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American Values and Assumptions People who grew up in a particular culture share certain values and assumptions. It does mean that most of them agree with each other’s ideas about what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable, and so on. A culture can be viewed as a collection of values and assumptions that go together to shape the way a group of people perceives and relates to the world around them. AMERICANS: devotion to individualism. They are trained from very early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies. Example of a mother who is helping her three-years old son learn to make his own decisions and to be accountable for his own money. Even his own mother won’t be helping him later in life and he needs to be ready for that (to be responsible for his choices and their consequences). Young adult Americans are expected to live apart from their parents, or risk being viewed as immature or otherwise unable to lead a normal, independent life. For Americans, the idea of individual freedom has strong, positive connotations. By contrast, people from many other cultures regard some of the behavior Americans legitimize by the label “individual freedom” to be self-centered and lacking in consideration for others. Competitiveness pervades the society. Importance that Americans assign to privacy. They have great difficulty understanding people who always want to be with another person, who dislike being alone. They tend to regard such people as weak or dependent. All people are of equal value. Their notion of equality lead Americans to be quite informal in their general behavior and in their relationships with other people. Americans are generally less concerned about history and traditions. It’s the future that counts. They look ahead. What happens in the future is within their control, or at least subject to their influence. The mature, sensible person sets goals for the future and works systematically toward them. Time is a resource that can be used well or poorly. Americans admire a well-organized person. The ideal person is a “hard worker”. Americans tend to define and evaluate people by the jobs they have. Americans generally consider themselves to be frank, open, and direct in their dealings with other people. One of the most prominent Italian values is without doubt family. It is common for Italians to come together for Sunday lunch. Most parents still financially support their children during University and if needed they help them even after they get married. It is common for Italian parents to build house extensions for the kids to live in once they marry, if that is not feasible they usually buy a property nearby as mamma wants to be present in their daily life and usually helps with the new born and baby sitting in general. The bond between mother and son is extremely powerful and can jeopardise the relationship between her son and his spouse as the mother in law tend to interfere in the couple’s decisions and is quite judgmental of her daughter in law. As a matter of fact, it is common practise for Italians to live at their parents’ home, if they don’t get married, with mamma serving her son even if he is forty years of age. A family in Italy is for life. The truth is, Italians are much more formal than thought and there are protocols to follow if one wants to fit into society. in Italian we have a formal and an informal way to address to somebody with Lei (formal) and tu (informal). We use the formal when speaking to someone older than us who is not family, at work especially with superiors and in the academic world when speaking to teachers and university professors; only if invited to do otherwise can we address them informally. Titles are extremely important in all industries and must be used. Appearance is a common significant denominator for Italians, as a matter of fact, how you dress can point out your social status, your family’s background and your education level. the concept of “bella figura” (good impression) is of utter importance to Italians and it doesn’t only apply to the way you dress but the way you talk and behave (manners!); that is why first impressions are long lasting and difficult to change. Where do we stand? We each wear a zone of privacy inviting others in or keeping them out with body language – by how closely we approach, the angle at which we face them, the speed with which we break a gaze. It’s a subtle code, but one we use and interpret easily, indeed automatically, having absorbed the vocabulary from infancy. From culture to culture, from group to group within a single country, even between the sexes, the language of space has distinctive accents.
The study of personal space by anthropologist Edward Hall described a sort of cultural continuum of personal space. On the “high-contact” side of the continuum – in Mediterranean and South American societies, for instance – social conversations include much eye contact, touching and smiling. On the other hand of the scale, say in Northern European cultures, a lingering gaze may feel invasive, manipulative, or disrespectful. Spatially speaking, it seems men and women are subtly foreign to each other. The women look at each other more and stand a bit closer than do men. Spatial behavior is automatic, it snaps into focus only when someone doesn’t play by the rules. An abnormal use of space can indicate that something odd is going on. The human need for space is based in an animal reality: the closer you allow a stranger, the more vulnerable you become. Edward Hall suggests that a culture’s use of space is also evidence of a reliance on one sense over another: Middle Easterners get much of their information through their senses of smell and touch, which require a close approach; Americans rely primarily on visual information, backing up in order to see an intelligible picture. In many Asian cultures, avoiding eye contact is seen as a sign of respect. However, those in Latin and North America consider eye contact important for conveying equality among individuals. A great number of cultural expressions are achieved through touch. In America, for example, using a firm handshake is considered appropriate to greet a stranger or another business professional. In France, however, it is common to kiss someone you greet on both cheeks. Touching children on the head is fine in North America. Yet in Asia, this is considered highly inappropriate, as the head is considered a sacred part of the body. In the Middle East, the left hand is customarily used to handle bodily hygiene. Therefore, using that hand to accept a gift or shake hands is considered extremely rude. There are also a wide range of cultural viewpoints on the appropriate rules regarding physical contact between both similar and opposite genders. Countries that are densely populated generally have much less need for personal space than those that are not. The Japanese, for example, are less likely to react strongly to an accidental touch by a stranger than Americans. Less personal space is also needed in areas such as Latin America, and, in the context of one-on-one conversations, the Middle East. As there are differences in meanings of non-verbal communication, miscommunication can occur when inter-cultural people communicate. People can offend others without meaning to due to their cultural differences in non-verbal communication. Facial expressions are mostly similar in most cultures as many of them like smile and cry are innate. According to researches, six expressions are universal; they are, happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, anger and surprise. But it might also be different like the extent to which people show these feelings, in some cultures people express openly and in some people do not. Silence: Italians can grow uncomfortable with prolonged periods of silence and may naturally speak to fill it. Raised Voices: Italians may speak in loud voices to make themselves heard over one another. A raised voice is not necessarily a sign of anger, but can be an expression of excitement or conviction. You may find people talk over one another in order to be heard. Humour: Italians often enjoy joking throughout conversation to lighten the mood. Having humour in one’s voice can allow people to speak their mind quite openly. Be aware that their humour can be quite cynical, making fun of sensitive topics. They can also be quite self-deprecating, ironic and sarcastic. Expect them to mock one another and slip sarcasm or double meanings into any topic of conversation. Personal Space: Italians generally keep a close proximity to one another, sometimes standing less than a metre away from the person they are talking to. While this distinction is not always noticeable, they may think you are avoiding them if you move farther away from what they consider to be normal. Physical Contact: Italians are generally tactile people and quite affectionate. It is common to see hugging, kissing, back slapping and hand holding in public. People may touch their conversation partner to show their engagement in the discussion – for example, nudging them or touching their arm when pointing something out. Friends may also walk arm-in-arm in public. Eye Contact: Direct eye contact is expected and held during conversations. In some places in Italy, people may inadvertently stare out of curiosity. However, be aware that staring is generally
School is a natural meeting place for children. We need to get kids out of the school buildings, give them a chance to learn about the world at first hand. Aside from their parents, most children never have any close contract with any adults except people whose sole business is children. We need to bring a lot more people who are not full-time teachers into the schools and into contact with the children. Let children work together to help each other. Children are often the best teachers of other children. Paired learning. You let children form partnerships with each other and share whatever marks or results that this work gets. We act as if we thought he would never notice a mistake unless it was pointed out to him. We should let him do it himself with the help of other children if he wants it. HOW THE WEB DESTROYS THE QUALITY OF STUDENTS’ RESEARCH PAPERS The latest easy way of writing a paper is doing your research on the World Wide Web. The bibliography cites no books but just articles, and the material is out of date. Accompanying them are unattributed quotes. Instead of becoming perfectionists, too many students have become slackers, preferring to let the machine do their work for them. You don’t have to go to the libraries to look for books and material, you can simply search on your dorm-room computer screen. But the only problem is that a paper consisting of summaries of summaries is bound to be fragmented and superficial. Originality becomes hard to separate from plagiarism. The author then says that it’s his fault because he hasn’t taught his students to come up with original thought, to determine the credibility of a sources and to trust their own ideas. AN OPPOSING VIEW: The web is simply a tool that needs to be used strategically. The web no more destroys the quality of students’ research paper than does television. There are as many rotten books in library as there are rotten sources on the internet. It is not the medium itself that is the problem, but the ways in which the medium is used. MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCIES AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE The IQ score is supposed to be a measure of a person’s innate intelligence. The higher the score, the brighter the person. Gardner, Harvard professor, broadened the concept to define intelligence and identified 8 kinds of intelligence. He believes that his theory of multiple intelligences captures the diverse nature of human capability. (logical-mathematical; linguistic; bodily kinesthetic; musical; spatial; interpersonal; intrapersonal; naturalist). Possible ninth intelligence, existential intelligence. He believes that we have yet to discover many more intelligences. What is considered intelligence may differ depending on cultural values. EQ, emotional intelligence quotient. The marshmellow story. Students who were able to wait were reported to be more popular, more adventurous and more confident. The children who gave in to temptation were more likely to be described as stubborn, easily frustrated and lonely teenagers. EQ involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions. COMPUTERS AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS We are living in an information age. In the old industrial age, coal, steel and concrete mattered. Yet it is obvious that they still count just as much as they ever did. We always will need those things. The internet will never change our need for physical stuff. Three arguments in favour of the information age: it is a new age because we now have sophisticated machines to create and deliver information; because computer networks can overcome geography; and because machines can act intelligently. Wrong. It makes it all look different but only on the surface. The web is a big deal , but flying machines were too. Radio and Tv, the electric power industry turned society inside out. Not a new age of information, but a new age of hype. Computers have supplied lots of information, and generated much wealth. But we are marvelously adaptable. We can take miserable conditions in stride and triumph over them. It would be crazy to deny that computers are great toys, but it would be equally crazy to argue that they have made children any happier, than children used to be. In the internet age, face-to-face stores will not survive long. AN OPPOSING VIEW
While it is true that our need for food, shelter and clothing has not changed significantly because of technology, the methods of acquiring these goods certainly have. The web holds the potential of increasing our ability to deal with our own government’s bureaucratic complex, which is the greatest threat to individual freedom today. The internet will extend not just communication but a universe of educational experience to all the remote peoples of the world. (television is a more influential mass medium than the internet) WE’VE GOT MAIL-ALWAYS e-mails is convenient, saves time, brings us closer to one another, helps us manage our even-more-complex lives. But it is also inconvenient, wastes our time, isolates us in front of our computers and introduces more complexity into our lives. The way we interact with each other is changing. E-mail is both the catalyst and the instrument of that change. One survey after another finds that when online users are asked what they do on the Net, e-mail is always n1. Online communication offered new possibilities for transcending physical limitations. e-mail encourages the shy. It offers a semi-risk-free environment to initiate romance, because it lacks the immediate threat of physical rejection. It is also easier to make a suggestion to your superiors via e-mail. any time when you have something difficult to say, e-mail can make it easier. But e-mail allow us to act before we can think. e-mail doesn’t just collapse distance; it demolishes all boundaries. And that can be, depending on the moment, either a blessing, or a curse. PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES IN TODAY’S ADVERTISING We are victims. We read advertiser’s propaganda messages in newspapers and magazines. We absorb their messages and images into our subconscious. Propaganda is a systematic effort to influence people’s opinions. Often propagandists will use outright lies or more subtle deceptions to sway people’s opinions. Although propaganda may seem relevant only in the political arena, the concept can be applied to the way products and ideas are sold in advertising. One study reports that each of us, during an average day, is exposed to over 500 advertising claims of various types. Seven basic propaganda techniques. Name calling. Negatively charged names are attributed to the opposing side or competitor to arouse feelings of mistrust, fear and hate. Glittering generalities. Advertisers surrounds their products with attractive words and phrases. This kinf of language stir positive feelings in people that may spill over to the product. Transfer. Advertisers try to improve the image of a product by associating it with a symbol most people respect. Testimonial. Capitalizes on the admiration people have for a celebrity, to make the product shine more brightly. Plain folks. Buy me or vote me, I am just like you. Card stacking. Bandwagon. Everyone is doing it, why don’t you. They work because they appeal to our emotions. SEX ROLES A sex role is a part that an individual plays as a social actor. The script comes form social expectations about masculine and feminine nature: men should be brave, strong, ambitious, and aggressive, while keeping their feelings under control; women should be gentle, passive, dependent, and expressive of their feelings. Sex roles are based on social norms. No one disputes that there are biological differences between the sexes. It is impossible to say at this time how differences in chromosome structure determines physical development. Perhaps these differing behavioral patterns for women and men in such societies were the result of adaptation. Researchers have speculated that certain behavioral differences are due to male and female hormones. Both produces the same hormones but in differing quantities. Hormones may also have an impact on certain differences in brain functions. Men are better at dealing with abstract concepts; women are more effective in picking up information from the surrounding environment. Anthropologists have also noted that a power dynamic is often attached to sex-role distinctions. In early societies, men’s role as hunters and warriors gave them more prestige than women. With that prestige came power. By contrast, women’s influence was limited mainly to the domestic sphere.
SHOPPING FOR ONE
Some of the elements used in the short story go beyond their literal meaning and have a symbolic function. First of all, the title is symbolic because it is employed as a metaphor for loneliness in the modern world. Then, at a general level, the shopping baskets become symbolic of the persons’ relationship status. The larger the amount of purchases means the bigger the family. More specifically, Jean’s yoghurt becomes a symbol of herself, a single woman-shopping among couples. Also, the supermarket itself is a symbol of consumerism but also of social pressures, making single people feel like they are inadequate. This is why Jean feels relieved to be out of it. Additionally, the salad cream and the cooking book become symbolic of Jean’s reluctance to accept her single status in front of others. The main themes of the short story “Shopping for One” by Anne Cassidy are inadequacy, loneliness, and frustration. The author’s message is that loneliness feels like a burden and a stigma in a society in which couples and families seem to be the norm, even when it comes to shopping. The most important character in the short story “Shopping for One” by Anne Cassidy is Jean, from whose perspective the events are rendered. The other customers, including the two women Jean overhears, function as triggers of Jean’s feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. Jean Jean is the main character in the short story, and most of her characterisation is done indirectly through her thoughts, memories, and attitude. All we know about Jean’s outer characterisation is that she is single and owns a cat. The other customers in the supermarket are relevant through their shopping bags. For Jean, they are all examples of what she does not have – a family or a relationship. Jean is only focused on the types of items they buy and the quantity of food which suggest that they are not single, like she is The short story ”Shopping for one” by Anne Cassidy takes place in a queue at a supermarket. We hear about a woman called Jean, who recently has become single. Jean is very insecure and has trouble with finding out that she really wants. She cannot decide if she should buy the big or the small size salad cream. She is embarrassed about the fact that she now only shops for one. Everyone else at the store seems to buy family- size cartons of cornflakes and giant packets of washing-powder. Jean feels that there is something pitiful about buying small sizes of everything. In the queue Jean is standing behind two women. Jean is listing to the women’s conversation. They are talking about how one of them lost her husband to another women and how he had crawled back to her and begged her for forgiveness. Jean wants to buy a cookery book called “Cooking for One” but decides not to do it because she has a firm belief that the book defines her aloneness and prescribes an empty future. While walking out of the store she regrets not having bought the book and makes up her mind to buy it next time. The entire story takes place at a supermarket except the ending, which takes place at the parking lot outside the supermarket. The surroundings are stressful, hectic and unkind. Jean is impatient because she only has 10 items in her wire basket while the other customers in the queue seem to have their trolleys filled. The atmosphere in the story is sad and depressing like the main character Jean. She becomes sad when listening to the two other women in the queue talking about relationships because it reminds her of her own unsuccessful relationship. She feels that people can see how lonely she is and that makes her very uncomfortable. When Jean gets out of the supermarket she is relieved to be away from the mass of people. She feels much better in the fresh air. Jean is very lonely and she is embarrassed about it. She wants to hide the fact that she is single and therefore she puts the cookery book back on its shelf. Her mother always told her that you can tell a person by their shopping. That is why Jean feels so exposed when shopping and spends so much energy thinking about what she puts in her wire basket. Her basket is almost empty which you may compare to how she feels about her life. She feels her life is empty without a man. Jean is
The main character clearly has trouble with being judged by strangers. She is afraid of what people might think of her. THE SINGING LESSON The story initially describes Miss Meadows’s despair but not the cause of it—possibly because her despair has complex causes. The story only shows that she feels that she has a knife buried in her heart, which is quite a dramatic description of suffering. Mansfield shows the contrast between Miss Meadows and the girls, who are “rosy” and blooming. Miss Meadows, by contrast, feels that she is already becoming cold and aged, like the autumn weather. Basil has ended their engagement. While her description of “bleeding to death” suggests the loss of a great love, the letter from Basil hints heavily that he is gay (since he says that he cannot love a woman much, and feels disgust at the idea of presumably having a sexual relationship with her). He also seems careless about her feelings while he is rejecting her—he does not bother to cover the word “disgust,” even after he changes his mind about using it. It seems that this was not a great love affair, and that he is rather cruel and careless to Miss Meadows. Even in Miss Meadows’s memory of the happy times in their courtship, Basil does not seem like a very passionate lover. The things she recalls about his interest in his own appearance and his focus on furniture align with that era’s stereotypes about the vanity of gay men. Further, she doesn’t recall anything about his personality that she likes beyond being glad that he is good-looking and wants to furnish a home for her. She does not seem to be in love with him either. Basil seems invested in his career and he expects to stay at the school where he teaches, whereas Miss Meadows would likely give up her job when she marries. He doesn’t appear to like the people at his school any more than Miss Meadows does, but this illustrates a reason that they each might want to marry—Basil might want a wife to help him look good (and not gay) within his school community, and Miss Meadows wants to marry rather than endure the shame of being an old maid in her own school. However, both of them are marrying without love, to impress people they dislike. This moment also affirms Basil’s devotion to keeping up appearances, as he chooses to go to annoying dinners for reasons of social propriety and advancement, rather than living in alignment with his true desires. This obviously connects to the suggestion that he is getting married merely to appear straight. She is despairing because she is thirty and she believes she is now too old to find a desirable marriage again. In fact, the engagement with Basil was based on self- delusion, which is symbolized by him touching the ostrich feather boa. First of all, touching the boa rather than touching her is quite impersonal, and second, ostriches are known for burying their heads in the sand to avoid reality. That the boa is ostrich associates both Basil and Miss Meadows with this tendency to avoid painful reality and live instead in convenient delusion. With that delusion taken from her by the break-up letter, she must face her true hopelessness about her age and prospects in life as a woman of thirty. TAKING THE VEIL The story begins during Edna's walk from the library. She is depressed, despite the beautiful day and cheerful scenes surrounding her. As she walks she remembers the previous evening, when she went out to a play with her fiancee, Jimmy. She was incredibly moved by the actor's performance, and at the end of it believed herself to be completely in love with the actor. She feels more strongly than she ever has before, and is convinced that she has to end her year-long engagement to Jimmy. This is in spite of the fact that, ''...they had known they were going to marry each other ever since they walked in the Botanical Gardens with their nurses, and sat on the grass with a wine biscuit and a piece of barley-sugar each for their tea.'' She believes her love for the actor is stronger than her devotion to Jimmy. Much of the rest of the story is a fantasy that plays out in Edna's mind, while she sits in the garden of a nearby convent. She imagines breaking up with Jimmy and how it will hurt him. She then plays out what her life will be like afterward. She imagines joining a convent (also known as 'taking the veil,' ). The fantasy goes further, and Edna imagines her own death from an illness she gets when rescuing a stray animal from the cold. When she imagines the distress of Jimmy at her funeral, Edna wakes up from her fantasy and realizes that it is Jimmy that she loves after all and that it is not too late to go on with their marriage as planned. This is especially true since she has said absolutely nothing to him about her crush! the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader realises just how naive Edna really is.
