A focus on culture: a reflection on stereotypes

On Monday, the complex, delicate topic we discussed about was culture. In particular, we cast light on how Italian culture is perceived by the members of other national communities. We visited a website containing quite a detailed list of all the most significant social habits, attitudes and behaviours Italian people show in ordinary life and we realized that most of the aspects highlighted may reflect to some extent our real way of dealing with people, but they are mainly a series of stereotypes.

But what are stereotypes? What do they imply? Are stereotypes positive or negative? According to the Collins Cobuild, English dictionary for advanced learners, a stereotype is ‘a fixed general image or set of characteristics that a lot of people believe represent a particular type of person or thing’. L. Sciolla (2002: 153) states that a stereotype is a pattern dealing with certain beliefs on the personal characteristics of social groups as a whole and focuses on the “self-protective reasons” implied in stereotypes, i.e. the need for national communities to keep or achieve a positive image of themselves. Therefore, stereotypes are some sort of categories that people use, or rather “build” over time, in order to “classify” the human, social, cultural, religious and political reality round them, but also to “represent” themselves and the community they belong to. In so doing, the whole reality is categorised, simplified, but also homogenized. In my opinion, this last aspect is particularly worth of note. The reason lies in the fact that we can’t apply a pattern, that is, something fixed, “fossilised”, to a community of people, as it is human nature to evolve and change over time.

With regard to this issue, I’d like to mention the Hofstede Model, according to which national culture differences can be subdivided into five dimensions:

1)power distance

2)individualism

3)masculinity

4)uncertainty avoidance

5)long-term orientation

This model, though being very interesting in itself, is a double-edged weapon, in that on the one hand it allows us to make an in-depth analysis of cultural differences (or similarities) all over the world, but on the other it seems to take it for granted that the data referred to a particular country do not refer to each of the group members. It may be obvious, but I think that, unfortunately, it is not so obvious as we might think… And that’s why it often happens that the members of a certain community label the members of a different community as self-centred – just to cite one example – without considering the crucial fact that a population is made up of individuals, with their own points of view, perspectives, opinions, beliefs, etc. Hence, this model is not to be taken as gospel, simply because what can be applied to a general cultural community can’t always be applied to a single person (there are always exceptions to the rule!). Besides, as I previously pointed out, people’s behaviours, as well as their way of thinking, can change over time and, therefore, what can be applied to a certain community in a certain period, can’t always be applied to the same community in a different period.

To sum up, there are multiple factors we must always take into account if we want to analyse the great cultural variety characterising our world, but, most importantly, we must always be aware that, if on the one hand exploiting models is a good way for organizing and simplifying the reality, on the other there is a danger that we simplify too much and “build” a distorted view of humankind.

My second Skype exchange: a kind of "chain reaction"

Hello everybody,

on Monday I had my second Skype exchange with my American peer and it was even more stimulating than the first one. The reason lies in the fact that the guy asked me a question I was not able to answer simply because I wasn’t prepared in that particular topic. My conversation partner asked me, between the North and the South, which one has more environmental groups. Given my “information gap”, I surfed the Internet for a while – the Web-sphere is always helpful…! – and, even though I didn’t succeed in finding out specific information about the numerical superiority of environmental groups in one of the two areas, I picked up the website of the Legambiente, which is the most important Italian environmental association with its 1,000 local branches located in different places all over Italy.

This website has many links. Two of them, in particular, grasped my attention: “calendario delle iniziative” and “scrivici”. The first one is a real calendar with all the meetings of the current year. When I saw that a campaign on recycling is taking place in these days, I clicked on the second link and wrote an e-mail to the association, whose head office is in Rome, in order to request more detailed information about the initiative. I’m waiting for the answer…

The most interesting aspect of the whole issue is the fact that the question asked by my conversation partner triggered a sort of “chain reaction”: functioning as an input, it pushed me into searching for the piece of information I lacked and, though I didn’t find out specific sources dealing with the distribution of environmental groups in northern and southern Italy, I picked up an important Web source which can help all of us to be constantly informed about the most significant initiatives that are taking place or will take place in the near future.

Another meaningful aspect is that, after writing the link to the site on the “Notice Board” of our wiki, one of my Italian peers wrote me a comment saying that she visited the website and found it quite interesting. Therefore, what at the beginning was my lack of information turned out to be a positive way of enriching not only my knowledge fund, but also my peers’.

To sum up, I think that one of the most positive aspects of Skype exchanges is that we can all benefit from every single conversation, that is, not only from the exchange with our American conversation partner, but also from the other exchanges: each of us can learn from the experience made by other students. Therefore… the more we listen and talk to our peers, the more we learn…!

That’s all for now.

Maria Chiara

My first impressions of Skype...

Dear all,

here I am, after a few months, with a brand new activity, a new experience – at least for me! - to add to the “-ings” we are now quite familiar with, blogging and wiki-ing: Skype-ing.

The second semester has just begun and now we are all engaged in this online linguistic and cultural x-change with a group of American students. On Monday we had our first Skype conversation and, to tell the truth, it wasn’t so “easy” to maintain as I thought.

First of all, the boy I talked to preferred to speak in English (even though he studies Italian), so that… how shall I put it…?... he handed on the hot potato to me! To be honest, every now and then I had some difficulties in speaking fluently - while talking, I was intent on thinking about what to say or ask – as well as in understanding what he was telling me, because he spoke quite fast.

Therefore, I realized how difficult and different conversing “online” with a native speaker is. On the other hand, I also realized that it is precisely this difficulty what renders online discussions “vital”, spontaneous and stimulating, even more than face-to-face conversations.

In my opinion, the fact that I was talking for the first time to a person I didn’t know through a new (for me) communication instrument, that I didn’t have a visual contact with the guy, that we were both rather “embarrassed” because of the unusual situation, all these circumstances worked together to make this experience demanding and fascinating at the same time.

We talked about recycling – which is the topic of our Tulane-Padua wiki -, in particular:

• whether there are laws obliging citizens to recycle;
• whether American people recycle plastic also to save oil, as we do in Italy, or simply to get other plastic.

The guy told me that in the USA there are no specific laws on recycling and that, consequently, the choice is up to the single person. The same happens in our country. Unfortunately. Yes, because if there were laws and sanctions, maybe we would be better citizens (please note that I included myself in the group!) Then, we talked about our hobbies and interests and he was quite surprised when I told him that I commute almost every day to Padua. It may be a cacophonous expression, but his amazement really amazed me! Maybe because by now I am used to catch the train twice a day (and sometimes more than twice) and I consider myself very lucky, as my train journey lasts just 20-25 minutes...

To sum up, I think that, in spite of my initial difficulties, Skype-ing is quite a positive experience not only from the linguistic point of view, but, most importantly, for all the cultural aspects implied. In other words, Skype-ing is a good way of improving one’s linguistic skills, as well as of enriching one’s extra-linguistic fund.

Maria Chiara