LL-L "Language politics" 2007.07.10 (05) [E]

Tue Jul 10 20:05:55 UTC 2007

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  10 July 2007 - Volume 05

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.07.10 (03) [E]

From: "Bryan E. Schulz" < bryans at lodging1.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.07.09 (05) [E]
 Hollywood intentionally makes Danish, Low Saxon, Afrikaan etc... look
stupid and, by association also the people that speak these languages.

I can't think of any Hollywood Danes or Low Saxons!

I agree about Hollywood "Afrikaners" though.  In fact it amazes me that,
considering how many South Africans you meet these days, neither British nor
American producers can come up actors with a convincing South African
accent, either Afrikaans-speaker or English-speaker (it's probably too much
to expect them to realise there's a difference).

There was an otherwise good cop show on BBC a few weeks back featuring a
young "South African" backpacker.  I'm not sure who or what the girl in the
role had been listening to, but it sure wasn't any kind of SA English I
know!

Paul

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From: R. F. Hahn < sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language politics

Hi, Paul!

Yes, what you describe is annoying to the "language geek."  But most people
couldn't care less, perhaps in part because they have been groomed to
developed that attitude.

It's not as though the movie industry has no access to South African (or
other) actors, advisers, etc.  Also, team members may very well have
contacts with South Africans, if there aren't even South Africans on the
teams. But apparently that's not what counts. What is acceptable to the
American public is what really counts first and foremost. Authenticity is
not what the average American movie-goer expects or even considers as a real
possibility. Big names on billboards are more important, and those names do
what they can to create the illusion of authentic accents.  It's more like
caricature accents. When Meryl Streep put a lot of effort and pride into
producing near-authentic non-American accents people reacted with a mixture
of admiration and ridicule, and it took a lot on her part until she finally
received awards.

You can liken this to Italians and "Hispanics" playing Native Americans and
virtually anyone playing "Orientals" in older movies, even though lots of
real McCoys were available.

Apparently, the attitudinal basis of this culture is that archetypal
templates be used to create the illusion of authenticity, in other words
"characters more real than the real thing," or "larger than life."  This is
not unlike character archetyping in theatrical traditions all over Eurasia.
In Greek, Roman, medieval European and traditional Indic, Southeast Asian,
Chinese, Korean and Japanese theater, masks, make-up and costumes facilitate
recognition of archetypes.  For instance, in Chinese theater ("opera") a
wispy beard symbolizes a scholar type, "monkey"-type make-up a clever,
crafty type, and a high male voice a hero. In Yuan dynasty theater a bushy
beard represented a foreigner ("barbarian"), any foreigner. In Low Saxon
theater, anyone speaking German represents the establishment, rich people,
towns people, etc., who usually end up losing, and German spoken with Low
Saxon interference represents pretension and denial of one's heritage. This
needs not be authentic either, can be stylized.

"Authentic" -- i.e. "realistic" -- theater (and film) does not have a very
long history. Better British productions on stage and on film have shown
what can be done if people want to go to the trouble of "near-real
illusion," and this applies not only to language. There is a market for
that, also here in the US, but here it is still a "high-brow" minority
market, though probably a growing one. Most people are still content with
the usual fair, and they neither care nor do they know any better or care to
know any better.  As long as someone speaks "foreign" and you are told he or
she is a South African, that's just fine: it is a South African. Close
enough is good enough.  I am fairly sure that most people know that what
they are watching isn't like real life.  Their expectations are different,
just as someone watching cartoons doesn't entertain the belief that the
cartoons are in any way authentic depictions.

This is my take on it.

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

•

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