Pamela De Santis – English II, LM – Task 3 – April 6, 2009

In green are the explicit connectives (other than “but”, “and”, “so”, etc.). The more green you see, the easier the paper is to follow and understand

You are, so far, the Champion of Connectives – you have more than anyone else.

REPORT (Trinity college, 2 April 2009)

Arrival at 8.20 p.m. The American students are waiting for us in a room with foods and drinks.

At first, the formation of division between Italians, from on one side, and Americans, on the other side, is evident, but after a few minutes (with shame and embarrassment*) we begin to strike up a friendship with them. [*Your obsession with “errors” ruins your enjoyment of a party (and maybe ruins your life, too). Why don't you stop all that shame stuff and take it easier? You will certainly be a better teacher for youngsters if you do.]

The Evening.

For the first part of the evening I want planned to speak and behave myself as a South-East British English speaker (easier for me than as a speaker of Irish English), but immediately, I realized that it is was difficult to mantaining this intentional state because of worrying to about makeing mistakes [MY GOD, AGAIN!!![ and because of the very open behavior of the American students,; so, by instinct, I speak spoke, more or less, as an American in during both parts of the evening. For this reason, I shall analyse the two both parts at the same time together.

Furthermore, during the evening, I know met four or five American students, but, in this report, I want to talk about only two students. I think they are more representatives in for the purposes of the experiment.

1. Their reactions.

Two trendy New York’s girls.

At once, Annarita and I know immediately met two American girls who introduced themselves with a handshake saying: “I’m...” (I don’t remember their names); by instinct, I introduced myself like them saying: “I’m Pam” according to my English variety (New York, The Bronx) and I speak spoke it for the whole evening (South-East British English disappeared in from my mind). I see saw that they noted my name’s short form and they repeat it two or three times as if they like it. [I have been putting your verbs into the past tense but, actually, it's fine to tell a story in the “narrative simple present” to highlight the drama. I find this use a little out of place in this case (where's the drama??) but if you want, you can use it and I won't change any more verbs to the past tense.]

Then, we start to talk about ourselves (school and free time) and more in general, we talk about food and our respective towns (Rome and New York). They are friendly and when I try to speak like a New Yorker, pronouncing ‘bottle’ //, for example, they continue to speak with me in this way a bit. (It is exciting to put my New York variety’s research into practice!).

It seems that they try to accomodate themselves to me, in the with their handshake, for example, that is typically an iItalian way of introducing oneself; but, in general, they remain themselves and they talk to me freely.

A real Irish boy.

In During the second part of the evening, I continue to speak as a New Yorker from The Bronx (I try at least to do it so) and Roberta and I make friends with an Irish boy. We introduce ourselves and we start to talk about school, Rome, the Usa U.S., also with personal questions (about his family). He answers us but not much very openly and freely, maybe because of our intrusiveness. [Yes, you were intrusive: in a conversation with a stranger, one's family is a private subject in the U.S., a public subject in Italy]

It seems that he gets annoyed and then he says to us: “I should have to go now”. In fact, I do not try to accommodate myself to him because I want to be an American; thus, I suppose that it is the case in which there is no accommodation.¹ [True, if you were an American, no accommodation would be necessary. But in fact you started asking about his family and in doing so you were acting like an Italian who does NOT accommodate to American sensitivity.]

2. Degree of my entente.

From the previous analysis, I think that there was [The narration is finished and so now you switch to the past tense: perfect!] a certain will to mean and will to be in my mind when I communicated with the American students (especially when instinctively I introduced myself directly with my name’s short form nickname, as an Americans do). In fact, I didn’t act and speak as a South-East British English person speaker, rather I tried to act and think as an American, although the shyness and the high constant worry to about makeing mistakes [OH, NO, AGAIN!!!] played its role. I felt myself more disposed to understand them and I was at ease with them.

Furthermore, according to the definition of entente², I saw a great level of affinity with the New Yorker’s girls, especially when we talk about New York City and its dialects; while, with the Irish boy, it was more difficult to create a convergence because I was a New Yorker from The Bronx and he had different patterns of seeing and saying things. I invaded his personal space and I created a conflict in the communication breakdown.

However, I suppose that there was a successful accommodation³ for a short time, maybe thanks to the New Yorker girls’ behavior.

3. My spontaneous formal accommodation.

As I said in the previous point, I have noticed in myself a particular will of speaking to speak like an American since it was my the first contact with the American students, even if it was a little bit difficult.

I introduced myself saying ‘I’m Pam’ (as in the American style) and it is sounded familiar to the American girls, so they began to talk about their life and they laughed when I began to pronounce some words in the New York dialect.

Nevertheless, it happened a curious thing happened: I made a mistake to in expressing a concept, that is, I wanted to say ‘can of beans’, but I confused it with the British term tin, so I said ‘tin of beans’ and obviously, being Americans, they didn’t understand me. In this misunderstanding, I noticed that they didn’t succeed to in helping me at once and I would to express my concept in a different way. They tried to modify their diction and speed in repeating words, but it was hard to get to the correct concept. [This shows the lack of linguistic flexibility of most Americans (and Brits); they don't have to learn to adapt to other people's language since everyone in the world speaks English. As an Italian you are much more flexible than they are.]

Thus, in these interactional exchanges it could has there might have been an effort to move toward an expressive convergence (from both parts sides), but, also in this case, it was for a short time and only with the American girls.

Conclusion

I agree with Boylan’s Accomodation Theory Revisited (2009), and according to my evening’s experience, I realized that it is possible to decenter ourselves and accommodate our mentality and our way of speaking to the others, although, to do so requires it is also important our will and our love good-will towards other languages, countries and, above all, people. However, I believe that it is very difficult to achieve a successful accommodation and the only way to achieve it is that both interlocutors accept to decenter themselves. [Utopia]

Furthermore, according to this experiment, I think that in myself there was an effort to change my mentality to accomodate myself to the other, but it was minimumal. That is, because time played its role. I mean that the cultural values and the formal features of the English variety I have chosen helped me to enter into a different mentality but the time wasn’t enough to make them the change more explicit. Nevertheless, it was a good experiment to test our will to changeing, our personality and our will of to speaking a different language.