Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Anglo-Americana
Helena Maria Gramiscelli Magalhes
Cultura
Anglo-Americana
REITOR
Joo dos Reis Canela
VICE-REITORA
Maria Ivete Soares de Almeida
DIRETOR DE DOCUMENTAO E INFORMAES
Huagner Cardoso da Silva
EDITORA UNIMONTES
Conselho Editorial
Prof. Silvio Guimares Medicina. Unimontes.
Prof. Herclio Mertelli Odontologia. Unimontes.
Prof. Humberto Guido Filosofia. UFU.
Prof Maria Geralda Almeida. UFG
Prof. Luis Jobim UERJ.
Prof. Manuel Sarmento Minho Portugal.
Prof. Fernando Verd Pascoal. Valencia Espanha.
Prof. Antnio Alvimar Souza - Unimontes
Prof. Fernando Lolas Stepke. Univ. Chile.
Prof. Jos Geraldo de Freitas Drumond Unimontes.
Prof Rita de Cssia Silva Dionsio. Letras Unimontes.
Prof Maisa Tavares de Souza Leite. Enfermagem Unimontes.
Prof Siomara A. Silva Educao Fsica. UFOP.
REVISO LINGUSTICA
ngela Heloiza Buxton
Arlete Ribeiro Nepomuceno
Aurinete Barbosa Tiago
Carla Roselma Athayde Moraes
REVISO TCNICA
Admilson Eustquio Prates
Cludia de Jesus Maia
Josiane Santos Brant
Karen Trres Corra Lafet de Almeida
Kthia Silva Gomes
Marcos Henrique de Oliveira
DESIGN EDITORIAL E CONTROLE DE
PRODUO DE CONTEDO
Andria Santos Dias
Camilla Maria Silva Rodrigues
Clsio Robert Almeida Caldeira
Fernando Guilherme Veloso Queiroz
Francielly Sousa e Silva
Hugo Daniel Duarte Silva
Marcos Aurlio de Almeida e Maia
Patrcia Fernanda Heliodoro dos Santos
Sanzio Mendona Henriques
Tatiane Fernandes Pinheiro
Ttylla Ap. Pimenta Faria
Vincius Antnio Alencar Batista
Wendell Brito Mineiro
Zilmar Santos Cardoso
M188c
Este livro ou parte dele no pode ser reproduzido por qualquer meio sem autorizao escrita do Editor.
EDITORA UNIMONTES
Campus Universitrio Professor Darcy Ribeiro
s/n - Vila Mauricia - Montes Claros (MG)
Caixa Postal: 126 - CEP: 39.401-089 - Telefone: (38) 3229-8214
www.unimontes.br / editora@unimontes.br
Ministro da Educao
Fernando Haddad
Vice-Reitora da Unimontes
Maria Ivete Soares de Almeida
Pr-Reitora de Ensino
Anete Marlia Pereira
Coordenadora da UAB/Unimontes
Maria ngela Lopes Dumont Macedo
Autora
Helena Maria Gramiscelli Magalhes
Sumrio
Apresentao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Unit 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
What is this all about? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.2 Anglo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3 Anglo- saxon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4 Anglo- america . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.5 Anglo-American . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.6 On language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.7 On culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Unit 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Where do these things come from? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2 America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3 The USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Unit 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Where does this all lead us to? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2 Some small talk: american culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.3 Some cultural traits and the literary text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.4 Miscellaneous other American cultural traits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5 The performing arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.6 Culture in second language teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.7 Culture and language teaching policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Learning activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Apresentao
By way of presentation
Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own (Goethe).
Hi, there? Dear students, I want you to read the following text and be prepared for some discussion on Anglo-American Culture, one of the disciplines you will study this semester.
TEXT
Figure 1: Colors
represented and USAs
President Barack
Obama.
Source: Available at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Flower. Access in Feb. 13th,
2011.
Three men, an Italian, a French man and a Portuguese went for a job interview in England.
Before the interview, they are told that they must compose one sentence in English containing
three main words: GREEN, PINK, and YELLOW
The Italian was the first:
I wake up in the morning. I see the YELLOW sun. I see the GREEN grass, andI think to myself,
I hope it will be a PINK day.
The French was the next:
I wake up in the morning, I eat a YELLOW banana, a GREEN pepper and in the evening I
watch the PINK panther on TV.
The last one was the Portuguese:
I wake up in the morning; I hear the phone GREEN... GREEN... GREEN..., I PINK up the phone
and I say YELLOW?
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
Glossary
trigger: produce immediate results. Onomatopoeias: the representation of sounds
produced by nature,
animals and things as
culturally heard, like
meow (of cats), honk,
honk (of car horns),
bang, bang (of shooting
with a gun), crash (of
cars, trains or planes
hitting something or
someone or something
breaking); Ambiguity: a
word having more than
one meaning.
phatic functionlanguage usually used
(only?) to maintain
communication, or
fulfill spaces between
dialogical moments
of communication.
Examples: Hello? Hi?,
Hey? Good morning.
How are you doing?
Bye, see you soon,
Good day etc.
holistic: integral, total,
complete.
10
To understand this joke you must have a good knowledge of the Anglo-American culture as
well as communicative competence in English, since translating the text into Portuguese would
be of no use for its interpretation. Why would it be so?
In the text, humor is triggered by linguistic games involving onomatopoeias and phonological ambiguity specifically provoked through the use of some colors:
Green, green, green - phonological ambiguity similarity in sound to the ringing of telephones and bells.
Pink phonological ambiguity similarity in sound to the word pick, the latter being a verb
which means take the telephone handle and answer it.
Yellow-phonological ambiguity similarity in sound with a language phatic function (Hello?).
Eventually, what makes the text funny is your knowledge of English, of the world and of the
cultural aspects involved. Did you know that?
And yet, some points must be considered and discussed such as: would the words GREEN
GREN sound for the Anglo-American people in the same way as they sound for the Brazilian individuals, something like TRIM, TRIM? I mean, would the USA people hear/feel this same sound
when a telephone rings? Would they mishear PINK for PICK? Would they hear the words YELLOW
and HELLO as having identical sounds? What do you think, dear students?
All these things considered would result in an amazing question: Could you guess the nationality of the jokes author? Find the answer for this question at the end of this unit.
In this textbook, intended for a 90-hour course, I argue that culture underlies and constitutes an indispensable factor for the efficient learning and teaching of a foreign language (FL) English. Having this in mind, we are about to enter the magic world of amazing cultural manifestations which invariably (would) intrigue us and interfere in the process of learning the English
language. My objective is to show you how this process takes place, how culture and language
are tightly intertwined to make language learning pleasurable and effective.
In sum, I demonstrate that language and culture are partners who will help you accomplish your goal of learning and teaching English properly. It follows that another purpose will be
achieved as your minds open to receive different views of distinct countries and societies and
their peoples intentions, views of the world, habits, Art, and peculiar ways of living and saying
things. This knowledge can be acquired delightfully with no pain and lots of gain.
It will be evidenced that culture builds language which in its turn builds culture. The assertion seems complex but it is not: language depends on culture that depends on language, that
is, they are interdependent. If you disregard culture, the learning of English as a second language
will be innocuous, insipid.
We will also approach some concepts pertinent to the relation of culture to language revisiting different notions and postulates proposed by contemporary linguists and scholars.
I want you to track this textbook and dive into the richness and beauty of the Anglo-American culture and language so that at the end of the course on this discipline you will have been
convinced that merging culture and language is fundamental for both teaching learning English,
and I hope you will take this conviction with you through your life long.
It is always well to remember that the teaching of any content must always depart from the
students previous knowledge, and that the central aim of teaching must be the holistic formation of that individual.
The purpose of teaching with these objectives is to form a responsible, cooperative, and critical individual who will be able to change himself and transform society.
Having all this in mind I define for the discipline Anglo-American culture the following objectives:
General objective: to point out the role of culture in the process of teaching and learning
English as a foreign language.
Specific objectives:
Discuss the concepts of the expressions Anglo, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-America and Anglo American.
Revisit some concepts of language.
Discuss general notions of culture
Detect, list and discuss some aspects of the Anglo-American culture in distinct texts.
Analyze and evaluate cultural phenomena and manifestations in literary and non-literary
texts;
Discuss and evaluate the nature of interculturality for the teaching of an FL.
11
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
Clue: phenomena - the plural form for phenomenon. The word is originated from Greek.
Other examples of words that make their plural in the same way are: automaton/ automata; criterion/ criteria.
To know more: Research about the plural of foreign words in the traditional grammar Essential English for foreign students, by C. E. Eckersley Essential English is a course in four books, of
which this is the first, for the teaching of English to adult foreign students. It aims at giving the
student a sound knowledge of the essentials of both spoken and written English and at taking
him on the way to a mastery of idiomatic conversational and literary English.
This textbook offers you interactive icons through which you can test your knowledge
(tasks), give it a second thought (To learn more), check the meaning of some (most probably
unknown) words and expressions that the material contains (glossary), and orient you to deal
with the topics better and indicate sites in the Web and virtual libraries which aim at supporting
learning (clues). All these interactive icons are suggested along the text and identified as follows:
Glossary
Tasks: Activities and
exercises done during the course. Clue:
anything that serves
to guide or orient
in the solution of a
question, problem,
mystery etc. (correspondent to Dica in
Portuguese).
CLUES
GLOSSARY
I hope, dear students, that you are a little more prepared to deal with the Anglo-American
culture, specifically that of the USA, and its implications for the teaching and learning of English.
Anglo-American culture is an intriguing and not hard subject to learn.
It is fundamental that you take both the content and the activities of this textbook seriously
and read the texts suggested for extra reading. They all constitute basic elements not only for
the development of your knowledge, for supporting eventual debates, but mainly for grounding
your learning of the cultural aspects involving the English language learning and teaching.
From now on, dear students, investigate all notions and concepts contemplated in this textbook, question them, suggest alternatives for analysis, discuss the topics, try new things and
ways, make a difference and emerge from the course with a broader knowledge of the AngloAmerican culture, of the English language and about your own one.
This textbook is not intended, and no one would be that pretentious, to exhaust the issues
involved in the Anglo-American Culture, or in any other.
The author
12
Unit 1
Clue
make considerations on the intimate relation
of culture to language demonstrating how
language influences culture and how culture
helps build language and how both of them
intertwine to denude society and explain the
social web. Comparisons with Brazilian culture
are inevitable and duly provided to enhance
your understanding of the content of the discipline Anglo-American Culture. Let us take a
look at the following cartoon.
Task
Figure 2: Humoristic
charge-text
Source: It appears vertically on the left side
of the charge. Access 1
May, 2010.
Glossary
Can you point out what would be considered traits of the Anglo-American culture in
this cartoon? If you cannot dont worry about
it; maybe it is because we have not so far discussed these expressions. Anyway, check the
answer in the Clue inserted in this page, as it
will provide you with some basic knowledge
about the American culture.
Based upon your empiricist, epistemological and linguistic knowledge let us revisit
some terms crucial for the understanding of
what underlies the study of the issues in the
discipline in question. After all, what is this all
about? Let us learn more about some words
and expressions involved in the content Anglo- American Culture.
empiricist: knowledge
of the world, from
your experience and
through media.
Epistemological:
knowledge acquired
from books, and Ebooks on the Internet,
the scientific knowledge.
13
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
1.2 Anglo
The Angles are probably originated from Angeln (in modern Germany). Bede, a Benedictine
monk, wrote that their whole nation/tribe came to Britain, leaving their former land empty. The
name England (Old English: Engla land or ngla land) originates from this tribe.
Figure 4: North America Map, North America Countries: Mexico, Canada, and the USA.
14
1.5 Anglo-American
The noun phrase (expression) AngloAmerican is generally used to denote the cultural atmosphere shared by the United States
and English Canada. But the Anglo-American
culture is obviously different from the French
culture also disseminated in the French Canada. Some political leaders (The ex-American
President Ronald Reagan and the former Minister Winston Churchill for instance) long ago
used the expression to discuss the relationship
of the United States to the United Kingdom,
especially if you have in mind that the American territory was colonized by the English,
Task
See the film American
Beauty and also one
of the episodes of the
sitcom/series Two and a
Half Men (Warner Channel). You will find interesting cultural manifestations not commonly
found in the Brazilian
culture or, if manifested
in it, it would be in a
rather different way.
Detect some of them,
write them down and
discuss them with your
tutor and classmates.
To learn more
War of 1812 - refers
to a military conflict
between the United
States of America and
the British Empire. The
Americans declared
war for several reasons:
a desire for expansion
into the Northwest Territory, trade restrictions
because of Britains
ongoing war with
France, impressment
of American merchant
sailors into the Royal
Navy, British support
of American Indian
tribes against American
expansion, and the
humiliation of American honor available at:
www.facebook.com/
pages/...America. Read
this site to obtain more
information about the
War of 1812.
15
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
1.6 On language
Clue
Chomskys works of 1957,
1955, and 1965 contain
what you need to know
about the Innatist theory
he advocates in his
Universal Grammar. Such
assumption, that language
is innate, is also applied
by studies of language
in Neurolinguistics and
Cognitive Science.
Task
Find out and explain
why the first written
language is called
CUNEIFORM. Discuss
it with classmates and
tutor.
16
havior, learn languages, produce and understand utterances. This concept evidences the
universality of language to all humans and the
biological basis of the human capacity for language as a unique development of the human
brain. This view understands language as innate, as Chomsky postulated.
Another definition describes language as
a formal closed structural system of symbols
ruled by grammatical rules that relate particular signs to particular meanings, that is, Structuralism. As you already know, the structuralist theory was firstly introduced by the linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure. This view of language
had adepts as Noam Chomsky who introduced the generative grammar and defined
language as a particular set of sentences that
can be generated from a particular set of rules.
In the philosophy of language these views are
commonly associated with famous philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, early Wittgenstein, Alfred Tarski and Gottlob Frege.
Language is also seen as an instrument
for communication that enables humans to
cooperate and share experiences. This definition stresses the social functions of language
and the fact that humans use it to express
themselves and communicate. This view of
language is also associated with the study of
language in a functional, or pragmatic and
sociolinguistic framework. In the Philosophy
of language these views are often associated
with Wittgensteins later works and with language philosophers such as G. E. Moore, Paul
Grice, J. L. Austin and John Searle.
It is well known that the first form of written language is called cuneiform, but spoken
language has been seen as a predator of writing for almost two centuries. Language may
refer both to the human capacity for acquiring
and using complex systems of communication, and to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific
study of language in any of its senses is called
Linguistics.
The human language faculty is thought
to be fundamentally different from and of
much higher complexity than those of other
species. It is highly complex in that it is based
on a set of rules relating symbols to their
meanings, thereby forming an infinite number
of possible innovative utterances from a finite
number of elements.
Language origin would date back to the
period when early hominids first started co-
Task
Answer: What are
Wernickes and
Brocas areas? Search
about them, write
the information and
discuss them with
your tutor.
Glossary
morpheme: Term
used in Morphology. A
morpheme is composed by phoneme(s),
the smallest linguistically distinctive units
of sound in spoken
language, that has
semantic meaning.
Example: unbelievable:
has three morphemes:
un-, a bound morpheme. (Available at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Morpheme.
Task
At this point, dear students, I ask you to take
a second reading of
the Textbook on Morphology of the English
Language (2010) written for your course by
Martins, de Souza and
Ferreira de Souza to
review interesting details about morphemes
and related issues and
words.
To Expand
Learning
refer to one of the
latest book on this matter: The Way we think,
Conceptual Blending
and the Minds Hidden
Complexities, by Gilles
Faucconnier and Mark
Turner, 2002.
17
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
thoughts are different from one language to
the other, and no set of rules can claim to be
the right one. For example, in English you
say I like beer, whereas in Spanish you would
say Me gusta la cerveza and the translation
of the latter into English would be something
like: Beer is agreeable to me, or [is agreeable to me the beer], which sounds strange in
English. But make no mistake: neither of these
Chuyntnhmygi
Ta yunhaungy
Anhlgiemlmy
Giirongy
Giitmmy
Giamyiyi
Ninocgi
Niscmy
Nuniycmy
Emstm thy gi
Vgilunu
Yumychmyvtmnmy. (Author: the Vietnamese NguynThanhHiu)
Did you sing it? No? Why?
Now, take a look at the following pictures.
Figures 5, 6, 7: Tropical
Summer
Source:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/?
CTT=6&ver=14&app=win
word.exe
18
19
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
Task
Nevertheless, as economy and technology increase in complexity all over the world,
the number of color terms increase in the
same proportion, I mean, the spectrum of visible light is subdivided into many more categories. Still, as the environment changes,
language and culture respond accordingly by
creating new terminology to describe it.
Sapir and Whorf concluded that these
data indicated that colors are not objective,
not naturally determined segments of reality,
but predetermined by what your culture prepares you to see. Do you want some evidence
of that? Make the following test: What color
is the girls blouse in the following picture?
(Check the answer in the next Clue.)
Did you answer pink, light pink, light
wine, dark pink, Italian grape, violet? If you did
it is all right in your Brazilian culture but not in
the American.
Clue
If you answered mauve
or lavender you did
well. You showed some
learning about an
American trait. Both
the terms for this color
are correct In American
English. They do not
see/feel pink in the
girls blouse as we do.
Now, lets very briefly revisit some basic concepts of culture because this basic content must
have been discussed in disciplines such as Introduction to Linguistics and Semantics during your
course.
1.7 On culture
What would be the correspondent in English to the following cartoon originally written in
Portuguese? Are you ready to translate it into English? Yes? No? Why?
Task
Re-read and review
these aspects in the
textbooks mentioned.
Task
What would be the
aspects in the Brazilian
culture not shared by
the American culture? And how is that
language conveys such
differences? Discuss
them with your tutor.
Figure 9: On Brazilian
soccer and fans.
Source: www.gazetado-
povo.com.br/charges/
20
English, and generally used by the 1940s lower class people in London who made use of a
dialect called cockney highly disseminated all
over England today. The word bloody is typical
of cockney speakers but its repetition, together with the student attitude is a sign of impoliteness in any English speaking countries and
in America as well. And when addressed to authorities, as the teacher in the cartoon above,
it becomes a more offensive verbal behavior.
Cockney is competently dealt with by the
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw in his
play Pygmalion (1912), according to Shaw a romance in Five Acts, in which Henry Higgins, a
Professor of phonetics, bets his friend Pickering that he can train a sloppy Cockney flower
girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at
an ambassadors garden party in London by
teaching her to assume the figure of gentility
and poseur, through the most important element, he believes, is impeccable speech.
Figure12: Mrs. Patrick Campbell to whom Shaw would have written the role of Eliza Doolittle.
Source: Pygmalion Wikipedia, free encyclopedia. pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion
Figure 13: Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964), film based on the Broadway musical,
Source: The Broadway Musical Home - My Fair Lady.www.broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/myfairlady.htm
21
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
Packaged as a romantic comedy, the play
is a sharp satire of the rigid British class system
and a criticism on womens independence.
The play artistic versions include films (1938),
an adaptation by Shaw and others, and My Fair
Lady (1964), a film version of the musical starring Audrey Hepburn as Eliza and Rex Harrison
as Higgins. On TV, there were at least three or
four productions of the play in 1963, 1983 and
1985.
Based on the 1938 film, Shaws play became a Broadway musical (1956) of huge success because of its beautiful musical score and
lyrics, by Allan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe
respectively. A non-English language version
of the musical was performed in Brazil (Minha
Querida dama,1963) with a convincing Portuguese translation and the competent featuring of Bibi Ferreira as Eliza and Paulo Autran
as Higgins, to name only some of the famous
Brazilian actors and actresses of that time performing in the musical.
Let us now go back to the cartoon and
take a look at the teachers surprising long
face, especially his eyes, to confirm our assumption that language intertwines culture.
That is why language and culture cannot be
separated, for language is vital to understanding our unique cultural perspectives. Language is a tool that is used to explore and
experience our cultures and the perspectives
that are embedded in our cultures. (Buffy
Sainte-Marie, American Singer and Song
Writer. Available at:www.anthro.palomar.edu/
language/language_5.htm, access in 6th July
2011.).
We are starting to realize the relation of
22
text.
speaking majority and those differences commonly create divisions among the neighboring peoples or among different groups of the
same nation.
This sort of conflict is becoming an issue
in America as speakers of standard American
English, that is, whites and educated minorities observe the growing number of speakers
of the Black English dialect. Debates emerge
over whether it is proper to use Ebonics in
schools, while its speakers continue to assert
that the dialect is a fundamental part of the
black culture. But it is always well to remember that we are talking about the properties of
language in general. And then I ask you, dear
students: Should the word Ivorics, as a counterpart for Ebonics, be invented and used
gallantly to refer to the whites in schools as
well? Let us take a look at Paul McCartneys lyrics/poem in a song.
Glossary
Ebonics refers to
ebony, a type of English spoken by some
African-American in the
USA. The word is also
the name of a tree with
a black color. Ivorics in
contrast refers to ivory,
a yellowish-white color.
23
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
What we need to survive together alive.
Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh lord why dont we?
Ebony, ivory living in perfect harmony
Can you see how Paul deals with the rhyming of the relevant words in the poem, I mean,
ebony-harmony-t we? Can you feel the power of language and real images in the second line as
he says Side by side on my piano keyboard?
Task
Paul refers to the union
of the black and white
notes, an integral
part of the piano he
is playing. They stand
together in harmony
to make music perfect.
Why shouldnt humans
do the same as these
notes? Discuss the subject with your tutor.
Task
Discuss this issue with
your tutor and classmates. Compare the
situation of Ebony and
Ivory in Anglo-America
to Brazil. You will find
out that cultures may
share similarities. Ebony
and ivory if translated
into Portuguese would
carry the same burden
as in American English?
Clue
Read more about
this issue at www.
lexiophiles.com/.../therelationship-betweenlanguage-and-culture.
Think about this: Would
it be plausible to assume that our thinking is influenced by
the language we use?
Could it be the other
way around instead:
Would our language
be influenced by our
thoughts?
24
Source:pt.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Paul_McCartney.
Now, tell me, dear students, what is behind Paul McCartneys lyrics in terms of cultural manifestations? I remind you that Paul is a British citizen but has lived in America for many years now.
Therefore, he is supposed to be acquainted with many aspects of the USA culture.
Task
What do you think,
dear students, about
the question in the
Clue on this page? Research on the Internet
about Language and
Thought, by Vygotsky in
an eBook at www.ebooksbrasil.org/eLibris/
vigo.html, for instance,
and discuss it with your
tutor and classmates.
To learn more
This sign, with the same linguistic structures, is also found at the entrance hall of The
Four Seasons, a famous restaurant in New York
City. Why would it be there?
Research about languages spoken all over
the world focuses on the status of languages
and show how they have varied and changed
over time, and that is due to social-historicalcultural factors. A look at intercultural communication examines how these factors can
affect interactions between people from
countries and backgrounds.
Leveridge (2008) states that different uses
of languages convey distinct ideas within different cultures and the whole intertwining
of such relationships start very early, at ones
birth, but it is only after he is exposed to his
surroundings that he becomes an individual
in and of their social-cultural group. Childrens
lives, opinions and language are shaped by
what they come in contact with.
Physically and mentally everyone would
be the same, whereas the interactions between persons or groups vary widely from
place to place. Behavior patterns resulting
from interaction among the individuals in the
groups will be approved or disapproved of depending on their being acceptable or not, and
this will vary from location to location thus
forming the basis of different cultures. Ones
I remind you that Benjamin Lee Whorf (18971941), the American linguist, in his hypothesis
claimed that there is a
relation of language to
thinking and cognition.
He advocates that language shapes the way
we think, and determines all what we can
think about. Would be
true? Couldnt it be the
other way around and
our thought shape the
language we speak?
What do you think, my
friends?
Task
Why should those people wait to be seated?
What do the linguistic
structures mean? Is
there any relation of
culture to the linguistic
structures? Is it common to find such signs
in Brazil? Where and
what for? Write some
considerations about
your answers and
discuss them with your
tutor and classmates.
25
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
new culture (ALLWRIGHT; BAILEY, 1991). Consequently, teachers of a language are also teachers of culture (BYRAM, 1989).
As we all know by now, dear students,
undoubtedly language is deeply rooted in
culture. However in what concerns language
teaching and language policy things seem to
be quite different. To promote understanding instead of misconceptions or prejudices,
aspects to be considered when instructing
students, language teachers must show that
cultural background of language usage, the
selection of culturally appropriate teaching
styles, and the exploration of culturally based
linguistic differences are needed. Also, language policy must be put in action to create
awareness and understandings of cultural differences, and to incorporate the cultural values taught. But most importantly it is strongly
advisable that Brazilian English teachers help
their students realize that there are no better
or worse cultures or languages. They are only
different. Students cultural identity must be
kept at all costs.
At this point, dear students, I think you
can easily understand what Mr. Gandhis quote
is all about at the opening of this first unit.
References
ALLWRIGHT, D; BAILEY, K. M. Focus on the Language Classroom.New York: Cambridge University Press. Anton, M. 1999.
BYRAM.M. S. Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Education.Language Arts & Disciplines.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1989.
CHOMSKY, Noam. Transformational Analysis. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania,
1955.
HANTRAIS, Linda. The undergraduates guide to studying languages. London: Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research. 1989
LEVERIDGE, Aubrey Neil. The Relationship Between Language & Culture and the Implications for language teaching. Written for TEFL,. September, 2008.
PINKER, Steven.1994 - The Language Instinct: How the Mind CreatesLanguage. New York: HarperCollins. Bookmark. 1994.
POLLOCK, John; EMMIT, Marie. Language and learning: an introduction for teaching. Oxford
University Press, Melbourne, 1997.
WHORF Benjamin Lee; SAPIR, Edward.Sapir and WhorfHypothesis.In Infopedia. Porto: Porto
Editora, 2003-2011.
www.anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_5.htm.
www.bartleby.com/138, wikipedia.
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/anglo_saxons/ - Em cache
www.developing teachers.com/quotes/q1.htm.
www.facebook.com/pages/...America.
26
Unit 2
2.2 America
As I mentioned in the By Way of presentation, because it would be unviable in one textbook such as this to deal with all the AngloAmerican cultures, I will deal specifically with
the USA culture, and some of its implications
for the teaching and learning of English.
America is usually used to refer to the
United States, but only until the political formation of the United States after the Revolutionary War. The contemporary use of the
term America to refer to the US is due to the
countrys political and economic dominance in
the western hemisphere. In the past America
referred to South America only. Canadians and
27
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
A leader in technology and industry, the
Northeast of the country has been overtaken
in those areas by Californias Silicon Valley. The
region is densely populated and its extensive
corridors of urbanization have been called the
national megalopolis. On its turn, the Midwest is both rural and industrial. It is where
we find the corn belt and breadbasket of
the nation. It is also known as the home of the
family farm.
In the Great Lakes area in the upper Midwest, the automobile and steel industries were
28
To learn more
Based upon the stories about the people
who lived by the Mississippi River, the musician Jerome Kern composed Show Boat a musical in two acts with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. The show, whose plot chronicles the
lives of those living and working on the Cotton
Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, from
1880 to 1902, was originally produced in New
York in 1927 and in London in 1928. The show
was based on the 1926 novel of the same
name by the American writer Edna Ferber. The
shows dominant themes include racial prejudice and tragic enduring love. By the way, musicals are a remarkable trait of the American
culture though it was not originated in America but in England. They will be discussed in
Unit 3.
Dams and pipelines were built and
changed the landscape in the West as they
transformed Los Angeles and its desert surroundings into a giant oasis. The rich topsoil of
the Midwest is an important agricultural area
with its rivers and lakes that made it central
to industrial development. However, settlers
significantly transformed their environments,
2.3.1 Demographics
The United States has a population of
over 280 million (2000 census), but it is relatively sparsely populated. The most populous state, California, with 33,871,648 inhabitants, contrasts with Wyoming, which has only
493,782 residents. These figures demonstrate
that the United States is an urban nation. Over
75% of the inhabitants live in cities, among
whom more than 50% are estimated to be
29
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
Task
Research on the Internet what is the meaning of the expression
baby boomers? Did
the Brazilian population suffered from such
a phenomenon? Discuss with your tutor.
2.3.2 US Languages
30
Yiddish, Swedish, and Norwegian are other languages used in the press and in public
schools. Therefore, proponents of the teaching of English only, who claim that bilingual
education should not be provided to Spanish-speaking immigrants because earlier immigrants did not have this advantage, as they
often were schooled in their native languages.
Education was fundamental in stimulating the teaching of English as a standard language and public schools played a major role
in that. By 1870, every state in the country had
committed itself to compulsory education.
The percentage of foreign-born persons who
2.3.3 The USA Symbols: The Flag, the Bald Eagle, the Great Seal
and The Star-Spangled Banner.
The symbols of the US government include: government buildings (as the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC), statues and memorials, songs, oaths, and symbols.
The national symbols are the American Flag, the Bald Eagle, the Great Sea, Figures of Justice,
the Liberty Bell, the National Flower Rose, Uncle Sam and the National Anthem.
Task
research and find two
examples of the following government
symbols: statuses, memorials, songs, oaths.
Discuss them with your
tutor.
Task
research and find information about Figures
of Justice, Liberty Bell,
National Flower and
Uncle Sam.
Figure 20, 21,and 22: The American flag, the Bald eagle and the Great Seal US government symbols.
Source: U.S. Symbols - Bens Guide to U.S. Government for KidsAvailable at U.S. .bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/ - .
31
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
Made up of stripes symbolizing the first
thirteen colonies and of fifty stars representing the fifty states, the American flag is perhaps the most potent and contested national
symbol. On national holidays, such as Veterans
Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Independence Day, it is displayed in public places and
businesses buildings. Individuals who display
the flag in their homes or yards, and they are
many, make an explicit statement about their
patriotic connection to the nation. The flags
also employed frequently as a symbol of
protest. In the nineteenth century, northern
abolitionists hoisted the flag upside down to
protest the return of an escaped slave to his
southern owner; and upside-down flags continue to be used as a sign of protest.
The use of the stars and stripes design
in clothing, whether for fashion, humor, or
protest, is controversial as it is considered by
some people as treason or disrespect to the
national symbol and by others as an individual
right in a State that upholds individual rights.
Differently from what you may think the
Glossary
anthem is a countrys
national song. To hum - is
to emit sounds corresponding to the music notes.
(In Portuguese would be
cantarolar sem abrir a boca)
Task
To learn more
about history, geography and other important social studies information about US, check
out the Social Studies
Video Index at American Iconswww.kidport.
com/.../americanicons/
AmericanIconIndex.ht...
- Em cache -
32
2.3.4 Anglo-Americans
An English-speaking European, an English
Canadian and an American are usually referred
to as Anglo-American, sometimes shortened
to Anglo. Its origin dates back to the discussion of the history of English-speaking people
of the US and the Spanish-speaking people
living in the western U.S. during the MexicanAmerican War. The usage of the word Anglo
generally ignores the distinctions between
German Americans (the largest ancestry group
in the United States, as you know), Irish Americans, English Americans, Italian Americans,
Swedish Americans, and other European descent English-speaking peoples who are the
majority in the United States and Canada.
As to European English-speaking, the
term Anglo American is sometimes but rarely
viewed as an insult as the term Hispanic is to
Clue
the natives of the Americas.
To a certain extent, Anglo has come to
denote all English-speaking people and their
descendants, no matter their prior ethnic, except for the children descendant from Chinese
Spanish speakers that would always be referred to as Hispanic.
Finally, Anglo-American also refers to
those coming from countries that traditionally
spoke English as the main language, as well as
all those whose families have become Englishspeaking people in Canada and the US. Anglo-American is often used in legal, economic
and political documents and other writings in
reference to those countries that have similar
legal regimes generally based on the English
common law.
To learn more
Culture of United States
of America - history,
people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs,
food, customs, family
http://www.everyculture.com/To-Z/UnitedStates-of-America.
html#ixzz1UI25w0EC
Figure 24:American Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell shakes hands with President Barack Obama in a
photo taken by The White House official photographer shortly after Mr. Mitchells show was over.
Source: Available at Brian Stokes Mitchell Official site and atn.wikipedia.org/wiki. Access in 5th June, 2011
33
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
according to estimates from the official government Programs and Surveys. Hispanic and
Latino Americans compose 15% of the population; Black Americans are the largest racial
minority, nearly 13% of the population; the
White, not-Hispanic or Latino population comprises 66% of the nations total.
The majority of the White Americans
reach their highest share of the population in
the Midwestern United States 85% according
to official Programs or 83% conforming 2002
Surveys and lives in every region. On their
turn, Non-Hispanic Whites make up 79% of the
Midwests population, the highest ratio of any
Task
refer to www.
en.wikipdia.org/Race
and ethnicity in the
United States, main
article: Demographics
in the United States
for further getting
information about The
USA demographics and
historical trends and
influences. Take notes
of these aspects for
discussions with your
tutor and classmates.
According to the 2000 Census and subsequent US Census Bureau surveys, Americans selfdescribed as belonging to the following racial groups:
White: those having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or
North Africa.
Black or African American: those having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.
American Indian or Alaska Native, also called Native Americans: those having origins in any
of the original peoples of North, Central and South America, and who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment.
Asian, also called Asian American: those having origins in any of the original peoples of the
Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent; frequently specified as Chinese American, Korean American, Indian American, Filipino American, Vietnamese American, Japanese
American etc.
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: Those having origins in any of the original peoples
of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands called Pacific Islander Americans.
34
New religions have grown such as Buddhism, with meditation, yoga, astrology, and
Native American spirituality which blend elements of Eastern religions and practices.
In sum, the majority of Americans (76%)
identify themselves as Christians, mostly
within Protestant (51%) and Catholic (25%)
denominations. Non-Christian religions as
Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, collectively make up about 3.9% to 5.5% of the
adult population. Another 15% says that they
have neither religious belief nor religious affiliation. Some 5.2%, when asked, declared that
they did not know, or refused to reply. A reli-
Glossary
We-sorts - name,
regarded as derogatory
by some, for a group
of Native Americans
in Maryland who are
from the Piscataway
tribe who have always
claimed to be Native
American people. They
were powerful at the
time of European encounter. Interestingly,
individuals with the
surnames Proctor, Newman, Savoy, Queen,
Butler, Thompson,
Swann, Gray and Harley, claim that Native
heritage.
To learn more
Read the Statistical
Abstract of the United
States, on the Internet
at www.census.gov/
compendia/statab/
cats/population.thml.
35
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
Task
Find explanations
for the expressions
Unchurched Belt and
Bible belt. Answer the
question: Are there any
other sorts of Belts in
the USA? If so, discuss
these aspects with your
tutor and classmates.
In what religion is
concerned, is Brazil also
divided in Belts? Why?
Comment your answers
with your colleagues
and tutor.
gious Identification Survey revealed that beliefs vary considerably across the country: 59%
of Americans living in Western states (the Unchurched Belt) report a belief in God; however in the South (the Bible Belt) the faith is as
high as 86%.
The USA has also a tradition of non-ordained and nontraditional religious practitioners who include evangelical lay preachers,
religious leaders associated with New Age
religions, and leaders of religious movements
designated as cults who profess their faith as
the practitioners of world religions such as
priests, ministers, and rabbis do. Women are
increasingly entering traditionally male religious positions. There are now women ministers in many Protestant denominations and
women rabbis. The country does not have religious rituals or designated holy places that
have meaning to the population as a whole.
However, Salt Lake City is a holy city for Mormons, and the Black Hills of South Dakota and
other places are sacred Native American sites.
And yet, there are many shared secular rituals
and places that have an almost religious importance such as baseball and football games.
Championship games in these sports, the
World Series and the Super Bowl, respectively,
constitute major annual events and celebrations. Disneyland, Hollywood, and Grace-land
(Elvis Presleys estate) are considered important places.
In what concerns death and after death
matters, Americans have an uncomfortable re-
36
To learn more
Who was Jim Crow?
Research about this
man, write down some
considerations about
him and discuss with
your tutor.
Clue
The Sun Belt, or Spanish
Belt, is the region comprising the southern
tier of the United States
and includes the states
of Alabama, Arizona,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New
Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas,
roughly half of California (up to Greater
Sacramento), and parts
of Arkansas, North
Carolina, and southern Nevada. Its main
feature is its warmtemperate climate with
extended summers and
brief, relatively mild
winters. The extreme
southern part of the
Sun Belt (South Florida)
has a true tropical
climate.
37
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
The 2000 Census indicated that 54.8% of
African Americans lived in the South. In that
same year, 17.6% of African Americans lived in
the Northeast and 18.7% in the Midwest, while
only 8.9% lived in the western states. In fact,
the west does have a sizable black population
in certain areas, though. California, for example, the nations most populous state, has the
fifth largest African American population, only
behind Florida, Texas, New York, and Georgia.
The same Census stated that approximately
2.05% of African Americans are identified as
Hispanic or Latino in origin, many of whom
may be of Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Haitian, or other Latin American
descent. The Irish and Germans are the only
self-reported ancestral groups larger than the
African Americans. Among the many African
Americans that trace their ancestry to colonial
American origins, some simply self-identify as
American.
In 2000 almost 58% of African Americans lived in metropolitan areas. Over 2 million black residents lived in New York City
which had the largest black urban population in the United States. Overall the city has
a 28% black population. Chicago holds the
second largest black population, almost 1.6
million African Americans, some 18 percent
of the total metropolitan population. Cities
with a population of 100,000 or more, like Detroit (Michigan) had the highest percentage of
black residents of the U.S. in 2010, with 82%.
Other large cities with African American majorities are New Orleans (Louisiana, 60%), Baltimore (Maryland, 63%), Atlanta(Georgia, 54%),
Memphis(Tennessee, 61%), and Washington,
D.C (50.7%).
As to their economic status, African
Americans have benefited economically from
the advances made during the Civil Rights era,
particularly the educated, but not without the
lingering effects of historical marginalization.
The racial disparity in poverty rates has narrowed and the black middle class has grown
substantially in such a way that in 2000, 47% of
African Americans owned their homes. In 1998
the poverty rate among African-Americans
was 26.5%; in 2004 it decreased to 24.7%.
The buying power of African-Americans
is over $892 billion currently and will be likely
over $1.1 trillion by 2012. This makes African
Americans the second largest consumer group
in America. In 2002 African American owned
businesses accounted for 1.2 million of the
USs 23 million businesses.
African American workers had the second-highest median earnings of American minority groups in 2004, after Asian Americans.
38
To learn more
Again it is important to
refer to The Statistical
Abstract of the United
States, on the Internet
at www.census.gov/
compendia/statab/
cats/population.thml.
39
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
Figure31: The
King & Carter
Jazzing Orchestra
photographed in
Houston, Texas,
January 1921
Source: en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/File:Jazzing_orchestra_1921.png - En cache
40
Afro-Americans were and are highly influential in the United States as they have contributed language, literature, art, foods, agricultural skills, clothing styles, and music, social
and technological innovation to American
culture from their earliest presence in North
America.
The cultivation and use of many agricultural products in the U.S., such as yams, peanuts, rice, okra, sorghum, grits, watermelon,
indigo dyes, and cotton can be traced to African and African-American influences. A notable example includes George Crum, who
invented the potato chip, a cultural symbol of
the US, in 1853.
Soul, blues, Hip hop, R&B, funk, rock and
roll, and other contemporary American musical forms originated in black communities
and evolved from other black forms of music,
including blues, doo-wop, barbershop, ragtime, bluegrass, jazz, and gospel music makes
of Black music one of the most dominant in
mainstream popular music. Representatives
of famous icon singers include Nat King Cole,
Natalie Cole, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Lionel Ritchie, Steve Wonder, Sammy Davies Junior (also an actor and dancer),
among others. Today, they are countless.
African American musical genres are the
most important ethnic tradition in America,
as they have developed independently of
African traditions more than any other immigrant groups, including Europeans and have,
historically, been more influential, interculturally, geographically, and economically, than
any other American traditions. Like Brazilian
Africa-descendants, African- American musical
forms have also influenced and been incorporated into virtually every other popular musical genre in the world, including country and
41
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
To learn more
read the siteen.wikipedia.org/.../Category:
Ethnic_groups_in_
the_United States, for
getting more knowledge about Race and
Ethnicity in The USA.
Task
See the musical movie
West Side Story to
understand the story of
the struggle of Hispanic
immigrants in their trial
to live together with
the Anglo-Americans in
the 1950s. Discuss the
discrimination in the
film and its implications for the teaching
of English as a second
language with your
classmates and tutor.
42
by the Spanish, who are the longest among European American ethnic groups and second-longest of all U.S. ethnic groups, after Native Americans.
Hispanics have also lived continuously in the Southwest since near the end of the 16th century with settlements in New Mexico that began in 1598, and were transferred to the area of El
Paso, Texas, in 1680. Spanish settlement of New Mexico resumed in 1692, and other new ones
were established in Arizona and California in the 18th century (Available at www.linguee.com.br/
ingles-portugues/.../we+sort.html -. Access 5th July, 2011).
The question on Latino/Hispanic origin concerns ethnicity not race as mentioned previously
for no separate racial category exists for Hispanic and Latino Americans, and they do not make
up a race of their own. When responding to the race question on the Census form they choose
from among the same racial categories as all Americans, and are included in the items and numbers reported for those races.
Thus each racial category includes Non-Hispanic or Latino and Hispanic or Latino Americans. The White race category, for instance, includes Non-Hispanic Whites and Hispanic Whites;
The Black or African American category contains Non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanic Blacks, and
the same is said of all the other categories. Self-identifying as Hispanic or Latino and not Hispanic
or not Latino is neither explicitly allowed nor explicitly prohibited. (www.linguee.com.br/inglesportugues/.../we+sort.html -. Access 5th July, 2011).
Glossary
indentured slavespeople who agree to
work with someone
else to learn the job.
Task: Find out on
the Internet further
information about the
historical facts that influenced the formation
of the white population
in America, from 1729
to 1991.
To learn more
See the film Gangs of
New York (2002)and
know more about the
Irish presence in New
York, NY, in the early
1920s.
43
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
White immigrants also tend to move to
and live in areas populated by people with
similar backgrounds. This fact has proved to
be true throughout the history of immigration
to the United States. Three-quarters of immigrants surveyed by Public Census (2002) said
they intended to make the USA their permanent home and emphasized that if they had
to immigrate again, 80% of them would still
come to that country. In the same study, 80%
of immigrants said the government has become tougher on enforcing immigration laws
since 9/11, and 30% report that they personally
have experienced some sort of discrimination.
According to many recent surveys, the attacks of September 11, 2001 have influenced
the birth of Public attitudes about immigration in the U.S.A. Fifty per cent of the Americans believe that immigration is a good thing
overall for their country, but the other half say
tighter control on immigration would do a
great deal to enhance national security.
From 1991 to 2000, the USA admitted
more legal immigrants (10 to 11 million) than
in any previous decades. In the most recent
decade, the ten million legal immigrants that
settled in the USA represent an annual growth
of only about 0.3% as the country population
grew from 249 million to 281 million. Specifically, aproximately 15% of the Americans were
foreign-born in 1910, against about only 10%
of foreign-born in 1999.
By 1970, immigrants accounted for 4.7%
of the USA population and rising to 6.2% in
1980, with an estimated 12.5% to this present
year. In 2010, a quarter of the residents of the
United States under 18 were immigrants or immigrants children.
In 2006, the United States accepted more
legal immigrants as permanent residents than
all other countries in the world combined.
Since the removal of ethnic quotas in immigration in 1965, the number of first-generation
immigrants living in USA has quadrupled from
9.6 million in 1970 to about 38 million in 2007.
(Available at Category: Ethnic_groups_in_the_
United States. Access, July, 2010)
In 2008, 8% of all babies born in the U.S.
belonged to illegal immigrant parents, according to a recent analysis of the USA Census Bureau data (Pew Hispanic Center). About
1,046,539 persons were naturalized as USA
citizens in 2008. Mexico, India, the Philippines,
and China were the leading emigrating countries to the United States, but the last ones are
of oriental origin, the so called yellow race, not
44
white.
The cheap airline travel post-1960 facilitated travel to the United States, but migration
remains difficult, expensive, and dangerous
for those who cross the United StatesMexico
border illegally. Family reunification is the direct cause for two-thirds of legal immigration
to the US every year. The number of foreign
nationals who became legal permanent residents of the USA in 2009 as a result of family
reunification (66%) outpaced those who became residents on the basis of employment
skills (13%) and humanitarian reasons (17%).
Recent debates on immigration demanded increasing enforcement of existing
laws with regard to illegal immigration to the
United States, the building of a barrier along
some or the entire 2,000-mile (3,200 km) USAMexico border, or creating a new guest worker
program. Along 2006, the country and Congress were immersed in a debate about these
proposals. In April 2010, few of these proposals had become law, though a partial border
fence was approved and subsequently cancelled.
One major issue for the USA immigration
these days is undoubtedly the question of terrorism which has become an obsession for the
population in general and for the American
governmental authorities in particular since
the successful terrorist attacks and collapsing of the Twin Towers that composed the
World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan,
NY., (under the command of terrorist Osama
Bin Laden), which opened the eyes of the
Americans for the fact that they were vulnerable, somewhat unprotected or unprepared to
face and fight terrorism. (/.../Category: Ethnic_
groups_in_the_United States). But reconstruction is the word these days. A complex with
four buildings is being built inGround Zero:
two tall major ones and two smaller ones. The
tallest ones are almost finished.
Despite all constraints imposed by the
immigration laws, one of the major sources
of population growth and cultural change
throughout much of the history of the United
States has been immigration. The economic,
social, and political aspects of immigration
have caused controversy regarding ethnicity,
economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,
settlement patterns, impact on upward social
mobility, crime, and voting behavior. However,
Americans cannot deny the invaluable contribution of immigrants for the development
and progress of their country.
References
ALLWRIGHT, D.; BAILEY KM (1991).Focus on the language classroom: an introduction to classroom research for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
BROOKS, N (1986) Culture in the classroom. In JM Valdes (ed) Culture bound: bridging the cultural gap in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 123128.
BYRAM M (1989) Cultural studies in foreign language education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
EMMITT M; POLLOCK J. Language and learning: an introduction for teaching (2nded). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. (1997)
HANTRAIS, Linda. The undergraduates guide to studying languages. London: Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research, 1989.
LEVERIDGE, A.N. Language and Culture, Paper for TEFL.net | September 2008.
edition.tefl.net/articles/teacher.../language-culture/ enwww.historyworld.net/.../PlainTextHistories.asp
enwww.kidport.com/.../americanicons/AmericanIconIndex.ht... - Em cache
en.wikipedia.org/.../Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-America-.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_United_States -www.wikepedia.).
wikipedia.org/.../Category: Ethnic_groups_in_the_United States,
wikipedia.uab.edu/elci-Em cache. And also at: ww.lonweb.org/link-english.htm - En cache.
wikipedia/org/wiki/Hispanic-and- Latino-Americans.
www.everyculture.com/To-Z/United-States-of-America.html#ixzz1UHeEvU6s.
www.kidport.com/.../usageography/usageograph...
www.linguee.com.br/ingles-portugues/.../we+sort.html -.
www.nps.gov/appa/ - Em cache
www.workpermit.com Immigration
45
Unit 3
Dave Barry, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author famous for his weekly newspaper humorist column for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005 means something with this hilarious and
ironic quote. He criticizes the decanted ignorance of the Americans about other peoples languages, or say, the arrogance some Americans sometimes exhibit in relation to what happens in
the rest of the world. The quote is about events in old times (1947). And because the world and
things changed, today, after so many ordeals, tragic wars and events the Americans had to rethink and face a world which has been changing considerably. The quote, however, shows some
traits of the American culture worth some discussion.
It is true that the ironic quote reveals the opinion that Americans hold certain ignorance
about some facts shared by most people. But would it be really ignorance or should we remember that at that time (1947) the dream was not over, that Americas supremacy over other countries was so absolute that they would not consider the possibility of the world speak languages
other than English? This, then, rise to a cultural trait conveyed by language Americas hegemony/arrogance before other nations.
It follows that culture and language intermingled to reveal the authors intended meaning
and produce the desired effect on readers: laughter, especially from the foreign people but not
from the Americans.
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Glossary
heretics: Anti-Christians.
Clue
In South America
Simn Bolvar and Jos
de San Martin abolished the Inquisition; in
Spain itself the institution survived until 1834
(The Inquisition in the
New World, by Clara
Steinberg-Spitz. (ww.
sefarad.org/publication/lm/037/6.html.
Access in May 2011).
48
My choice for approaching some aspects of the Spanish Inquisition was not at random and
twofold: I was moved by the great influence this long historical event exerted on the European
and eventually in the American cultures, history, society and languages. Secondly, the Holy Office
would give birth to Witch Hunts in the USA and influence its culture and language. Obviously, as I
mentioned elsewhere in this textbook, facts other than this religious one that are equally influential in the USAs culture and language.
In brief words, The Holy Inquisition, or The Holy Office, that is, the fight against heretics so
to speak, by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church, started
in the 12th century with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heretics. Thus the Holly
Office performed an outstanding role to guarantee, through torture and strong repression, Catholic beliefs and creeds all over the world for centuries. Inquisition practices were used also on
offences against canon law other than heresy. The fight to combat heresy against the Catholic
Church spread (almost) all over the New World (Americas) colonized by the Spanish.
With the exception of Brazil and the northeast coast of South America, all of that continent
as well as Central America, Mexico (North America), and some of the Caribbean Islands were part
of the Spanish colonial empire from 1492 to the 1820s. The establishment of the Inquisition in
Spain dates back to 1478. But it was only in 1569 that it was set up with two tribunals by King
Philip. The Inquisition also reached North America and carried on with its function until the Mexican War of Independence (18101821).
In the following pictures take a good look at some of the cruel forms of punishment the European Inquisition submitted the heretics to and how the inquisitors used to dress themselves.
Figure 38: Joan of Arcs Death at the Stake, by Hermann Stilke (18031860).
Source: www.pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc - En cache
Source: Available at www.newadvent.org Catholic Encyclopedia. Access in: May 2nd, 2011
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Glossary
Enunciate: term usually used to refer, but
not exclusively, to a
sentence in discourse.
Gallows humor: black
humor.
Task
Did you laugh on hearing the joke? Yes, no,
why? Write down about
the reasons of your
laughter no matter you
answer to discuss them
with your tutor and
classmates.
To learn more
watch the video: Sir
Thomas Mores execution on the YouTube
and write down his last
words from the moment he walks amongst
people to reach the
scaffold. Compare
them to the ones in the
joke. Make a written
comment and discuss
the part let me shift for
myself once again with
your tutor.
Clue
Thomas More was
decapitated in England,
country where the
hardships the Anglican
Church imposed to the
Catholics in late medieval times were retaliations to the persecution
of Protestants by The
Holy Catholic Church in
earlier medieval times,
when Catholic authorities and adepts in the
name of The Holy Office
executed or submitted
many people to death
or abominable tortures.
The Anglican Church
would promote a persecution to Catholics,
event that would result
in many English families The Puritans - immigrating to the New
World - North America,
specifically The USA.
50
Figures 38 and 39 portray the execution of Saint Joan of Arc, and a painting of the Sir Thomas More The great English philosopher and predecessor of Humanism in the XVI century. But differently from Saint Joans burning to death, the execution of Thomas More in medieval times has
become theme of films that gave origin to some hilarious (black humor) stories worthy of discussion due to the cultural aspects involved. One of them is:
As Sir Thomas More climbed a rickety scaffold where he would be executed, he said to his
executioner:
I pray you, Mr. Lieutenant, see me safe up; and for my coming down, let me
shift for myself. (Available at www.facebook.comGallowshumor-e Notes.com.
www.wnotes.com. Access in June, 2011).
If translated into Portuguese the joke would keep the authors intended meaning. But would
such meaning match with the listeners? Did you notice that this text is gallows humor and permeated by Sir Mores ironic enunciates? Yes, it is indeed. But what would be required to understand this joke?
Firstly, your knowledge of the world (always, and in all circumstances), then your linguistic
knowledge of English and of the British historical-social and cultural aspects such as who is Sir
Thomas More, what were the circumstances of his being sentenced to death penalty by The Holy
Inquisition, Sir Mores (British) control and elegancy but disdainful posture before death itself, his
intense faith for the Catholic Church and extreme respect for Henry VIII, who had condemned
him despite being his close friend. But most of all you need to capture the nuances and subtleties of the British humor which is, obviously, different from the Europeans, Americans, Brazilians
and from any other country.
Although there is equivalence in meaning between English and the Portuguese language
in the previous humor text, it is not consensual that in different cultures and languages such
equivalence always prevails. The same may be said of texts other than the humoristic ones. Some
have equivalence, others dont and in general due to social, cultural, pragmatic, historical and,
obviously, linguistic reasons. The point is that we cannot generalize things. And for you, dear students, the important is to open your minds to accept that you will not attain the level of linguistic proficiency needed for success in learning a foreign language without experiencing the cultural aspects involving it.
Still, watching a video on YouTube I found out that the story of the execution of Sir Thomas
More differs a little from the joke I told here. History tells that when he slid down in front of the
stairs of the scaffold where he would be decapitated, his exact enunciates were.
Thank you, my Lord Hereford, when I come down again let me shift for myself once again.
Time, History, culture and society have changed Mores speech thus turning it into gallows
humor, a sort of joke similar to the Brazilian black humor. Just out of curiosity, my friends, Thomas
More was named a Catholic saint in 1935. The heretic of the Medieval Times becomes a saint in
the 20th century. Is it possible to understand religions or men?
Political and religious authorities used the witch trials to impose their own ideas of order
and righteousness upon the local population. In America, as in Europe, violence was used to enforce uniformity and conformity in face of dissent and social disorder. Penalties were immediately applied especially if you were an older, deviant, troublesome or somehow a disorderly woman.
Take a look at the following picture and see how the (alleged) heretics were taken to the
scaffold to be burned to death.
Figure 41 American
Puritans fanaticism.
Witch hunts and
prosecution
Source: Available at: www.
rjgeib.com/thoughts/puritan/puritan.html Access
in13th May, 2010.
Now, let us see the ordeals American literary writers were submitted to in face of these
events.
In the 1630s the large immigration to Boston was the cause for the high articulation of
Puritan cultural ideals, and due to this fact the
early establishment of a college and a printing
press in Cambridge, the New England colonies have often been regarded as the center of
early American literature. Obviously, literature
of and about this period is fart. The Crucible, a
Task
Do you anything about
the presence of the
Holy Inquisition in Brazil? Yes, no? Research
about the Inquisition
in Brazil and answer:
Where there witch
hunts, or executions
of any sort? Write your
comments down for
further discussion with
your tutor.
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To Learn More
Read the whole article
in English Language
and Culture Institute. UAB.(Available
at: www.uab.edu/
elci- ENGLISH/ESL
MORE LINKS. Access
in August, 2011.) Take
notes and discuss them
with your tutor and
classmates.
Task
Find out the meaning
of the word Crucible
and discuss it with your
tutor in terms of its use
as an allegory in the
title of Millers play.
Glossary
allegory - is a figurative
mode of representation
conveying meaning
other than the verbal.
As a literary device,
an allegory in its most
general sense is an
extended metaphor
and as artistic device a
visual symbolic representation.
Clue
The House of Representatives Committee on
Un-American Activities
(HRCAA) is part of the
American history as
an organization created for repressing and
judging people.
Task
Find out why and what
for the HRCAA was
created. Discuss it with
your tutor. Did we have
organizations such as
this one in Brazil? Yes,
no, which ones? Discuss
it with your tutor.
To learn more
Watch excerpts in videos about The Crucible
at www.youtube.com/
watch?v=3pfuldf_Pck.
52
Task
Read the E-book at
www.online-literature.
com Nathaniel Hawthorne - and see the
film with Demi More
and find the meaning
of the expression scarlet letter A on Hesters
chest. Discuss the
theme with your tutor.
Task
Look up in the dictionary and check the way
Americans use the
word inconspicuously.
Discuss it with your
classmates.
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Task
Did you notice that Willys surname is LOMAN,
and that one of his sons
was named HAPPY?
Would you say that
Arthur Miller selected
these names on purpose? Would there be
any relation between
Loman and low man?If
so, why would have he
done that? Discuss it
with your tutor.
To Learn More
Read the E-book Death
of a Salesman on the Internet or see the movie
and dive into these
traits of the American
culture. A good suggestion is the play Final
Scene on the YouTube.
Pop! Im a dime a dozen and so are you. His final verdict on his father and his failure is that:
He had the wrong dreams. He never knew who he was.
It is part of Willys tragedy, however, that at this moment when he is asked to confront the
truth, and he cannot. This failure to face up to reality is seen in Willys response to Biffs honest
statement about what his professional position really was:
Who ever said I was a salesman with Oliver? I was a shipping clerk.
To which Willy replies: But you were practically.
Willys younger son, Happy, acts as a foil to Biff and gives evidence of his own failure to grow
into a man of integrity. He is more successful, in Willys viewpoint, than his brother but has been
corrupted by competitive business life. He tells Biff:
Im constantly lowering my ideals. His words speak for the playwright.
It is well to remember that American women were a force in early 20th century mainly in
1913 when the woman suffrage gave them the right to vote and to run for office much earlier
than any other female population of any other country. The expression force also applies for the
economic and political reform movements which aimed at extending those rights to women regardless of qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or marital status.
Now, dear students, what would be the women writers position as to literary texts revealing
American cultural aspects? It was only in the 1960s that, women writers began to challenge the
notion that womens place was in the home. That decade would give rise to feminist writers who
criticized the paternalism of marriage, submission and lack of dignity and identity. Among them
I mention the novelist Marge Piercy, the famous nonfiction writer Betty Friedan, the poets Anne
Sexton and Sylvia Plath, poet, novelist and short- story writer. Let us read one of Anne Sextons
poems in which she deals with womens issues and lyrically imbricates them in a flow of beauty
and consistency as she plays with the word ghosts unveiling and revealing womenscondition at
that time.
GHOSTS
Some ghosts are women,
neither abstract nor pale,
their breasts as limp as killed fish.
Not witches, but ghosts
who come, moving their useless arms
like forsaken servants.
Not all ghosts are women,
I have seen others;
fat, white-bellied men,
wearing their genitals like old rags.
Not devils, but ghosts.
This one thumps barefoot, lurching
above my bed.
Task
Check the use of words
and expressions in contrast in the poem and
discuss them with your
tutor comparing them
to the issues womens
writers dealt with at
that time.
54
To learn more
research on the Internet for the musical
State Fair and get to
know more about the
romanticism of the
Americans in relation.
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usually a light meal. Dinner is served after 5pm
and a lot of food is eaten. Americans, as you
know, love pasta, tuna or turkey sandwich and
a hot dog dressed or topped with ketchup and
mustard and a hamburger, sandwich named
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At the federal level, government power and responsibilities are set out in the Constitution
adopted in 1789. The national government is divided into three branches intended to provide
checks and balances against abuses of power. The branches are the executive, the legislative,
and the judicial. The executive branch includes the President and federal agencies that regulate everything from agriculture to the military. On its turn, legislative branch includes members
elected to the upper and lower houses of Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The judicial branch includes the Supreme Court and the USA Court of Appeals.
At the state level, government follows along the same lines, with elected governors, senators, and assemblymen and state courts. The nation also has the county, the smallest unit of government that has an elected board, but not all states have a system of county governments.
As to elections, officials are elected directly, on the basis of popular vote. Nevertheless, and
surprisingly for many peoples, the President is elected by the Electoral College. Each state has as
many electors as it has senators and representatives. The latter are awarded according to population. Within each state, electors vote as a bloc, which means that all electoral votes in a state go
to the candidate with the plurality of the popular vote within that state. A candidate needs 270
electoral votes to win the election. This system is controversial and intriguing because it is possible for a President to win a national election without winning a national majority of the popular vote, as it happened in 2000 when George Bush Junior was elected President. Cultures are
what they are. But is it not strange that in the most democratic nation in the world (at least in the
Americans opinion) the president is not elected by the people, that the peoples will does not
prevail?
Politics is highly professionalized in America. With the exception of local-level offices, most
people who run for political offices are lifelong politicians but running for a high-level political
office is extremely expensive. Many politicians in the House and the Senate are wealthy. However
the expense of winning elections requires not only personal wealth, but corporate donations.
The United States remains the most violent industrialized nation in the world despite the
decrease in crime rates. The capital city, Washington, D.C. has the highest per capita crime rate
in the country. In the nation as a whole the poor and teenagers are the most common victims of
violent and nonviolent crime.
Although cities are considered very dangerous places, crime rate is not consistently higher
in urban areas than in rural areas. The elderly are the most fearful of crime but not its most common victims. For violent crime tough penalties are often perceived as a solution, and it is on this
basis that the death penalty is defended. But if this proves to be a solution why would Florida
and Arizona, which adopt the death penalty, have the highest rates of violent crime in the country?
In all categories the vast majority of crimes are committed by white males. Popular imagination, prejudice and popular culture say that violent criminal tendencies are often associated with
African-American and Hispanic males. This perception legitimates a controversial practice called
racial profiling. Because of that African-American and Hispanic men are randomly stopped, questioned, or searched and arrested by police.
Historically, immigrant urban groups have been subject of intense policing pursuing and
believed to be tendentious for vice and crime. Nevertheless, the vast majority of crimes are committed by white males.
Strange as it may seem, there are more people in prison and more people per capita in prison than in any other industrialized nation. The prison population is well over one million, numbers that have increased since 1980 as a result of mandatory sentences for drug-related crimes.
Surprisingly as it seems, African-Americans make up only about 12% of the population, however,
they outnumber white inmates in prison. Both Hispanic and African-American men are far more
likely to be imprisoned than white men. Rates of imprisonment for women are on the rise, but
they are far less likely to be imprisoned than men of any race or ethnicity. The USA is the only
Western industrialized nation that allows capital punishment and rates of execution for AfricanAmerican men are higher than those of any other ethnic group.
As to the Status of Women and Men, in legal terms, women have the same rights as men.
They can own property, choose to marry or divorce, vote and demand equal wages for equal
work. They also have access to birth control and abortion. Differently from the situation in other
countries, the status of women in relation to men is very high. However, women do not receive
the same social and economic benefits as men do. They are greatly underrepresented in elected political offices and are more likely to live in poverty. Female occupations, both in the home
and in the workplace, are valued less than mens. Women are more likely to have a distorted or
58
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Paying for college among middle class parents is a source of anxiety and worry from the
moment their children are born. It is customary to make savings to guarantee university studies. Middle and low-income families often pay for college with student loans and the size of such
debts is on the increase.
Americans personal behavior often appears crass, loud, and effusive to people from other
cultures, but they value emotional and bodily restraint. The stereotypical American often maintains a permanent smile and unrelenting enthusiasm which may mask strong emotions they
consider unacceptable to express. The bodily refrain is expressed through the relatively large
physical distance people, especially men, maintain with each other. Yawning, breast-feeding, and
passing gas in public are considered rude. Americans also consider it impolite to talk about money and age.
60
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for (White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.) family in New Rochelle, NY, often used with a pejorative
senseand Tateh, a Jewish immigrant. Famous American historical figures such as Harry Houdini,
Evelyn Nesbit, Booker T. Washington, J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Stanford White, Harry Kendall
Thaw, and Emma Goldman are also depicted in the show.
Figure 56, 57, 58, 59: Spider Man: Turn of the dark (2010 and still on) first photo is taken from the content
writer Playbill booklet distributed inside the theatres before the musical show starts. Spider Mans second
photo was taken from Spider-Man spins strong box office web,
available at: www.today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43559858/ns/today-entertainment, Anything goes (revival of 2011) and
Ragtime (1998) photos were taken from the content writer in the CD covers.
The next three musicals are famous all over the world as they were also seen in films and
cartoons. The last picture depicts the musical How to succeed in business without really trying now
on stage that tells the story of a young man in search for success in business. The title speaks for
itself.
Figures: 60, 61, 62 and 63: Photos of the shows: The Addams family (opened in 2009), The Lion King (opened
in 1999). Mamma Mia (London production in 1999; Broadway in 2001), How to succeed (revival opened in
2010).
Source: Pictures are photos taken from the content writer Playbill books freely distributed inside the theatre as you are
oriented to find your seat before the beginning of every performance.
62
Figures 65, 66, 67, 68: Billy Elliot (2009), Man of la Mancha (2001), The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Priscilla
Queen of desert (2010)
Source: Photos taken from the Playbill booklet distributed freely inside the theatre before the show.
Famous throughout the world, American musicals are performed all over the USA and in
many other countries including Brazil where the productions are duly translated into Portuguese
and performed in theatres in So Paulo with competence that equals the ones on Broadway or
London. Examples of musicals staged in Brazil include: O Beijo da Mulher Aranha, Vitor e Vitria,
Os Miserveis, O Fantasma da pera, A Novia Rebelde, Minha Querida Dama and recently Mamma
Mia among others. Musicals are undeniable relevant mechanisms for portraying cultural traits.
Their scores include the most beautiful and famous songs ever composed.
To Learn More
Goto YouTube and find
American musicals.
Listen to some of their
excerpts and get to
know why they are
such a significant trait
in American culture. A
good suggestion would
be Bonnie and Clyde a
brand new show whose
previews open in November 4th).
Task
Research on the Internet about the word revival used some times
in this section. Discuss
it with classmates and
tutor.
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Task
The cartoonist makes
use of irony in that he
criticizes the American
status quo. Find cultural
traits in the intertwinement of language to
culture. Name also
words you did not
know and that you
learned through studying the text.
Task
What cultural American
trait s detectable from
this text? Discuss it with
your tutor.
Figure 71: Carton on
the use of the pattern
language
Source: www.inglesonline.
com.br Sites de Ingls
Bsico.
64
Task
Would you agree that
the previous cartoon is
a good tool for teaching language (grammar, semantics, and
phonology) and culture? How would you
do that? Discuss with
your classmates and tutor. Furthermore, what
is wrong in the sign?
Can you explain it?
Clue
Information about
the Communicative
Approach for teaching
English as a foreign
language can be found
in the textbook of the
discipline Applied Linguistics (2011), by Rosa
Maria Neves da Silva
for your course, dear
students.
However, for over eight decades in the 20th century, Brazilian students were likely to answer
I am fine, thank you and you? This sort of format in teaching is everything but a communicative
approach. Brazilians greet themselves in different ways too, so the question is: In how many ways
North-Americans greet themselves? What is culturally appropriate?
Notice in the cartoon, dear students, how culture and
Figure 72: Cartoon on
language intermingle as the cartoonist underlies the word IN
the use of ambiguous
language.
to show the importance of the literary use of language in the
Source: www.inglesonline.
website that should be strictly followed. The humorist uses
com.br Sites de Ingls
ambiguity in bed IN breakfast (a cama no/dentro do caf da
Bsico - Em cache. Access
manh) to counterpoint the usual meaning of the expression
in 9 abr. 2007
breakfast in bed that means (the comfort of ) having breakfast
Glossary
in bed. It is language that makes this meaning-game posChunk- Several words
sible. But what did make it possible? Intonation and stress and
that are customarily
chunk division.
used together in a fixed
Western ideologies and methodologies focus their teachexpression, such as in
ing on free speech as a tool for utilizing and memorizing vomy opinion, to make a
cabulary and grammar sequences. But people from different
long story short, How
are you? or Know
cultures learn things in different ways. In the 1960s in Brazil
for instance, memorization (behaviorism approach, audio-lingual method, drills technique)was what I mean?. They
the most common way to study a language vocabulary and grammar. In Brazil it is well known a are pieces of language
meaningful enough
sentence focus of many humoristic texts - that made it clear the bad use of such method in our to make themselves
schools: The book is on the table, the only enunciate students were able to utter after years of understood. All you
have to do is to read it
English language schooling.
Nevertheless, the usage of cultural explanations for teaching languages has proved invalu- properly.
able for many students to understand the target language. It has even enabled them to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate English phrases and idioms to be used in a given Task
context. Similarities and contrasts between the native and target languages have proved effi- Answer: Would the
cient as teaching tools when the teacher understands such cultural similarities and differences, authors intended
meaning in this cartoon
and compares and applies that knowledge in his teaching practices.
The Anglo-American values, beliefs and traits discussed in this Unit are not concentrated in reach Brazilians as they
did to Americans? Yes,
specific regions of the country but disseminated all over the nation. Moreover, they are far from NO, why? I discussed
being exhaustive but enough to serve my purpose: to show you some Anglo-American, namely language role in the
text for you. Now
of the USA, cultural traits usually manifested through their language, English.
discuss the role culture
plays in such a context
with your tutor.
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To Learn More
Refer to the textbook
Phonology by Luci
Kikuchi et all written
for UAB/Unimontes/
Capes, 2011, and find
information about
intonation and stress
in chunks and perceive
how their misreading
can change meaning..
To Learn More
1. Refer to the textbook
on Applied Linguistics
(2011), produced by
Rosa Maria Neves da
Silva for your course.
2. Watch the video A
Lesson on Behaviorism,
and others, available
at www.youtube.com/
watch?v=
fVSwTaB7pHQ.
contextualize words as: disguise, make up, theatrical performance, look like, take a look, musical
score, cast, lyrics, book by, dress up, staging, backstage, audience, aisle, row usherette, Playbill
and so on. Everything contextualized, at and inside the theatre. Did you understand what I mean,
dear students?
Because of what has been discussed in this textbook so far, second language teaching policies must be sensitive to the local language not to make it inferior to the target language. Although the teaching-learning of the English language has become a phenomenon in the world,
care must be taken to avoid forwarding the ideology that you should learn English because it is
a superior language, of a superior culture, regardless of the undeniable truth that to succeed in a
globalized economy one must be able to communicate in English. (HERRON, C., Cole, S. P., CORRIE, C., & DUBREIL, S.a)1999).This fact demonstrates that our world has entered the age of globalization in which most observers see a tendency toward homogeneity of values and norms but
others see an opportunity to rescue local identities.
66
To learn more
I suggest the reading
of the chapter Eles no
aprendem portugus
quanto mais ingls, in
the Oficina de lingustica aplicada (1996),
by Luiz Paulo da Moita
Lopes.
67
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lows insights into the American culture. Students are likely to learn literature better when they
read a poem rather than if they read a literary text sheet; for example, if they read a poem by Emily Dickinson they may retain cultural information more if they read something about the American culture at the time Dickinson lived. The students who read the original literary work usually
show capacity to discuss the historical and social events of the era.In this textbook I discussed
some aspects of Death of a salesman and showed how culture and language are intertwined.
Expert sources - Exchange students, immigrant students, or students who speak the target
language at home are resources for helping learning. Invited to the classroom these students can
share authentic insights into the home and cultural life of native speakers of the language.
Dear students, make no mistake: the issue of teaching culture is nothing new to second
language teachers. However, in most cases, teaching culture has been limited to teaching specific
holidays, special dates, clothing, folk songs, and food. These topics are indeed useful, but only
within a broader context which would stimulate linguistic or social insight and enrich students
knowledge, especially if the objective of language instruction is enabling them to communicate
effectively in another language (HERRON, C., CORRIE, C., Cole, S. P., & DUBREIL, S. b.1999).
It follows that cultural day-to-day traits should include conversational conventions such as
the communicative functions of greeting, saying good-bye, addressing, thanking, making requests and asking questions, that is, to use language effectively and not just being able to (re)
produce grammatical sentences and memorized vocabulary.
As I have shown in this textbook, language and culture intermingle to such an extent
that one becomes the other. It is unviable, I insist, to teach language apart from its culture. The
implications for language teaching are therefore vast and sometimes far reaching. As language
teachers to be, you must be culturally aware, considerate of the students` culture, and instruct them
about cultural differences thus promoting understanding. Your teaching must reflect both the
target language culture as well as the students` thus avoiding any sort of cultural misconceptions
or discrimination.
And yet, to make all these things clearer, I go back to the first text/joke inserted in the By
Way of Presentation for this textbook in which I posed a specific question. I remind you that humor in the mentioned text/joke is triggered by linguistic games involving onomatopoeias and
phonological ambiguity specifically provoked by the interesting use of semantic phenomena
along with some colors. The question was: Could you guess the nationality of the jokes author? My answer is as simple as that: Yes, I can. The author is Brazilian. Why?
First of all and most importantly because the joke brings the stereotype that the Portuguese
people are stupid. It is a Brazilian cultural trait. Americans do not hold this view of the Portuguese. For some Americans the Polish would be the stupid ones, stereotype that can be detected, for example, in Tennessee Williamss play (1947) A Streetcar Named Desire.
In the play there are three main characters: Stella and Blanche (sisters), and Stellas Polish
husband Stanley. Blanche has just come to stay in Stella and Stanleys small flat in New Orleans.
Blanche asks Stella if it will be decent for all three of them to share such a small flat. Stella replies,
Stanley is Polish, you know. Why is it significant that Stanley is Polish? Because there is a stereotype that Polish people are stupid in America. There are many, many jokes in America about
Dumb Polacks. Americans also have a stereotype that the Irish are stupid, but the Polish, stereotypically, are even more stupid than the Irish, which is why Blanche says Poles are not as highbrow as the Irish. As a Brazilian I do not hold these views.
Secondly, I ask: Who would hear GREEN, GREEN (trim, trim?) when the telephone rang but a
Brazilian? The word GREEN is simply a color and has nothing to do with the telephone onomatopoeic ringing. As to the sound of colors and other words used in the text, Americans (or English
speaking people) would not mishear PICK for PINK or HELLO for YELLOW. No way! Americans can
tell these sounds from the others perfectly and would not mix them up as intended by the jokes
author. Some foreigners might hear these misguiding onomatopoeic sounds as used in the text
but surely not the Americans.
In this same line of thought, Americans, differently from Brazilians, hear cats meow, pigs
oink, dogs bark, bells and telephones ring, mosquitoes buzz, people hum (when they do
not know the words to the song) and chalk screech across a blackboard. Thus the words used
in the joke may have just been a frustrated attempt to echo the sounds as they would be heard
in English. However, in fact the author (unless making a joke inside another joke, meta-humor)
made semantic and phonological mistakes.
68
Task
References
HERRON, C., Cole, S. P., CORRIE, C.; DUBREIL, S. Using Instructional Video to Teach Culture to
Beginning Foreign: The effectiveness of a video-based curriculum in teaching culture. Modern
Language Journal, p. 518, a.1999.
HERRON, C., Cole, S. P., CORRIE, C.;DUBREIL, S. CAL: Digests: Culture in Second LanguageAvailable at https://calico.org/html/article_502.pdf File:PDF The effectiveness of video-based curriculum in teaching culture. The Modern Language Journal, 83(4), 518- 533, b. 1999.
69
UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
www.pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc - En cache
www.pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universidade_Harvard/Stanford University -California
www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/puritan/puritan.html
www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/puritan/puritan.html
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_wedding/
www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/037/6.html.
www.today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43559858/ns/today-entertainment
www.uab.edu/elci- ENGLISH/ESL MORE LINKS.
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catsthemusical- Musical.
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_Salesman
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United States)
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_theatre.
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter_(opera)
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASP
www.worldcat.org/.../scarlet-letter...drawings.../
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pfuldf_Pck.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVSwTaB7pHQ.
70
Summary
Unit 1
Unit 1 intended to demonstrate that
the understanding of an FL demands a good
knowledge of the culture and communicative
competence.
The meaning and origin of useful words
and expressions along this textbook were explained: Anglo/Angles (from Angeln, in modern
Germany); Anglo-Saxon used to designate the
Germanic tribes who invaded the south and
east of Great Britain (in the early 5th century
AD), and the period from their creation of the
English nation to the Norman Conquest. The
Anglo-Saxon period of English history was between about 550 and 1066 AD; Anglo-America
named after the Italian explorer Americo Vespucci who discovered America, alludes to a region in the Americas where English is a main
language and refers to Canada and the USA;
North America is divided into Anglo-America
and Latin America - Mexico, in which Spanish
is spoken; Anglo-American denotes the cultural
atmosphere shared by the United States and
English Canada and is used for discussing the
relationship of the United States to the United
Kingdom. The expression refers also to English
American, North American persons of English
origin, or background.
Language as a general concept includes
verbal and non-verbal expressions and a specific linguistic system, or code. Language is
a formal closed structural system of symbols
ruled by grammatical rules that relate particular signs to particular meanings. Language is
an abstract system and speech the concretization of this system which is in the mind of
the speaker who makes it concrete by means
of speech. Language is a mental faculty that
allows humans to express linguistic behavior,
to learn languages, produce and understand
utterances, concept that evidences the universality of language to all humans and the
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Unit 2
Today the term America is used to refer to
the US due to the countrys political and economic dominance in the western hemisphere.
America was used to refer to South America
only. Canadians and Latin Americans consider this use of the term impolitic. The USA
includes fifty states and one federal district,
where Washington, D.C is located. The country
is the fourth largest with 9,529,107 square kilometers and forty-eight contiguous states. The
islands of Hawaii, in the Pacific Ocean, about
two thousand miles southwest of San Francisco, California, and Alaska between the Pacific
and Arctic oceans are also American states.
The country owns several commonwealths
and territories such as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean basin, Guam, the
Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa,
and Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean - conquered through military actions.
As to economy the Northeast is leader
in technology and industry, especially in the
areas of Californias Silicon Valley. The region
is known as the national megalopolis. The
Midwest is both rural and industrial where
are the corn belt and breadbasket of the
nation. The region is called the home of the
family farm. The South carries different features if compared to other regions. It is associated with slavery and shaped by its secession
from the Union before the Civil War and with
subsequent battles over civil rights for AfricanAmericans. The region includes the sunshine
states, retirement havens, and new economic
frontiers. The West known as the last national
frontier has the nations most open landscapes. It is associated with national dreams
and myths of unlimited opportunity and individualism. California, along with the southwestern states, was bought by the United
States from Mexico in 1848. The Southwest is
distinctive for its Native American populations,
historical ties to colonial Spain, and its regional
cuisine is highly influenced by Spanish cultures.
US physical environment is extremely diverse. Alaska is spectacular with its glaciers
that coexist with flowering tundra that bloom
in the arctic summer. Niagara Falls, Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Canyon
are the most famous landscapes. The Mississippi River constitutes a major navigable inland waterway and is the largest river system
in North America. It rises in western Minnesota
and meanders southwards for 3,730 km to the
Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico.
72
Many books and theatre musicals were written and composed based upon the stories t
about the people who lived by the Mississippi
River. The United States has a population over
280 million but it is relatively sparsely populated. The most populous state is California
with 33,871,648 inhabitants and Wyoming the
less populated with only 493,782 residents and
such figures evidence that the US is an urban
nation. Over 75% of the inhabitants live in cities. Population growth is at below-replacement levels unless immigration is taken into
account.
There is no official national language in
the USA in the federal level but 30 states made
English legally their official language. English
is the de facto the unofficial national language
and Spanish the second because US ranks fifth
in the world in the number of Spanish speakers. Native Americans, immigrants, and slaves
languages have influenced the several dialects
of America. Standard English is the language
Americans are expected to speak but there is
no clear definition of what Standard English
might really be. English spoken by black Americans is usually seen as non-standard, however,
most Americans do not speak Standard English but a range of class, ethnic, and regional
variants. Linguistic diversity has increased a
lot. But there is a national dialect known as
American English. There are four major regional dialects in the USA: northeastern, south, inland north, and Midwestern, the latter accent
being considered the standard accent in the
USA and a bit but not extensively analogous
to the Received Pronunciation elsewhere in
the English-speaking world.
US government symbols include: government buildings (Arlington National Cemetery
in Washington, DC), statues and memorials,
songs, oaths, and symbols. The national symbols are the American Flag, the Bald Eagle, the
Great Sea, Figures of Justice, the Liberty Bell,
the National Flower Rose, Uncle Sam and the
National Anthem.
Anglo-American refers to those coming
from countries where English is spoken as the
main language, and all those whose families
have become English-speaking people in Canada and the US. Anglo-American is often used
in legal, economic and political documents
and other writings in reference to those countries that have similar legal regimes generally
based on the English common law.
USA is a diverse country as to religion,
race and ethnicity. Most Americans are Chris-
U.S. government and others, Hispanic or Latino identity is voluntary. The whites story
dates back to 1492 when Christopher Columbus reached several Caribbean islands. White
Americans include Europeans (French, English,
Dutch, Irish, Italian, German, Polish, Spanish
and Latinos. Other ethnicities immigrating to
America include Asian and African peoples.
The American government has become
tougher on enforcing immigration laws since
9/11 when the attacks forced the birth of Public attitudes about immigration in the U.S.
Half of Americans believe that immigration
is a good thing for the U.S., but the other half
say tighter control on immigration would do a
great deal to enhance U.S. national security.
Though US history gives evidence of the
importance of immigration forth population
growth and cultural change, the economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have
caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, and jobs for non-immigrants,
settlement patterns, impact on upward social
mobility, crime, and voting behavior. However,
Americans cannot deny the invaluable contribution of immigrants for the process of development and progress of the country.
Unit 3
Some traits in the American culture include: Americans are individualist, goal and
future-oriented; They value material comfort,
objectiveness in communication and competitiveness. Americans interrupt people too
often during communication; they use a persons name frequently to engender a sense of
congeniality and connection. They think they
have power over nature. The production of
Musicals is a relevant trait and they succeed in
producing high quality shows. They value personal accomplishment, success, patriotic feelings and pride, and focus on the family and its
ties.
Those cultural traits are to be considered
73
References
Basic
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KIKUSHI, Luci et al. Phonology Textbook. UAB/Unimontes/Capes, 2011.
LEVERIDGE, Aubrey Neil. The Relationship between Language & Culture and the Implications for language teaching. Written for TEFL,.September, 2008.
LONGMAN, (2000) Dictionary of English language and culture: gets to the heart of the language. 2. ed. England: Longman, MCARTHUR, Tom. The Oxford Guide to World English.
MURRAY, DM. The great Walls of China. Todays Education, vol. 71, p. 5558, 1982.
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STEPHENS, J. L. Teaching culture and improving language skills through a cinematic lens:
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www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/a/american.asp
www.countrystudies.us/united-states/history
www.edition.tefl.net/articles/teacher-technique/language-culture/
www.facebook.com/pages/...America.
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www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/puritan/puritan.html.
www.thepaperexperts.com)
www.thinkexist.comTopics C.
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www.wikipedia.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/na..
www:<URL: http://www.infopedia.pt/$hipotese-de-sapir-e-whorf>
Complementary
BARRY, Dave. .Available at www.quotesbyBarryinweekly newspaper column.1947
BROOKS, N. Culture in the classroom. In JM Valdes (ed) Culture bound: bridging, 1986.
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CHOMSKY, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1965.
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CICCARELLI, A.Teaching culture through language: Suggestions for the Italian language class.
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MARTINS, Antnio Carlos Soares; SOUZA, Marilia de; SOUZA, Danielle Ferreira (2010) Caderno
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UAB/Unimontes - 7 Perodo
www.pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universidade_Harvard/Stanford University -California
www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/puritan/puritan.html .
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_wedding/
www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/037/6.html.
www.thepaperexperts.com)
www.thinkexist.com/.../language...culture...language/
www.today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43559858/ns/today-entertainment
www.uab.edu/elci- ENGLISH/ESL MORE LINKS.
www.wikipedia.org/.../Category: Ethnic_groups_in_the_United States,
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catsthemusical- Musical.
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_Salesman
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United States)
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_theatre.
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter_(opera)
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASP
www.worldcat.org/.../scarlet-letter...drawings.../
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pfuldf_Pck.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVSwTaB7pHQ.
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78
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www.office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/?CTT=6&ver=14&app=winword.exe
www.pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney
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UAB.
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80
Learning activities
In the Warner Channel sitcom Married with Children (1980-1990) the Bundies Maggie,
Al, Kelly and her brother Bud -form a non-standard American family as they are all corrupt, the
adults do not like to work, cook, clean the house, wash dishes and do laundry and the children
hate to study. Moreover the bunch has the habit of committing different sort of felonies. After
one of these crimes the Bundies are arrested and immediately taken before the judge. In court
Kelly disturbs and disrespects the court whenshe speaks in a very loud voice, walking aimlessly
around the room in clear contempt to court. Chaos descends and the judge gets annoyed and
the following short dialog takes place:
a) (
b) (
c) (
d)(
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Questions independent from the previous text.
4. Tick () the alternative that IS NOT an Anglo-American (USA) cultural trait. Americans are
a) (
b) (
c) (
d) (
a) (
b) (
c) (
d) (
a) (
b) (
c) (
d) (
8. In Figure 7, the charge already discussed in this textbook, is explained in Figure 7 as Different Pond, different fish. Tick () the alternative that better carries the meaning of this saying.
a) (
b) (
c) (
d) (
82
10. Tick() the alternative below that, according to the text, DOES NOT contain a historical
event that influenced the American culture.
a) (
b) (
c) (
d) (
83