Eugenia Netto - English, II-LM - a.a. 2008-2009

TASK 3

Encounter with the(East Coast)American students from Trinity College

Rome- 2 April 2009 (8-10 pm).

For the first part of the evening I would have tried wanted to try to speak Australian English and behave as an Aussie. I came in to Trinity College thinking (repeating mentally) some of the most important Australian values (as maxims) I had internalized: I was thinking to repeated mentally especially those values which could help me to feel different and to overcome my natural shyness so that behaving I would behave in some way as an Aussie. So I tried to apply the Stanislavsky’s method¹ as actors do. I had been repeatinged to myself: I can do it, I can talk to them; I have to try, we are all mates, all equals; I’m brave; I’m direct, informal and casual. [Good intentions. But you also need a lot of exercise BEFORE you are able to internalize a new mind-set. You did the homework but we didn't have time for you to do the rehearsals, which are an integral part of the Stanislavski method – see: http://tinyurl.com/boylan-2009-p In any case, our purpose was to give you a “taste” of the method, and it would seem that you indeed acquired a taste for it. Good!]

Anyway I don’t think the American students I talked to have noticed something strange in my way of speaking. Then I explained them the experiment to them and they answered me they didn’t know Australian English so they couldn’t say anything about it. Moreover that means that the substantial accommodation I tried to make for myself didn’t have as a consequence the formal accommodation as claimed in the second thesis of the eCAT (extended Communication Accommodation Theory)². [Actually, you don't know if your intonation or your slang expressions, etc. became Australian or not, since your informants said they knew nothing about Australian English and therefore were incapable of reporting having heard an Australian way of speaking. Of course, YOU might have been conscious of such changes, had they occurred... As for your American interlocutors, if you had accommodated formally, too, they probably would have noticed a “folksy,” very masculine (for a woman), blunt way of speaking that they would feel closer to they way of being than the way of speaking of the typical Italian speakers of English they had met so far in Italy. So, although they would not recognize your way of speaking as “Australian” (since they knew nothing of Australia), they should have recognized it as more Anglo than Italian. So my guess is that you didn't sound “folksy,” masculine and blunt. In fact, since you say you are very shy, your huge effort to be Australian probably resulted in making you speak... normally for an uninhibited Italian girl. This is an accomplishment for you, personally, but nothing that your interlocutors (who didn't know how you were before) could notice and comment upon.]

According to the CAT (Communication Accommodation Theory³), I think I tried to move make my way of communicating converge with that of Australians, but indeed I was so worried to say something that I soon forgot what I had to test. Therefore for the first part of the evening I achieved any no kind of formal accommodation, neither to Australians, nor to Americans. [This is precisely the point I was making.] Aussies and Americans, indeed, are very closed in their way of behaving and communicating so I think that, even if formally I didn’t feel a convergence of expression⁴, my attitude was quite akin to them. [So you are saying that a non-histrionic, reserved Italian is like a reserved, East Coast upper-class American? Hmmm, you may have hit on something!] That means that I feel a sort of entente⁵ not with Americans in general, but with American students who are in Italy to study and practice Italian. At the end of this part of the evening, in fact, I felt that there was not a convergence of intentionality between me and my interlocutor, so we decided to speak half English and half Italian, that means I had to speak English and the American girl Italian. Anyway this is not a substantial accommodation⁶ as termed in the defined by eCAT: I only wanted to make put my interlocutor at ease. In this sense I felt an entente with the girl, but not enough to talk about constitute successful accommodation because there was a mix of ways of communicating and of code, and also of different intentionality connected to the contingent context.

After that, in the second part of the evening, I begun to observe the American students in the way they behaved and spoke, trying to enter their mindset. During a game which my university mates and I with other American students have been began writing on the board, we took pointed out some stereotypes about Americans. At the beginning there were some misunderstandings came out, but then these ideas were useful to help us feel closer to the Americans people. I beguan also to ask to the American students I was talking to about their way of greeting when they meet between friends and then I tried to imitate their gestures and their phrases. It was very funny and useful. They were amused, too, and reacted positively to my imitations. Anyway I don’t did not feel substantial or formal accommodation: it was only a joke for both and a way to learn something more about American culture and language for me. [Actually, by imitating them – not only their words but their gestures, too – you were telling them you wanted to be able to speak like them. So even if you weren't able to (you did not accommodate formally), they may have felt that you were accommodating substantially, i.e. you had accepted them and their way of being and you wanted to be like them and do things their way – at least in greeting friends, etc. This is a very positive message that you sent. ]

Quite Toward at the end of the evening, I saw that the American students beguan to speak faster and also with a stronger American accent. The communication became more difficult for me: there was not a Third space⁷, using Kelly’s terms, between me and my interlocutor. Anyway this change in their way of speaking and behaving can maybe be read as a reaction due to a common feeling of affinity and warmth as hoped according to the eCAT hypothesizes. Maybe this is only a little sign towards a much more successful accommodation as termed in the described by eCAT, a little step towards a substantial accommodation. [I agree. An increase in speed and colloquial expressiveness can indicate either: (1.) disregard for the non-native speakers, such as in giving street directions to a non-native speaker when in a hurry; (2.) a high degree of “closeness” with non-native speakers – and this seems to be the case you are describing. It is curious that the same reaction (by the native speakers) can be caused by two very different motivations, but such is the case.] Moreover I felt quite good and I was a little bit satisfied when my interlocutor treated me as his mates: he begun to speak more spontaneously and he got me involved in some activities taking me around the room and patted me on the back to thank me. [Wow! That really means you are “one of the group” -- see http://patrick.boylan.it/text/boylan01.htm.] At the end of the evening he also said me goodbye to me using an American gesture (‘fist to fist’). [Well, there are 3 hypotheses here: (1.) even if you deny it, you were accommodating as an Aussie and this produced a feeling of camaraderie; (2.) even if you felt you were not very successful in accommodating as an American, you managed to create a “third space” and thus entente; (3.) he was trying to pick you up. I hope, for the sake of your boyfriend, that either (1.) or (2.) is the reason.]

Finally, I can say that the experiment was not completely successful, but I had tried did try to change my mind-set, my behavior and my way of speaking to accommodate to another different meaning-making interlocutor as described in the by eCAT. However the language is ‘a stratified sedimentation of specific, culturally-connoted wills to mean in specific ways, both in the mind of individual interactants and in the collective mind of their community’ (Boylan, 2003, 2009)⁸ and so acquiring a new language and its relative culturally-connoted will to be and will to mean takes a lot of time: reaching a attaining successful accommodation the first time you face new people and a new culture is not easy at all. [I agree and therefore applaud your intrepidity – as well as that of the other students. Like gladiators, you entered the area heads high, and managed to leave without being eaten by the wild beasts, thus learning that where there's a will there's a way. Congratuations.]

Excellent. This paper combines thoughtful introspection (of the experienced events) with numerous references to the assigned paper, Accommodation Theory Revisited. This confers a rational framework on what would have otherwise been fragments of memory linked by vague surmising. It makes it easier to criticize and evaluate both the paper and your memories and surmising, which assume an explicit form.]