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Padova-Dickinson08 Group 3

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Group 3:

Federico Fiorentin

Comparing the responses to Cultura's tests

AMERICA - ITALIA

The Americans wrote many different thoughts about their mother country, whereas we tended to underline similar aspects, such as: fast food and big companies, big spaces, multiculturalism, power and connection with war. As far as Italy is concerned, we both ended up to follow many stereotypes and facts (sun, art, history, football, food), but we Italians were more critic and negative towards some aspects of the present situation of our “belpaese”(corruption, inefficacy, contradiction…).

American VS Italian WOMEN

As regards American women, the basic features that emerge are more or less the same: blonde, independent, overweight/skinny. However, we mostly agree in describing them as career-oriented and determined. Surprisingly, we see Italian women much more family-oriented, housewives and mothers than they do. The Americans have an idealized image of the Italian woman: beautiful, dark skinned, brunette, elegant and sophisticated.

American VS Italian MEN

We both agree on the physical characteristics of American men. In our imagination they are either fat or devoted to their body image. Moreover, they are dedicated to business and career.

Italian men are associated with soccer, romance, self-confidence and beauty. From an Italian point of view, men are mammoni (mama’s boys), passionate and possessive.

Task 2

Word association

Martina

The three words I chose are:

American lifestyle → in general, the Americans describe their lifestyle as “busy”, “fast”, “work obsessed”. I thing they used these words with a negative connotation, above all if you compare their responses with their responses to Italian lifestyle (see below). From the Italian point of view, the American lifestyle is “frenetico” as well, and have both a negative and a positive connotation. According to some people it’s “freddo”, “esagerato”, “pochi valori”. But there’re also words used with a more positive meaning (“avventura”, “opportunità”, “libero”).

Italian lifestyle → the Americans seem to have a common view of Italian lifestyle, which is described with the words “relaxed”, “take it easy” and “slow”. What made a great impression on me was that the Italians point of view is different. Some described our lifestyle as “lento”, “pigro” and even “potenzialmente il migliore al mondo”. But other people think about it as “caotico”, “affannoso”, “corsa contro il tempo”. The Americans generally agree on the idea of American lifestyle, but we Italians have not the same opinion. I’d like to know why! ;-)

Politics → I was surprised when I read that both the Americans and the Italians have the same negative opinion on politics. The most used words are “corrupt”, “complicated”, “lies”, “complessa”, “corrotta”, “imbroglio”. The Italians have an even more negative view and see Italian politics as “vecchia”, “deludente” and “tradimento”. It’s quite impressive…Politics need renewal!

Elena

The three words that made the greatest impression on me are: Italian lifestyle, immigrants and politics

Italian lifestyle: like Alessandra, I was curious to know what Italy looked like in American eyes. The most frequent expressions are "relaxed", "take it easy". I perfectly agree with Alessandra's interpretation of the meaning of these words: on the one hand, our American partners share the idea that Italy is a country in which people can still recognize and appreciate the importance of spending some time doing the things that they like the most; on the other hand, Italians are maybe considered lazy and unreliable, people who don't commit themselves to work and only think about having a good time (This idea is suggested by the expressions "no work" and "work less".) It is surprisingly to notice, therefore, that many of the Italian students chose the word "lavoro" and other connected concepts (such as "frenesia, "corsa contro il tempo", "affannoso") to describe lifestyle in their country: in my opinion, our way of life is becoming more and more stressed, people is increasingly concerned with achieving ambitious goals in their career and the myth of Italy as a country "without time" is something that belongs to the past. However, it has to be pointed out that not only some of the Italian students, but also the girl coming from Chine have used the words "leisure", "godereccio", "lento", "pigro" in their associations, so maybe this is still the way in which the world and Italy itself see this country.

Immigrants: American and Italian students share more or less the same ideas about this concept. Immigrants are discriminated subjects ("different", "pregiudizio", "ghettizzati") who are compelled to leave from their homelands to look for better conditions of life. They represent a very difficult issue to deal with ("in Italia non esiste ancora una legge che gestisca l'immigrazione in modo sensato") because they often cannot speak the language of the country the moved to and can hardly mix their original culture with the new traditions and beliefs with which they get into contact ("trying to blend with the lifestyle and culture of the country where migrated", "hard to communicate with", "politiche per l'integrazione, accettazione, diversità, complessità"). However, it is generally recognized that they are also a precious social resource because they bring with them their knowledge (lingue straniere, richezza culturale") and spurr the people who give them shelter to be more tolerant towards diversity ("let 'em be").

Politics: like Martina already noticed, I found a similar convergence of opinions in the words associated to Politics as well. Both Americans and Italians seem to have lost their faith in politics ("suck", "lies", "argue", "corruzione", "sfinimento logorroico") maybe because politicians have too often disappointed their expectations and hopes ("illusoria", "farsa", "betrayal").

Alessandra

The three words I chose within those of the Word Association results are: Italy, Freedom and Italian style;

   About “Italy” I’ve noticed that the words that they use more frequently to describe our country are: beautiful, pasta, gelato, history, ancient and calcio. Fortunately, in only one answer appears the word “mafia”. All the other words have a positive connotation and they reveal that American people love so much our country and its lifestyle too. The more positive aspect is that very few people associate Italy with the problem of “mafia”. Maybe because this sort of “sore” is present also in America, or even because, what we consider as our worse problem in Italy, have not any bad influence in their opinion;

   For “freedom”: America, democracy, individualism. First I want to say I chose this word because, while responding to the Word association, I was curious to know what American idea about freedom is. I found out that Americans see in their own country the symbol of freedom. It’s very interesting that no other countries are mentioned in their answers except from America. Maybe because they are too proud of their origins, but in my opinion, American students have noticed that in no other European countries there’s a so high level of “democracy” as in America. Also Artem, the American peer, with who I’m taking the exchange, underlines this fact in our last conversation. He’s not a native American boy, he comes from Ukraine and he’s been living in America for 3 years. He said me that the first different he noticed between America and his native country is the “open-minded” mentality that distinguish the American lifestyle.

   And finally, about “Italian lifestyle” I was very curious to discover if American people really know how our lifestyle is and if they could feel a little bit envy of it. The adjectives they used with very high frequency are: relaxing, no work, slow and the expression “take it easy”. These adjectives have all a good and positive connotation, but the one that makes the greatest impression on me is “relaxing”. In my opinion this idea of our lifestyle can be read in a double way: in the one hand Americans feel a little bit envious of how Italian can live appreciating good things of life, but, on the other hand, they are described as people who stay all day in doing nothing (eventually sleeping or eating- as Zara noticed). What is more, I’m thinking about the fact that their idea about the entire Italian lifestyle is the same of that people from the North of Italy have of people who live in the South of Italy. It could be strange, but many people who live in Northern Italy feel themselves as “”Americans” in their lifestyle. Another positive aspect is that only one Dickinson student associated us with ‘family orientated’ that can be linked to what our politicians called ‘mammoni’ and I think that is a very positive discover.

Federico

The 3 words whose answers made the greatest impression on me were: individualism, community, Italian men.

The words which appear in the responses for these 3 words are=

-Individualism= egoismo, egocentrismo, chiusura (more often) women, meritocrazia, sfacciataggine (one time). The connotation is generally negative for us Italians, but more positive for the Americans.

-Community= family, friends, condivisione (more often) insignificante, individual (one time). The connotation was positive the majority of times.

-Italian men= mammoni, handsome/beautiful/good-looking, romantic (more often) macho, stallions, competizione (one time) The connotation is positive (a little stereotyped for the Americans), but just a little negative (bugiardi, gelosi, infedeli), maybe because some Italian girls wanted revenge ;-)

Sentence completion

Martina

The two sentences I found most interesting are:

The mafia is → this sentence struck me because I thought the Americans would link mafia with Italy. But from their responses I found out that they thing the mafia is all over the world and not only in Italy.

People from the South→ when I answered this question I immediately thought about Italian South. But when I read American responses I realized they described their South, that is the American one. I’d like to know more about the Americans’ opinion on the difference between South and North in their country.

Elena

The two sentences that I chose are:

A good job is...: Americans and Italians have a clear idea of what a good job is really like and I was surprised by the perfect parallelism of their answers. I report here some examples:

where you feel fulfilled /soddisfa le aspettative di chi lo svolge

that pays well and has lots of benefits / ti dà un buon stipendio

that makes you happy and gives you opportunity for growth/ consente una crescita personale, è professionalmente appagante, piace

satisfies their need to live a healthy life/offre sicurezza, uno stipendio degno, mobilita'

The only thing that some of the Italian students pointed out and the Amercans didn't is the hope that the job you find will correspond to the field of of study in which you chose to specialize at university. This is something that young people in Italy cannot take for granted when they graduate.

Mafia is...: given that this will be one of the topics of discussion in our future Skype exchanges, I wanted to know American opinion about mafia. I noticed that only one students associated this word with Italy, while another stated that his knowledge comes from the TV series "The Sopranos". It seems to me that in America this plague is not very well known in its origins and characteristics because most of the other students simply associated it with "corruption" and "organized crime". Italian students, on the contrary, gave full description of it in their answers and I noticed that many of them considered it a problem rooted in the Italian society ("il sistema che immobilizza l'Italia","il lato nero dell'Italia", "una piaga sociale sviluppatasi nel sud dell'Italia nel corso del XIX secolo e diffusasi poi in altre zone del mondo", " pratica indecorosa per l'italia ").

Alessandra

About sentence completion, those that make the greatest impression on me are:

A good citizen is someone who...

§        stands up for his or her beliefs, thus forever improving societal norms.

§        respects his or her country and is willing to stand up for what they believe in.

§        is respectful of their environment and the people in their environment

A good parent is someone who....

§        is supportive and unconditionally loving.

§        is there for his/her children, teaches his/her children good morals .

§        sets a good example for his/her children, and allows them to be who they want to be.

§        takes the time to teach their children how to handle life problems and recognize right from wrong.

Federico

As regards the “Sentence Completions” these are the two that made me reflect more:

- A good job is a job that “pays a lot”: many Americans wrote just this, whereas we all wrote more or less the same thing, I think going a little bit further: qualcosa che ti soddisfa e stimola, che ti da motivazione e ti permette di essere felice e appagato.

- A good son/daughter…many Italians (almost all) copied&pasted or rewrote the same things to underline that a good son and a good daughter are the same. I noticed that from the American answers they used the verb “obey her parents” with daughter and “respect his parents” with son. Well, it’s hard to draw conclusions, but I was impressed by this difference.

Questions to Chiara Olivi

1- Do you think that your idea of Italy and Italian style is shared also by other countries? Is it a general positive opinion, or in other country Italy is seen in a bad way?

2- How your impression about our country is influenced by mass- media? In which way?

3- Which are the typical differences between North and South America?

Task 3

Hi, guys!

This week we're supposed to discuss on this page to come up with a question we want to pose to our American peers. As you see above, I had a question for Chiara regarding the American difference between their South and North. I'd like to know more about that. What do you think? Could it be a question to pose to them?

Cheers,

Martina

Hi peers,

First of all I have a question: Is it possible to propose 2 questions for our American Friends? Because I think that all the three questions that we had prepared for Chiara are equally interesting to receive an answer. Maybe we can write them down and tell American guys to decide which one they prefere to answer. What do you think??

Cheers

Alessandra

Hi everybody!

Sarah talks about only one question in her post on the blog, but, as Alessandra said, all three of our questions are very interesting and could be the starting point of a general discussion. I would also like to know if our American partners think that TV series (such as The O.C, Dawson's Creek, Beverly Hills, Friends...) reflect their own way of living or if they transmit a distorted idea of American society.

Elena

Hi, everybody!

Elena's right. We just have to come up with one question. I'd like to know many things about American culture but we have to decide what is most important for all of us. It's quite hard, isn't it? Let's see what Federico thinks and then we'll decide.

Martina

Hi, girls! I'm incredibly sorry I couldn't answer before! I went to the "Laif" lab TWICE and tried several computers but none of them accepted cookies for this website. Incredible! I love American cookies sooo much instead!!! Ha ha ha...

So this is the very first moment I have the time to connect from home (and my connection works...second incredible thing!).

Well, I agree with you. However, I think we have to choose just one question. You know I'm usually very sincere and direct, so I have to say that I would prefer to ask the question about TV series. I think that the conversation can turn to be more lively in this way. Martina, yours is good as well, but with your last sentence you gave me the responsability to choose between the two. Let me know if you agree.

Kisses and Hugs (your boyfriends aren't jelous, are they? Otherwise I'm gonna shake hands....ha ha),

Fred

Using technology is a continuous adventure, isn't it Federico?? So, shall we choose a question about TV series? What do we ask? Do you prefer to know whether the American stuedents think that their life is reflected in the films and programmes that we watch in Italy? Or whether their opinions and expectations about Italian way of life is influenced by what they watch on TV?

Elena

Well, I think I'll go back to paper and inkpot!

I know that tastes differ, but I would choose the second one. So the reflection can be double-way: they reflect on how they see us through the media and we can agree or disagree as "natives". But if you don't agree, you know I'm quite open-minded.

Fred

Hi, guys! Don't worry Fede, our questions were all interesting so I agree with the question about tv series. I've just posted it in Blogginenglish.

See you tomorrow!:-)

Marty

Skype Xchange- Week 2

Links about the years of lead in Italy:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anni_di_piombo

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strage_di_piazza_Fontana

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Moro

http://www.informagiovani.it/Terrorismo/terhome.htm

http://www.liberonweb.com/asp/libro.asp?ISBN=8817428051

Question from Padova to Dickinson

1. When we think about terrorism in America, the first thing which comes into our minds is the collapse of the Twin Towers. Did you ever experienced terrorism in your country before 9/11?

2. What does terrorism mean to you?

3. Now that you're studing our "anni di piombo", which are the main differences between our terrorism and yours?

Comments (4)

Hi,group 3!
As you can see, I edited our page in order to prepare a sort of layout to work on our task 2. It's just an idea, so feel free to change something if you prefer. ;-)

Bye!
Martina

It's me again...I created a link at the top of the page. If you click on my name, you'll visit my blog. Do you think it's a good idea? Martina

Hi Martina,
the idea of the blog it's fantastic... next time you must explain to me how did you manage it, ok??
Bye

Hi,Ale! To create a link to your blog's quite easy!Click on Edit page,underline your name at the top of the page and click on "Link".A little window should appear and there you should write your blog's address. I hope it's quite clear; otherwise let me know and I'll explain you again!:-)
Bye! Martina

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