Т.В. Артеменко, Е.В. Кривощекова, Е.В. Кравченко, Н.Е. Николаева - Reader in Language and Culture - Part II (1110506), страница 5
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Tasks for discussion.1.What are the main points on which the English and foreignersdisagree about the English stereotypes?2.What English qualities do you admire or resent?3.How do you form your opinion of this people or any otherpeoples? What sources do you find most reliable:-personal experience-friends’, relatives’ experience-literature-mass media-other.234.Do you think the English class system encourages stoicism? Towhat extent is it similar or different from other countries (e.g. the USA,Russia, European countries).5.Is the Russians’attitude to their literacy heritagesimilar ordifferent from that of the English?6.Compare the set of programs on English and Russian TV.7.Can you suggest any solution to traffic and parking problems inMoscow and other big citites?The USANationalism and IdentityForewarned is ForearmedAmericans are like children: noisy, curious, unable to keep a secret, notgiven to subtlety, and prone to misbehave in public. Once one accepts theAmericans' basically adolescent nature, the rest of their culture falls intoplace, and what at first seemed thoughtless and silly appears charming andenergetic.Visitors may be overwhelmed by the sheer exuberant friendliness ofAmericans, especially in the central and southern parts of the country.
Sitnext to an American on an airplane and he will immediately address you byyour first name, ask "So - how do you like it in the States?", explain hisrecent divorce in intimate detail, invite you home for dinner, offer to lendyou money and wrap you in a warm hug on parting.This does not necessarily mean he will remember your name the next24day.
Americans are friendly because they just can't help it; they like to beneighbourly and want to be liked. However, a wise traveller realises that afew happy moments with an American do not translate into a permanentcommitment of any kind. Indeed, permanent commitments are whatAmericans fear the most. This is a nation whose most fundamental socialrelationship is the casual acquaintance;,How They See ThemselvesAs befits a nation originally settled by misfits, convicts, adventurers, andreligious fanatics (a demographic mix that has changed hardly at all in 400years), the United States retains a strong flavour of intransigent non-cooperation.
Americans are proud to be American - it's the best country in theworld - but each individual will explain that he, personally, is not like otherAmericans. He or she is better. Americans are proud to be different fromeach other, and from the world. As a nation of immigrants, they can be ofany global ethnicity. There is no such thing as a plain American,anyway. Every American is a hyphenated American. The original 'meltingpot' has crystallised into a zillion ethnic splinters: Croatian-Americans,Irish-Americans,Japanese-Americans,Mexican-Americans,Eritrean-Americans, and so on.
A typical American might introduce him or herselfas Patrick Ng, Octavio Rosenberg, or Ilse-Marie Nugumbwele.An American will say "I'm Polish" or "I'm Italian" because his greatgrandparents were born in Poland or Italy. It doesn't matter that he speaksnot a word of any language besides English and has never been farther eastthan New York City or farther west than Chicago. He knows how to makekolatches (if he's Polish) or cannelloni (if he's Italian), and that's whatcounts.25The only noticeable difference between an American and the people ofother countries is that an American is likely to have had his/her teethstraightened.How They See OthersOnly 20% of Americans own passports.
They don't really need thembecause an American can travel for weeks and still be on home turf. Thefact that everyone who lives within 3,500 miles of an American is also anAmerican gives the average citizen a seriously provincial point of view.Because Americans visit foreign countries relatively seldom*, they assumethat people all over the world are just like themselves, except for notspeaking English or not having decent showers.Some Americans believe that foreigners really do speak English (theystudy it in school, you know), but refuse to do so out of prejudice. Thedelusion that 'they're just like * Canada doesn't count.
us except for theirlanguage, food, and clothing' comes from the reality that all Americansdescend from immigrants including those who crossed the Bering Straitthousands of years ago. Thus people in other countries aren't really aliens,they're just potential Americans, or rather, potential hyphenated Americans.Special FriendsAmericans have a special relationship with Canadians, with whom theyshare the world's longest undefended border (though crossing it has becomemore difficult lately). In fact, a great many Americans aren't fully awarethat Canada is a separate sovereign nation. Canadians look and talk likeAmericans, travel agents describe Canada as a "domestic" destination andthe Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series baseball championship (once).Any champion baseball team must be from the United States, no matterwhat its supporters think.Europe is not fully differentiated in the American mind.
American26travellers on guided tours can happily swing through five countries in sevendays, returning home with the vague notion that the Eiffel Tower issomewhere in the neighbourhood of the Tower of Pisa - which, byAmerican standards, it is. The distance from London to Istanbul is less thanthat between Pittsburgh and Phoenix and only two-thirds the mileage fromMaine to Miami.Americans feel sentimental about England.
They import much of theirliterature and some of their better television programmes from Britain, andanyone ovet 50 reveres the country that produced the Beatles and theRolling Stones. There's also the Royal Family element: lacking a domesticequivalent, Americans lap up the latest imported blue-blooded scandals.Royal events attract huge American television audiences, who sigh at theglorious un-American pomp of it all.It has been said that the U.S. and U.K.
are 'two nations divided by acommon language' and occasionally this leads to some bizarremisunderstandings. For example, in the U.S. 'pants' are trousers and'knickers' are golfing attire. In spite of the misunderstandings, or possiblybecause of them, the two nations do intermarry at a prodigious rate,bringing the countries closer than ever.CharacterWinner Takes AllLike every other nation, America knows that it's the best country in theworld.
The difference is that Americans have proof. People from all overthe globe make enormous sacrifices to come to the United States, oftenrisking their lives in the process. What more evidence is needed?A spirit of rugged individualism pervades virtually every aspect ofAmerican life. Americans' heroes tend to be outlaws, like wild west27gunfighter Jesse James, or entrepreneurs, like Sam Walton, founder of theWal-Mart chain of superstores. Their ogres are totalitarians of every stripe,including communists, presidents of major corporations, law officers andpoliticians. Every American worker has fantasies of one day going intobusiness for himself. Individualism extends even to matters domestic:over a quarter of American households consist of only one person.Being Number One is very important to an American.
In the UnitedStates it's definitely not how you play the game that matters. It isn't evenreally whether you win or lose. It's whether you look like you win or lose more specifically, win. Winning is central to the American psyche. AsAmerican football coach Vince Lombardi put it, "Winning isn't everything.It's the only thing". Virtually every event in American life, from schoolgraduation to marriage to buying an automobile, is structured so that oneparty wins, or at least comes out looking better than any of the otherparticipants.What is more, Americans believe themselves to be the only nation that istruly capable of winning.
They are always being called in at the last minuteto bail some backwater nation out of the soup. Having God on your side in afight is good. Having the United States on your side is better. To anAmerican, they're the same thing.Once the battle is over and negotiations begin, however, Americanschange from warriors into wimps. As humourist Will Rogers put it,"America never lost a war and never won a conference in our lives.
Ibelieve that we could, without any degree of egotism, single-handedly lickany nation in the world. But we can't confer with Costa Rica and comehome with our shirts on."The Feel-Good FactorWinning is important to Americans because it makes them feel good,and good is the American thing to feel. Americans spend thousands of28dollars on books, drugs, and various forms of psychotherapy in order to feelgood.
The 12th most widely prescribed psychiatric drug in the country is ananti-depressant. Americans attend therapy groups, participate in selfdiscovery retreats and religious revivals, go for hot stone massages,aromatherapy, Shiatsu, and so forth. (Much of this activity takes place inCalifornia, the feel-good state.)The American reaction to any kind of adversity or crisis is to look at thebright side, whether or not there is one, and if possible accentuate thepositive. "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade", they will chirp as theyexamine the smashed wreck of their car or the hurricane-ravaged ruin oftheir home; "I always hated that kitchen."Feel-goodism affects all aspects of private and public life. Universitieshand out academic awards to anyone with even a passable performance.The American business world is full of rosy projections and enthusiasticestimates.
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