This page will be used as part of a university module called EL312: Aspects of Culture and Society. I will post most of my progresses and findings throughout the next two months.
We are hoping (in conjunction with my lecturer) to get other students to jump in the blog-wagon and to form a "blog-ring", possibly mash RSS feeds in our intranet, and potentially boost cooperation both inside and outside our group. As such any commentaries will be very warmly welcomed, since you people are the fodders for our dissertations.
I am currently reflecting on a potential topic of study which has given this blog its name:
In this upcomming paper i would like to explore the glass wall that seems to separate foreigners and the English. This is based on my 3 years experience in UK, and me living abroad: Wherever i went, most of my friends were locals, even in places as different as Taiwan, India, or the US, EXCEPT in England. I can't seem to reach out to a common experience and a feeling of togetherness with the English man, and even after all this time i barely have an idea of what to talk about in a conversation with most english people.
Questions:
- What topics are part of the average english man's conversation?
- What does the english man try to convey through conversation?
- What does the foreigner try to convey in his conversation?
- What is the purpose of "small chat"?
- What are each parties reaction after a conversation? What is expected socially speaking from a conversation?
- Fox, K. (2005) Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. London: Hodder
- Polling companies
- Media Materials:
- TV Series
- Movies
7 comments:
Edouard... I think your research proposal is awesome - really interesting! I can't post up my ideas here. Let's meet up if you can and I'll give you a few of my ideas as to why this is the case. Oh yeah - my name is Dasos. I am doing an MA in TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language). Paul is my tutor for a couple of modules, and he sent this to us. Hope it all goes well.
Dear Ed
My name is Henry and I am on the MA MALT course. Before launching into the 'Glass Wall' theory I would point out that your text has a poor contrast to background quality rendering it almost impossible for we older ones to read!
My first question on the topic would be@ How do you know there is a glass wall for ALL foreigners, maybe it is just you, or possibly a small sample of you and some of your associates? What evidence do you have that shows this separation, in terms of discourse, between foreigners and all nattive English speakers? Does this effect extend to bilingual or polyglot offspring of 1st generation immigrants, i.e. can you talk to them freely? There are just too many questions here that make informed comment difficult or dangerously ambigiuous. You need to start feining your terms.
For example, you need to distinguish and categorise the people. There is no 'average' Englishman in any real sense. Possible divisions (not absolutes): Age, gender, occupation, location, interests, sexual orientation, etc.
What do you think?
Hey Henry, how are things? I take your points. I think Ed's rearch questions try to look into what characteristics of an English person are, but I don't like the phrase 'the English man.' I don't want to waffle on your blog page, ED, I'd rather have a chat, but I feel that commenting about 'those people' isn't the way forward. I can detect the attitude / outlook of 'us and them,' ("Why is it that I can't get along with the English man?" "I don't understand him / them.") and there has to be something more to all of this than that. But heh, I can appreciate both sides of the coin. Good luck. Dasos
I am an English woman and think you are possibly taking on a huge task. I would, nevertheless be very interested in your study as I find English men very puzzling as well - they have created a glass ceiling. Perhaps they are heading towards a glass box!
Hi Henry,
You are perfectly right in your criticism, and the tone i used in my plan was mostly designed to gather reactions :)
This feeling of a "glass wall" is a rather commonly discussed topic among the foreign community in Brighton, and it would be very interesting to get a good look at who exactly agree with my vision of the issue. It is in fact likely to be part of my questionnaire toward foreigners.
To answer your remark regarding bilingual or polyglot offsprings, i would, in my view, classify them outside of the "average english-man" category since their cultural background apparently provides their personalities with a further contrast and interest for foreign and different topics.
To express it in a clearer way, what i call the "average english-man" is any working to middle class white male, with a relatively low education or a low interest in education (understand: he went through his studies remembering little and changing even less), a non-existent foreign experience/interest (although he could have learned some french/german back in shcool), whose social activities runs around a mix of football/pub/cars/clubs.
He may be working, but could as well be a student at Uni (although i have the theory that if a student he will open up after working a few years).
Please note that I am NOT focusing on the Lads/Chavs/Yobs phenomenons but on a larger overall group.
Hi Dasos,
Thank you for you feedback and interest. I've emailed Paul to contact you.
This is precisely what i am interested to look into: Why do we have this feeling of them and us? Why only in England? What makes the English man so special in this matter? Why is it that in other cultures the missing bricks of a foreigner's integration are easier to find out? What are the principles to follow that could help us to integrate? What do English people do to accept and appreciate each others?
If we were to relate to India or Taiwan, i could point you out toward online resources (my blog, http://ed.roquette.free.fr being one of them) giving you strong clues on how to interact in your personal relations.
www.forumosa.com for example is a bible for whoever ever happen to adapt to Chinese culture, discussing of topics as diverse as the perception of the foreign men (divided between the Waiguoren (the foreigner), the Heiren (the black man), or the Laowai (the tall nose foreigner = the white man)), or the ability that Taiwanese women have to run amok when being cheated on (something posters refer to as the "psycho-xiaojie").
My question is why arn't there resources about this on england when adaptation seems quite a feat? Are the rules too subtle and unclear? Are we allowed as foreigners to live in this society with such a freedom that we don't feel there is a need to integrate?
Dear Anonymous,
Upon my return from India and Taiwan, i did feel that we Europeans were somewhat loosing the ability to implicate each other's as a way to make our lives happy.
This is still what Indians and Taiwanese are doing, and I found great happiness and optimism in doing this.
When i returned to UK, it proved quite hard to re-adapt to the cold and independent manners that we have, and obviously the English men is certainly the most independent type i have found in Europe. So yes, aren't we shutting ourselves in glass boxes, in the name of independence?
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