Hey, guys.
I thought it would be a good idea to talk a little more the term "lingua franca" and how it was effecting Mist and her culture. Lingua franca originally represented the mixed language of Italian, Turkish, French, Greek, Arabic and Spanish. Now days it just means a common-ground mixture of two languages. In McDonnell's short story, the lingua franca is the introduction of the the Earther's English and their "cutting". Mist was emotionally disturbed my the changes that were being made in her society. She observes the children begin to adapt to the Earther's ways as demonstrated during the Mother-Infant Festival and the whispering. Do you guys think it is ironic that it was Mist who was going against the caste system at the beginning but becomes a strong opposer of mixing cultures? Do you think the Earther's should leave their culture alone or teach them Earth's ways? Can anyone relate the work with any other instance in history?
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uh.. I think I was supposed to post this week....>.>....Anyways, I do find it slightly ironic that Mist starts off as a rebel in her society, i.e. not wearing the scarf of her cast, marrying for love, not dressing her daughter in gems etc. and then once the Earthers started to invade her traditional culture, she quickly opposes the foreigners and becomes a supporter of the values and traditions of her society. It is as if she feels compelled to disobey her society's values but when strangers come along and do the same, she suddenly feels a sense of nationalism.
ReplyDeleteAs for the second question about whether or not the Earthers should impose their culture upon the people of Mist's planet, personally, I think that the Earthers should teach their culture to Mist's people only if they learn and respect the nature, values, and ways of Mist's people to the same degree in return.
I find it strange that everyone in Mist's society was so willing to drop their culture for the Earther's simply because it allowed for more wealth. I realize it is sort of the same situation with people from other countries moving to America because there are so many more opportunities here. However, your rarely see these immigrants completely drop there cultural ties in the manner of the people of Lingua Franca. I must say I was shocked at how readily almost everyone was to ostracize themselves from there culture.
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ReplyDeleteSorry about the last post guys. Okay, now for my real comment.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to connect The Lingua Franca to what we had to read for Wednesday. In that essay (chapter? book?) Europeans considered themselves the best, simply because their technology and way of thinking was supposedly more advanced, and they were doing other cultures a favor by bringing these things to them. This mentality can be seen in the Earthers, in that instead of learning how to communicate with the natives and viewing them as equals (even though their culture is more traditional), they instead bring their "cutting" and see them as less developed (less intelligent?) beings that are pretty much only good for trade. Even Mist's daughter must become assimilated into their culture so she can prove to the Earthers that the traditional culture is as good as theirs. Whenever there is a culture with more advanced technology, and it comes into contact with another, less advanced one, it's pretty much a certainty that the lesser one will be absorbed or almost completely destroyed.
Wow, so I thought I already posted on this... Sorry guys... I hope I didn't murder our grades...
ReplyDeleteWell like we were talking about in class, there are infinite amounts of conquering/assimilating (depending on your view of the semantics of each) cases throughout history.
I plan on incorporating this in our presentation next week, but I think one of the most simple and yet very profound things I've read about imperialism, modern or ancient, is from Jared Diamond.
There was a politician in New Guinea who, while he welcomed Western influence and culture, put a boundary line to the Europeans. One of the first questions Yali (the politician) asks is siimply, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?"
Like Mist's society getting ear implants, the New Guineans were subject to a reverse assimilation. Usually the native culture rubs off on the newcomers, not the other way around. I think that this point of view is where a lot of Mist's rebelliousness is coming from.