語言文化衍生的種族差異

"多元文化" "文化熔爐" 這些詞所承載的意義,若非親身體驗,是很難有所認知的吧~
在討論區上看到關於"IBM電腦賣給Lenovo後,產品品質"的一番爭執,
免不了出現 "Made in China=劣質品"的言論,想當然有人出面反批美國
當中有幾篇文法不佳的反諷回文(想當然..不是美國人寫的)
於是,有人撂下一句 "Why don't you speak better English?"

英文不好,總是容易變成被欺負的把柄,尤其是面對"對美國以外的國家毫無體認的美國人"時,容易遇到.也不能怪誰,只是當這種情形出現在公開場合,會讓人氣憤地想到種族歧視,很想"教育"一下這種人.

而,當這種情形出現在"強調文化差異,注重多元文化教育"的系上時(例如,我們系),就更是讓我火山壓頂,努力不爆發. 話說像我們這種與各式各樣人群接觸的領域,對文化語言差異應該是熟悉到不行,課程也一定會包含的.
但很巧的是,學校的上城(校園後半地勢稍高,被我們戲稱uptown,前半地勢較低,叫downtown),大多是教育社會藝術科系,學生多是美國人,而下城(downtown),是理工科系,學生多為印度大陸人,講"正宗美式英文"的佔少數.
雖然uptown的科系特別強調多元文化的教育,卻顯少有機會和各國人種族群互動交往,感覺上對文化差異的體認反倒不如downtown美國人.

以下就是個活生生血淋淋,諷刺到不行的事件,我在系上聽力實習時發生的:
(這是我回應朋友網誌時寫的,這才想到我竟然沒在自家大作文章...嘖..回來補一篇)


A supervisor got several calls from a girl with an "asian accent" and could not understand a word she said. As she was telling us this, all of a sudden, the phone rang again, the supervisor quickly shouted, "Don't answer that, don't! That must be that "Chinese girl." She claims she's an incoming PhD student. My lord, I heard that the new Chinese doctoral student writes perfect essay, but once you talk to her, my, that horrible asian accent. Do you think she really wrote the essay or someone else did? ....(idiot talk)"
I was sitting right next to that Miss AmericanEgo supervisor and was furious. So much about language/speech/perception/cognition/communication in this department, she just doesn't get it, accent is not language, nor is it competence, plus, Asian is not Chinese.
Later on, the supervisors found out that it was a girl from Singapore, admitted to the engineering department (apparently, the girl was speaking Singlish). What made this incident even more disgusting was a comment from another grad student sitting next to me, "Thank God she's not admitted to our department." Thank god I'm not in the same major as they are [they were not speech supervisors or students] and don't have to see a lot of them.

當時,我就在同一間聽力室裡,一句話都沒說,深怕一開口就會發怒,和打我分數的老師槓上(我真是俗仔),但我和系主任畢業面談時,定會提到這件事...只不過我沒馬上畢業,到現在還沒機會講..很佩服我同學,哪個實習老師/教授言行不當,馬上跟系主任"報告",不用等到畢業面談