went to India in 1936 intending to live with Gandhi; he later returned to Europe to spread Gandhi's philosophy and founded the Community of the Ark in 1948 (modeled after Gandhi's ashrams). Madeleine Slade (known as "Mirabehn") was the daughter of a British admiral who spent much of her adult life in India as a devotee of Gandhi.
Indeed Gandhi would be remembered for his ethics and principles. He would be the real idol for many generation to come in future.
Hi everyone,
a few lessons ago we read an article in class about the importance of languages and in particular about languages which are dying because they are now spoken by small groups of people. On the contrary at the beginning of this course we talked about the importance of English nowadays and about the need of knowing English for many people around the world. So I would like to make some observations about the importance of knowing foreign languages in general.
Recently I read a very good quote by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, saying " A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is ignorant of his own" and so I tried to figure out what he was meaning by saying that. Now that I am almost at the end of this English course I have realized that he couldn't be more right! In fact I believe that only if you are able to understand the differences (and similarities) beetween your language and a foreign one (like English) you can really understand the logical mechanisms of your own: by exploring more deeply the world of English I have realized that I 've never asked myself why I've always used some espressions or some kind of sayings in Italian (that are really different in English)! And this led me to understand better Italian! It could seem a strange thing, but it is absolutely true.
But maybe the most important thing I've learned is that every language is more strongly connected than I've ever thought to the culture and to the history of the people who speaks it. And to realize this it is definitely important to compare at least two different languages: for example there are some words really similar in spelling in Italian and in English. These words maybe are related to a common culture (e.g. words deriving from Latin), whereas there are some other words or expressions that point out a different history of these peoples and that definitely prove a different evolution of the two languages.
So Goethe was right and now at the end of this course I can say that not only I know a little bit better English, but also that I do know a little bit better Italian! It's really true that in life you never stop learning!
Emanuele
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