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<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 10 July 2007 - Volume 05</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">=========================================================================</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: </span><span id="_user_wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Paul Finlow-Bates <<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">
wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.07.10 (03) [E]</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 40px;">
<p><font size="2">From: "Bryan E. Schulz" <<a href="mailto:bryans@lodging1.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> bryans@lodging1.com</a>><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span><br>Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2007.07.09 (05) [E]<br></font>
</p><div>
<div><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><font size="2"><span>
</span></font><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" size="2">Hollywood intentionally
makes Danish, Low Saxon, Afrikaan etc... look stupid and, by
association also the people that speak these languages. </font><br></div></div></div></div><div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 40px;"><br><font size="2">I can't think of any Hollywood Danes or Low Saxons!
</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 40px;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 40px;"><font size="2">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).</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 40px;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 40px;"><font size="2">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!</font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 40px;"><font size="2"> </font></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); margin-left: 40px;"><font size="2">Paul</font></div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="ad"><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: R. F. Hahn <
</span><a style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
>
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Subject: Language politics<br><br>Hi, Paul!<br><br>Yes, what you describe <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> annoying to the "language geek." But most people couldn't care less, perhaps in part because they have been
<span style="font-style: italic;">groomed</span> to developed that attitude. <br><br>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.
<br><br>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.<br><br>Apparently, the attitudinal basis of this culture is that archetypal templates be used to create the
<span style="font-weight: bold;">illusion of authenticity</span>, 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"),
<span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> 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.
<br><br>"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
<span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> 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.
<br><br>This is my take on it.<br><br>Regards,<br><br>Reinhard/Ron<br></span>
•
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