Roberta Zoppo – II year English LM – Task 1 – 22.03-09

A. VALUES: freedom ( we are not free as we think) , religion ( follow the

rules, otherwise you are socially condemn) , family ( do nothing different from

the ordinary), friendship (friends don't exist: everyone is alone),

collectivism (rely upon others but do everything by yourself).

[My comment: I see that the music of Carrickfergus and my comments on ONE aspect of Irish culture have colored your view of the Irish mindset. Too bad. There was no time for me to say more than that one example (being stranded in space); so emphasis you give to isolation in your values and especially in your maxims is, I think, exaggerated.

At another lesson I also mentioned the fact that the Irish are not as free from the English as they thought they would be after they gained political independence, and I see that you represented that opinion of mine in your comment on freedom. Your comment on religion and family come down to conformism, which I don't see as typically Irish.

Did you do original research or did you base your values mostly on what I said? To show me that you are capable of original research, I am going to send a module to all of you students asking you to DOCUMENT the sources for your affirmations about culture, just as you would in any “tesina”.

So please do more research on Irish culture and mentality on the Interet and present the sources for your claims.

If you do more research, I think you will learn that there is much more in Irish character than being melancholy, etc.! For example, you will discover that there is the reaction to being melancholy, which is being cheerful and making jokes and dancing jigs! (Irish jigs are just as traditional as the melancholy music of Carrickfergus!) But WHAT KIND OF HUMOUR, what kind of jokes? AH, THAT is the question! There are many Internet articles and books on the peculiarity of Irish Humour. But I thin you can grasp the characteristics of self-deprecation, anti-logic bias, irony of misery, if I give you an example of an Irish joke:

“An angry wife entered a pub late at night, went up to her husband still at the bar, half drunk, took a sip of his Guinness and spit it out saying: “How can you come here every night and drink that awful stuff?” “You see?!” he replied “And you always said I was out enjoying meself!“

And there is more to Irish mentality than these two contrasting poles: isolation and melancholy on the one hand and good company and jigs/jokes on the other. Try to find ALL the characteristics by using the keywords I indicated on our website AND ALSO by inventing keywords on your own.

You see, Roberta, this course is not just about learning what English is, in all its varieties.

It is also about learning how to find information on the web and in the library. If the advice I gave on our website is not sufficient, tell me and I will give you some more. But what I do NOT want to do is to give you “the answers” or the “official information” or the “true knowledge for the final exam.” I do not believe in these things. I only believe in knowledge that YOU construct for yourself to give you a grasp on things.

And the knowledge of Irish culture that you demonstrate in Part A of our answer does NOT give you a grasp on Irish mentality and does not enable to you accommodate in English to a native speaker from Ireland. So try again!

Please use long descriptive sentences to capture the full meaning of each cultural trait that you uncover. And concentrate on the cultural traits that will condition how you speak.

B CULTURAL ANALYSIS:

" We are totally free....................................We are not totally free"

USA UK HOLLAND AUSTRALIA ITALY JAMAICA IRELAND

“ We are not totally free” <-- [this is not a good value. The poles should contrast but each one should be a POSITIVE value. This is because whatever people of any culture do, they always do it thinking that it is positive. For example, in the poles that I gave Annarita, I put:
“WHAT YOU MAKE IS YOURS”----------------”WHAT YOU MAKE IS THE COMMUNITY'S”

Here is an example of two values, BOTH of which are considered GOOD in the cultures where they dominate: Americans think the first is good, Jamaicans think the second is good.
But the value that you attribute to the Irish, “We are not totally free", is not something that any culture would consider good. It is not a value. It may be a sad fact, but it is not a desirable state to attain.
So please redo this value (and the others containing the word “not”) to show two VALUES THAT ARE BOTH GOOD, ALTHOUGH GOOD FOR DIFFERENT PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT MENTALITIES.]

"ReligIon important...................................................Religion

not important"

IRELAND ITALY JAMAICA AUSTRALIA UK USA HOLLAND

[This dimension is not acceptable for the reason given above, and also because “religion” is too vague. There are NO cultures where religion is not important. Even among the philosophers of the Enlightenment, REASON was considered the new (and good) religion.]

"Family support.......................................................No family support"

ITALY SPAIN JAMAICA AUSTRALIA IRELAND UK HOLLAND USA

[This dimension is not acceptable for the reason given above, and also because there are NO cultures where family support is absent (except perhaps in the Jewish Kibbutzim and only in the past). Even in the US the nuclear family remains as a partial support system.]

"Lot of friends...................................................Few friends"

JAMAICA ITALY SPAIN AUSTRALIA IRELAND UK USA

[This dimension is not acceptable for the reason given above: no culture would say “We are proud of the fact that we have few friends.” Maybe Finnish people, who notoriously do not socialize as much as Italians, would say: “We are proud of the fact that we do not have a lot of pseudo-friends (who often betray you) like the Italians: We are proud of the fact that we have a lot of really true friends. “A lot” does not mean a big number, but a substantial number. Maybe we have more than the average Italian's true friends, once the Italian eliminates all the pseudo-friends.” In other words, Roberta, you have to see the pole on the right as something positive, not negative, even if it is the opposite of the pole on the left.]

"Collectivism.......................................Individualism"

JAMAICA ITALY AUSTRALIA IRELAND UK USA

[I accept these poles and I almost accept the position of Ireland, which for me should be:
JAMAICA ITALY IRELAND UK AUSTRALIA USA

C MAXIMS

"I'm trapped in a prison from which I can't escape, even though I want TO"

[INACCURATE]

"I have to follow religious rules in any case, because if I don't do it society

puts me in a corner"

[This is true of all Catholic societies... and Muslim societies, too, etc. So it is not very characteristic. Indeed what characterizes the Irish mentality, as you see in their humour, is the way they bend the rules of Catholicism brazenly.]

"I know my family is there watching me but I walk on my own legs, or I try to do

itso"

[This voluntarism is not typically Irish, it is more Germanic and especially Anglo [British]. The Irish do have to learn to walk on their own legs, but not as a source of achievement, it is more as a plight. In any case, they do have more family support than the British.]

"You can have million of friends, but fundamentally you're alone"

[the melancholy isolation theme... OK but there is more than just this.]

"You fight with your fellows to obtain something important, but if you obtain

something more the excess is yours"
[Sorry, I don't understand this maxim. Can you rephrase it, please? And are you sure this kind of maxim can guide you in your way of SPEAKING and INTERACTING?]

FINAL COMMENT TO ROBERTA:

1. Have you read the lyrics to Carrickfergus? If not, read them as you listen to the music.
Both are on the Internet. I would like you to sing the first two strophes (if you want, the first four or all six): if you are embarrassed to sing alone in class, I'll ask everyone to sing along with you. Here are lyrics:

http://www.music-lyrics-chord.com/Van_Morrison/345264-Carrickfergus.html
And here is a video with just the music, so you can practice karaoke-style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38-0z5vlryA

2. Do you know a few good Irish jokes?

Well, one more task (1d... we have not reached 1z yet). Learn three or four really typical Irish jokes. Not international ones, but ones that you would not typically hear in Italian, for example. And watch out: when you search for “Irish jokes” in Internet, you often find jokes about the Irish made by the English to ridicule them. Instead, you have to find jokes by the Irish to ridicule life. See, for example, the jokes on “Drinking” here:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/kirwilli/jokes/Drink.htm