ANTH281.1001--Assignment Four: Colin and Arturo: When Worldviews Collide--U OF NEVADA SPRING 2023

ANTH281.1001 

James L'Angelle 

University of Nevada 

S. Narayanan, Professor 

Spring 2023 

Assignment Four: Colin and Arturo: When Worldviews Collide'

     Colin is a busboy. Wearing a white shirt “too big” over a garish red t-shirt, he peddles hors d'oeuvres at a wedding reception in a large hall with a window backdrop in what appears along the Thames River in London.
     Arturo does Spanish recordings in a sound booth next to Bryan, who is in a separate booth doing the equivalent in English, supervised by a very critical voice coach. “Too big,” the coach admonishes Bryan for his lifeless input, praising Arturo for a standup performance after a completely insignificant recording of which button to press on a phone for choices in language, billing or to speak to a representative.
Colin is full of himself, even after being brushed off by Nancy, a sultry blonde wallflower in attendance at the reception; and by a fellow employee in the kitchen break room. His African friend insists Colin does not have a “cute British accent,” is ugly and an “arsehole.”
     Bryan suffers from terminal lack of self-esteem in the shadow of Arturo, who is praised by the voice supervisor as “sexy” and “fuego” for even the slightest positive performance, accompanied by a booth full of hot Hispanic dancers.
     As language ideologies go, Colin’s worldview is negative, Arturo’s positive. Colin’s self-styled British accent is artificial, Arturo’s Spanish is genuine. Colin supports his accent with a fabricated lingo: “taste explosion,” “dodgy,” “wicked;” he fancies himself as “Colin, God of Sex.” Arturo has no self-inflated self-image. When asked by the voice coach, “how do you do that;” Arturo responds, 

     “The universe is asking me and I just deliver it.” 

     His counterpart in the voice recording, Bryan, is a pitiful mere shell of himself, caught in the middle between the pseudo-confidence of the busboy and the authentic Latino in the booth next to him. He is about to be given the exit from the recording studio and is about to leave with a sincere apologetic, “I’m sorry,” when his inner self is discovered and he is given a second chance, in which he performs with enthusiasm.
Bryan is just a secondary character in the narrative, like Nancy, the voice coach and the dancers. It’s all about Colin, according to himself, and Arturo, who says a great deal more by saying less. The clue to both of their ideologies is in language, and combined as language ideologies, is apparent.
     Colin has convinced himself, possibly through his own sociological awareness, that he is a ladies man, describing English girls as “stuck up” and American girls as “cooler, game for a laugh.” He is a victim of his own social perception through the language he has invented to rationalize his predicament, that being “ugly” and an “arsehole.” Arturo doesn’t need to apologize for himself. When cued to voice: “Para español presione dos," he does so confidently, gesticulating with emphasis by arms upwards, index fingers extended. It’s the language of ideologies personified.
     Judith T. Irvine notes in her “Language Ideology” introduction in Oxford Bibliographies:  

     Because the concept of language ideology is so fertile, it connects to more disciplines and issues than can be reviewed here. However, those interdisciplinary links also entail some tensions, for example, concerning whether linguistic form or social issues take priority as subject matter, or whether analysis should focus more on texts or more on practices, or what is included in “language” itself. (1 )

     In other words, there is a fine line between what exactly constitutes “language ideologies:” is it all of the ancillary components - - the gestalt of psychology, philosophy and sociology that surround the culture itself, or just the language?
     In the case of Colin, it is obvious that no matter how hard he tries to be “cool,” the “God of Sex,” and living with the delusion that English girls are “stuck up” and he’s on the wrong continent; in fact, he’s on the wrong planet. No amount of linguistic communicative competence will rescue him from his worldview so long as he persists in his misguided opinion of that world. Arturo on the other hand, although he might be constrained by a worldview loaded against him because of a perceived ethnic inferiority in the Anglo universe (that asks him to deliver), is still able to overcome that drawback by accepting his role stoically; even allowing Bryan, with his fake mustache and stereotypical sunglasses, to participate in the fun and dancing. (1)

Judith T. Irvine, Ideology, Oxford Bibliographies, JT Irvine, Language Ideology

 
     As a footnote, had the Colin affair been with a focus on Nancy the wallflower, the language ideologies in a social context might have been opposite of Colin. Would she prefer the loud, rude, extroverted football loving Yank over the sophisticated Brit with the intelligent accent?
In language no less insulting than Colin’s, the British military chauffeur Emily Barham (Julie Andrews) is called a “prig” by the American, USN Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Madison (James Garner) in the World War II film The Americanization of Emily ( 1964). Her feeling was,
     "You Americans are really enjoying this war, aren't you. It's just a big Shriners convention to you Yanks." 2 The sexual harassment quid pro quo is obvious in Emily’s attitude, and in her opinion of the American male. Nonetheless, the language ideologies expressed by many cultural worldviews of American men in general are favorable, whether those individual cultures like it or not. 2
Rick McGinnis, “Fight Another Day: Paddy Chayefsky and The Americanization of Emily,” Steyn Online, 11 February 2023, 

Image credit: https://thane62.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/americanizationofemily_ineedagirl_fc_470x264_082920160713.webp ANTH281.1001 University of Nevada, Spring 2023