wh5 = who, what, where, when and why. The five basic questions that are the structure of any story. Explored in "Who says what, where, when and and Why: Context in Conversation." An introduction to Sociolinguistics through Conversation Analysis. wh5 is the blogsite of the book published 2008 by Nanundo-Phoenix, Tokyo.
Showing posts with label cultural identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cultural identity. Show all posts
Questor: What do you want people to remember you for?
Witkojc: Now, that’s a question that can make you tidy up your life and get prepared for the end.
Questor: You’ve thought about it?
Witkojc: Not as much as I should have. How about, painter of decorated Easter eggs?
Questor: You’re joking?
Witkojc:
Sorbian flag
Not at all. My ancestry is Sorbian. Grew up in Australia knowing nothing of Sorbian culture. Never learned any recipes, literature, music, festivals or dances. But at Easter Sorbians paint eggs. Beautifully. Even in a small way I can connect with my ancestry. Now is the time.
Questor:It’s never too late, eh.
_________
Voice-over
Cultural background forms us. Cultural identity forms personal identity. Those who have a cultural identity can take it for granted. Those without one may struggle to find their path.
Norman and Brian, aged 50-something Aussies, during a scene change, exchange impressions of the tango performance at Al Tortoni, Buenos Aires.
...
Norman: Spectacular innit.
Brian: Awesome.
Norman: Don’t say that, mate. You sound like your daughter.
Brian: OK. Well, it’s OK.
Norman: Now you’re speaking our language again.
Brian: We didn’t have music like that growing up in Oz, did we?
Norman: Yeah, we never danced, did we? Culture like that we never had.
________________ Voice-over
Adopting the jargon of a different generation happens, but for a while it doesn’t ring true. But at least Brian used “awesome” appropriately, whatever we may think about its origins referring only to god-like epiphanies.
Beyond quibbles about lexical change, Brian and Norman are engaged in a serious debate on why Australians (and New Zealanders) leave their countries on culture-seeking OE missions. 150 years of European settlement in Australia and New Zealand isn’t very long to build a culture (Latin America has had 500 years). And the British, despite having a great literature, didn’t cook or dance that well.
My name is Rachel. I’m 30. My father was from Morocco and my mother was Norwegian. I was born in Norway but when I was two, my parents split up, and my father took me back to Morocco. He kidnapped me actually, because my mother chased after him and tried to get me back. She had two attempts, the second time with help from the Norwegian embassy and her brother, and finally she managed to grab me while everyone was napping and escaped back to Norway. She had to change her name and her address and I grew up with her. But recently I found my family in Morocco. They are Muslim. They treated me very kindly, especially my foster mother. I stayed for three months and although it would be difficult for me to be a Muslim, I wonder now what my life would have been like growing up in that big extended Moroccan family.
My name is Nguyen. I’m 52 now.I was born in South Vietnam but my parents were killed when the North Vietnamese took over Saigon. My brother and I wanted to escape but it cost more money than we had to become boat people. Anyway, we heard there was a good chance we would drown because the boats often sank. So we learned how to build our own boat. We learned about sea-worthy design and engine repair. Finally we could escape to Hong Kong and a refugee camp and enter Norway. I work here as boat builder now, it’s good, but I sometimes like to go back to Vietnam.
__________ Voice-over
You might think that Norway is populated exclusively by Thor Heyerdahl type men and Liv Ullman type women. But Norway seems receptive to migrants. There is an intercultural museum including artifacts from immigrant groups, in fact at present, there is an exhibition of six world religions: Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism, brought to Norway by migrants. Rachel feels lucky she did not grow up in Morocco but is learning Arabic and dreams of having another life. Nguyen created for himself another life and speaks Norwegian but sometimes thinks of where he came from.
Roger is searching for roots but it is not as easy as he thinks.
...
Herr Schmidt: Guten Tag. Haben Sie…
Roger: Ich heisse Roger. I am looking for my familien en kirke buken.
Herr Schmidt: Wie haben 100 Jahre buken,
Roger: I am sorry. English?
Herr Schmidt: A little. We have about thirty books from different villages containing baptism, confirmation, marriage, funeral records. What is the name, the date, the record, and the village of the ancestor you are looking for?
Roger: I don’t know the date, record or village. It was somewhere between 1750 to 1790.
Herr Schmidt: Let me show you a book. This one, two hundred pages. Finding what you look for will not be easy.
Roger: Written in Gothic, largely illegible, ink faded, pages falling out? Don’t you have this on computer?
Herr Schmidt: This is a church office. These are archives, but there is no budget for digitizing them.
__________
Voiceover
Roger has only a vague notion that his ancestor came from here. It might have been somewhere else. The church office records are not complete. He is wise to rethink his search. And given that the ancestor he is searching for accounts for only a thirty-second or a sixty-fourth part of his genes, he may be wise to give up hoping that ancestor-hunting will produce his identity. He would do better to think about who he really is.
Cockpit social chat touches on issues of identity.
... Chuck: Where you say you were from? Graham: Auckland, originally. Chuck: Oakland? I flown in there. California, right? Graham: Auckland, New Zealand. Auck, as in awk! Chuck: Place with all the sheep? Graham: 50 million sheep, 4 million people, yeah, yeah.
Chuck: So, you’re a New Zealander? Graham: Originally, yes. Haven’t lived there for 30 years.I have difficulty being called a New Zealander. If someone asks me, "What are you?" I can answer, "I fly, I'm a pilot." That's part of my personal identity. But my cultural identity is not Maori. My father was English but I've never lived there so I'm not British. Chuck: So what are you? Culturally, I mean? Graham: Been asking myself that for years. Sort of mid-Pacific? Chuck: Easter Island? Graham: Closer to Pitcairn.
____________
Voiceover
Graham is one of an increasing number of migrants who have left behind an uncertain cultural identity and not found another.
His personal identity being related to his work might mean that we see strong elements of professionalism in his persona, but fewer enthusiasms for food, music, literature, or other cultural traditions.
The cultural stereotype of New Zealand equaling sheep is one which traveling New Zealanders need to have a ready answer to at any time.
Still trying each day to have at least one stimulating conversation with someone, help whoever needs it, eat slowly and walk fast... and make sense of events.
