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I know... Many of you will reject all stereotypes of people from a certain country because it is not true 100% of the time.
But after spending a significant amount of time in Scandinavia (Especially Sweden and Finland) and then in Ireland I felt like I was in a different world. My ancestry is Swedish, and experienced the outgrowth of the Swedish culture growing up in Iowa and Minnesota. But I could not get over the differences in the social culture between the various Scandinavian Countries and that of Ireland.
Any feedback? Or will you reject my conclusions because you know someone from Ireland is not so friendly and a super friendly person from Finland.
Those kinds of cultural interaction patterns are complicated and difficult to pin down.
A linguist named Deborah Tannen did some interesting work in this area. She broadly divided cultures into those that had an interaction pattern of "high consideration" vs. ones that had an interaction pattern of "high involvement."
In high consideration cultures, people put a premium on politeness and emotional restraint. People talk in turns, remain quiet while others are talking, and are careful not to be intrusive. Tannen sited Scandanavian cultures as typically high consideration.
In high involvement culture, people put a premium on openness and friendliness. People tend to talk over each other, joke around a lot, and are more emotionally expressive. Southern European, African-American and Ashkenazi Jewish cultures are among those that tend to be high involvement.
Sound to me like Irish culture may be more high involvement as well.
Scandinavia is correctly the three monarchies who speak Germanic languages, but if you looked at the tabloids and women's magazines last month, it felt like the Princess of Finland got a baby.
hmm.. speaking as an (american) southerner i have to disagree.
"Aryan" has that white-power connotation you're talking about. However I believe words like Nordic, Celtic, Germanic, etc., are seen as neutral.
Yes, "Aryan" is the usual one, but I've heard "Nordic" as well.
But please don't take offense, it was not my intention to bash people from Alabama or the other Southern States. Merely only because the old boring KKK-stereotype.
Yes, "Aryan" is the usual one, but I've heard "Nordic" as well.
But please don't take offense, it was not my intention to bash people from Alabama or the other Southern States. Merely only because the old boring KKK-stereotype.
Those kinds of cultural interaction patterns are complicated and difficult to pin down.
A linguist named Deborah Tannen did some interesting work in this area. She broadly divided cultures into those that had an interaction pattern of "high consideration" vs. ones that had an interaction pattern of "high involvement."
In high consideration cultures, people put a premium on politeness and emotional restraint. People talk in turns, remain quiet while others are talking, and are careful not to be intrusive. Tannen sited Scandanavian cultures as typically high consideration.
In high involvement culture, people put a premium on openness and friendliness. People tend to talk over each other, joke around a lot, and are more emotionally expressive. Southern European, African-American and Ashkenazi Jewish cultures are among those that tend to be high involvement.
Sound to me like Irish culture may be more high involvement as well.
No the Irish are very polite and don't talk over people. Irish people are quite stoic as well and aren't particularly emotional. They are just friendly and helpful. I guess they are less reserved when it comes to strangers. They are most probably more similar to Northern English like Liverpudlians in their characteristics.
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