Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I don't agree. The op is just as racist as what DC said, which is racist, by the way.
ARABS: Loud Voices and just plain Shouting
- Thread starter Bang to Rights
- Start date
I don't agree. The op is just as racist as what DC said, which is racist, by the way.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Why not have a poll on everyone, and only the most popular 200, say, will be allowed to stay.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Btw, we have arabs living here; not huge numbers, but they are here, and I can't say I've noticed them to be any louder than anyone else. What a load of racist crap.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Not necessarily. I think Arabic and German are both quite guttural languages which can sound harsh and aggressive to an English speaker and could make them seem louder than they actually are.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Guttural. I think german is essentially english said in a slightly different way, and no matter how 'gutteral' a language might be, doesn't mean that the volume of the speaker will be louder than average.
Leaving aside how the OP phrased it, are you saying that all cultures are identically loud/quiet in how they conduct conversations?
I'd argue that the typical American speaks a lot louder and more extrovertly than the typical Japanese person, while a typical British person sits somewhere in between. This is from personal observation from living and working in Japan for a year and seeing US/UK/Japanese people side-by-side.
This hasn't got anything to do with skin colour (aka 'race') and is just a generalisation (hence 'typical xxx' rather than 'all xxx').
I'd also point out that academics have also studied this - ie 'paralinguistics'. They don't seek to make value judgements about which culture is 'better' but they do seek to uncover differences and look for the logic behind them.
How is this racist? Or are you objecting to something else?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I think it's mostly a load of crap. I've seen people of all types shouting. I've noticed that americans seem to talk a bit louder when overseas, for some reason. I've noticed that there are native americans and chinese americans and black americans etc. I don't know if they all speak the same way or not. I'd bet that the same goes for British people.
I've seen Somalis being quite loud walking down the street. I've also seen them sitting at a table in a restaurant, speaking at the same volume as the people around them. I've seen Japanese students here learning english, being loud and crazy. I've also seen them being very quiet and demure.
I think this hierarchy of loudness, is just another form of stereotyping.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Hmmmmmm ....
'Heirarchy' implies higher and lower, better and worse - academics studying paralinguistics look at differences without judging them and use evidence-based research rather than ad-hoc, subjective impressions.
There is a difference between stereotyping people and generalising about a culture or language in a reasonable way.
If someone is trying to learn to communicate effectively in a language and cultural context different to their own they need to learn *how* to speak and behave in various situations, not just what words to use.
Learning about the 'typical' and 'average' useage in different contexts (eg at home, at work, with friends etc) this isn't the same as saying that all American, British or Japanese people are exactly the same and behave identically in every single context.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Yes, a hierarchy of louder vs less loud. Higher and lower volumes.
Have the paralinguists put out a decibel chart for the various languages yet?
You left out the better/worse bit. Heirarchy implies a value judgement about whether louder is better or worse. A heirarchy involves assigning 'ranks'.
Different people, coming from different linguistic and cutyral perspectives may well take completely opposite views about someone who they perceive to be 'too loud' or someone else they perceive to be 'too quiet'. They might have their own 'ranking system' where a mid point is ranked 'best' and variations from this are ranked lower.
A linguist isn't making this kind of value-judgement so they aren't constructing a 'heirarchy'.
Yes, I have seen paralinguists writing about decibel and other measures of volume. I can't find any 'chart' online however as it seems that a lot of this reaserch is via subscription-only academic journals.
I have read some 'pre-view' extracts from the following books:
Interviewing Clients Across Cultures: A Practitioner's Guide
(pp 63/64)
When Cultures Collide: Leading, Teamworking and Managing Across the Globe (page 404)
These don't quote measurements or provide conclusive proof, but they are not being judgemental and in fact are trying to help people think outside the box of their own cultural preconceptions.
You've heard nothing until you've heard a couple of elderly Chinese gentlemen sitting six inches apart on the MTR and gabbling at each other in Cantonese. It sounds like they are having a blazing row. They're not, they're just chatting.
Woof
Word.
My Korean student in Dalian complained about how loud the Dalianese Chinese were. I said to him that they were actually pretty quiet compared with the much louder Wuhanese. He looked at me in disbelief...
Good grief.
It's hilarious how DC has lectured us at length about how racist the UK is and then comes out with this jewish stuff...
It's hilarious how DC has lectured us at length about how racist the UK is and then comes out with this jewish stuff...
I've been Googling really hard to find something for JC2 but I keep getting stuff like this:
"This study examines the perception of paralinguistic intonational meanings deriving from Ohala's Frequency Code (Experiment 1) and Gussenhoven's Effort Code (Experiment 2) in British English and Dutch. Native speakers of British English and Dutch listened to a number of stimuli in their native language and judged each stimulus on four semantic scales deriving from these two codes: SELF-CONFIDENT versus NOT SELF-CONFIDENT, FRIENDLY versus NOT FRIENDLY (Frequency Code); SURPRISED versus NOT SURPRISED, and EMPHATIC versus NOT EMPHATIC (Effort Code). The stimuli, which were lexically equivalent across the two languages, differed in pitch contour, pitch register and pitch span in Experiment 1, and in pitch register, peak height, peak alignment and end pitch in Experiment 2. Contrary to the traditional view that the paralinguistic usage of intonation is similar across languages, it was found that British English and Dutch listeners differed considerably in the perception of "confident," "friendly," "emphatic," and "surprised." The present findings support a theory of paralinguistic meaning based on the universality of biological codes, which however acknowledges a language-specific component in the implementation of these codes." link
"This study examines the perception of paralinguistic intonational meanings deriving from Ohala's Frequency Code (Experiment 1) and Gussenhoven's Effort Code (Experiment 2) in British English and Dutch. Native speakers of British English and Dutch listened to a number of stimuli in their native language and judged each stimulus on four semantic scales deriving from these two codes: SELF-CONFIDENT versus NOT SELF-CONFIDENT, FRIENDLY versus NOT FRIENDLY (Frequency Code); SURPRISED versus NOT SURPRISED, and EMPHATIC versus NOT EMPHATIC (Effort Code). The stimuli, which were lexically equivalent across the two languages, differed in pitch contour, pitch register and pitch span in Experiment 1, and in pitch register, peak height, peak alignment and end pitch in Experiment 2. Contrary to the traditional view that the paralinguistic usage of intonation is similar across languages, it was found that British English and Dutch listeners differed considerably in the perception of "confident," "friendly," "emphatic," and "surprised." The present findings support a theory of paralinguistic meaning based on the universality of biological codes, which however acknowledges a language-specific component in the implementation of these codes." link
actually i think everyone is racist to some extent. its just a matter of degree.
Really?
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Are you back?
You still here?
Try principles, not racist bullshit for brains...
The Groke
hot hail/Paging Dr. Beat
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
This thread is totaly jean-luc
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
No, I went to bed. Do you think everybody is a little bit racist?
Bang to Rights
Well-Known Member
sobjecting to me personally.
I suspect it's a personal thing. Apparantly he's objecting to me out of hand. I think what he's saying (or what he'd like for you to believe) is that I'm lying (both in my intro and later comments) when I say that I'm interested in the subject for purely academic purposes. Doesn't make much of a converstationalist I'm afraid. Or perhaps he's right: merely bringing up the subject is an admition of racist bias?
But then there's the social contradition:
1). "Black people are excellent marathon runners." RIGHT YOU ARE!
2). "Black people show little interest in slalom skiiing." BLOODY RACIST!
I suspect it's a personal thing. Apparantly he's objecting to me out of hand. I think what he's saying (or what he'd like for you to believe) is that I'm lying (both in my intro and later comments) when I say that I'm interested in the subject for purely academic purposes. Doesn't make much of a converstationalist I'm afraid. Or perhaps he's right: merely bringing up the subject is an admition of racist bias?
But then there's the social contradition:
1). "Black people are excellent marathon runners." RIGHT YOU ARE!
2). "Black people show little interest in slalom skiiing." BLOODY RACIST!
Bang to Rights
Well-Known Member
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I agree with you. However, you don't have to own it. A decent person will make every effort to weed it out and replace it with a more rational way of dealing with everyone. IMHO.
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