Bonjour,
je m'appelle Julien et je suis francais. J'ai choisi d'analyser la
carte semantique du mot Etats Unis. Les Etats Unis evoquent pour les
francais les mots cow boy, drapeau, Oncle Sam. C'est l'idee que les
francais se font de l'histoire des Etats-Unis> On remarque qu'il y a
une association avec les mots hamburger, consommation, coca-cola, et
c'est l'idee que se font les francais de la culture americaine. Ce qui
est surprenant et tres revelateur de la pensee francaise et que ces
mots sont associes a l'idee de puissance, qui est elle associee aux
mots egoiste, guerre, domination, pollution, qui sont negatifs. Pour
les francais, l'idee de puissance amene a des choses negatives. D'autre
part, l'idee de travail revient tres peu et celle de liberte pas du
tout. Pour les americains, l'idee la plus frequente est celle de
patriotisme. On retrouve les mots home, flag, patriotic, statue of
Liberty, ce qui mene au deuxieme champs lexical le plus developpe: la
liberte. Freedom, democracy. La derniere idee la plus developpee est
celle de travail et d'argent, avec les mots business, busy, money,
rich. Pour les americains, la puissance est associe a la richesse et a
la liberte.

Hi Julien,

My name is Jennifer, and I have lived in the US for the past 12
years. I think that there are a lot of reasons why the pereceptions of
America are very different from the American students points of view
and those of the French students. Firstly, this is our home turf, so
we'd like to think the best of it, and we take pride in our freedom,
patriotism, and the notion of calling it "home". I think outsiders
probably view the US as a superpower, which is maybe why "puissance"
showed up so many times on the French list. Also, I found it
interesting that "cow boy" showed up on the list, but I guess it makes
perfect sense if you're thinking of the history of the US and all the
pioneers and western films and things like that.

I've visited Paris twice on vacation, and I know that my "word
associations" reflected that of a tourist...I mentioned culture, food,
the Eiffel Tower. However, I'm sure that those things don't constitute
the view you have of France.

Have you ever visited the US? If you have, where did you go
and what did you think of it? If you haven't, where would you like to
visit and why?

Hello!

haha. When I read the words chosen for the United States, I
could not help but laugh, as the words amused me so much. The french
idea of american culture is probably the idea of american culture that
the rest of the world has. I also feel that many americans are unable
to come to terms with the fact that these images of america are
actually a very large part of the american identity, though in a more
indirect and subtle way. "The business of America is business" were the
words spoken by President Calvin Coolidge. American business, industry,
and mass consumerism is probably the most defining aspect of the
American way of life as it encapsulates the American values of choice
and independence, the freedom to make our own decisions about what we
do with what we earn (individualism), and relative independence from
the government. It is easier to be more selfish in a country that has
only two bordering neighbors. I do not mean selfish in a negative
sense, but selfish as a very universal trait in wanting to live in the
best conditions possible. America's very size and unity (in comparison
to the large but provincialy divided countries of India and China)
enables and promotes this "large-ness syndrome" that is in part
responsible for obesity and SUVs. It is a nation of generous proportion
and freedom, but there are also areas of hypocrisy and irony. Though we
are a state that officially divides church and state, the united states
is a country where religious ties with government and political
decision making abounds. Recent examples of this are the gay marriage
debacle (in defining whether or not marriage is a religious
institution) and stem cell research. We claim to be a land of freedom
and democracy and yet we seem to want to force our way of life onto
others through acts of violence against people, as well as justify our
wrongs though we have not the right to do so. But at the same time,
despite our many problems and struggles, the united states still has
come a long way and a further way than many countries have come on
issues such as racism. …and I shall stop here for now. ^__^

In
addition Frances comments about how other parts of the world view the
US, I found it interesting and a bit strange on my opinion to see words
like "fast food" and "McDonalds" and "hamburgers" under the
associations made by MIT students. To me, those would be associations
made by people not from this country, as those words were not anywhere
near the first in my mind when I was doing these associations.

I
completely identify with Kathryn. When I read the French responses for
the word "United States", the first thing I noticed were the references
to food and obesity. Then I started thinking about studies I've seen
about how an outstanding percentage of the population here is obese. I
just didn't think the rest of the world viewed us as that. Why do you
French students think that is?

I wasn't horrified as I expected I would be because I thought
all of your responses would be negative; making references to the war
and about how Americans act. Although some were, I was mainly amuzed
when I read: "hamburger" and "McDonalds".

Salut
Je m'appelle Mohamed. L'association de mots autour des USA s'avère très
riche, et relativement symétrique en comparaison avec celle autour du
mot France. J'étais supris de voir quelques uns d'entre vous avoir une
vision très crue de votre patrie: arrogant, Mc DOnalds, arrogant,
war...on dirait un franחais qui parle des Etats Unis. Vous êtes
critiques vis -á-vis de votre pays. EN revanche, si l'on regarde de
près les associations autour de "France", je remarque qu'aucun d'entre
nous, n'a utilisé un sens négatif. C'est dire que les Franחais ne sont
pas moins fiers de leur pays que des Americains... N'oubliez pas , que
chez nous, on a deux visions d'une Amérique double. D'un coté: New
York, technologies, ouvert... et d'un autre Cow boy, conservateur,
consommation...Ces deux facettes sont certes différentes, mais je pense
que c'est cette diversité et cette complémentarité qui font le charme
et la puissance des US.

M.

Pour
répondre á vos interrogations, Katia et Kathryn, je crois qu’ici en
France (et cela est probablement vrai partout ailleurs dans le monde)
nous nous sentons envahi par le mode de vie américain et tous ses
symboles : Mc Donalds, Coca Cola, et par les maux que cela entraמne…
l’obésité. Eh oui, ici aussi l’obésité commence á devenir un sujet de
préoccupation. Bref, il est clair que notre réaction se justifie, notre
pays est culturellement extrêmement riche et nous souhaitons préserver
cette richesse, alors croyez moi, quand on passe devant un Mc Donalds
tous les 500 mètres sur les boulevards parisien nous avons le droit de
penser que le consumérisme américain á tendance á déteindre sur nos
vies ici en France !!!

Bonjour
tout le monde. Je voudrai revenir sur le mot puissance qui revient
souvent et sur son caractère négatif, puisqu'il est aussi associé aux
mots mégalopoles, villes du futur et tour touchant les nuages. Les
cités de hautes technologies ont un caractère très négatif en France.
En effet, la seule puissance qui reste á la France vient de son
patrimoine touristique, et les franחais sont très fiers de leurs
villages champêtres. La France est le plus beau pays du monde. Mais en
matière d'économie, nous avons complètement abdiqué devant les Etats
Unis. Mais le franחais est mauvais joueur. Aujourd'hui, il a une réelle
répugnance pour le pouvoir qu'incarnent les Etats Unis. Travailler pour
réussir est presque devenu mal dans notre pays. Plus personne
n'applaudit l'homme qui á force de courage a réussi á faire fortune.
C'est devenu mal. Pour les franחais, l'idée de puissance est négative.
Un comble...

Hello
Mohamed! My name is Natalia, I am Colombian but have lived in the US
for 16 years. In response to your comment, I did also notice that there
were many negative word associations with the US on the MIT side. "War"
and "arrrogant" seem to be pretty common ways that other nations view
the US, but why is it that Americans are using these words too? In my
opinion, particularly here at MIT there is such a diverse student body,
most students here were either born in other countries or their
parents/grandparents immigrated here. Although most of these students
(myself included) identify more with American culture as a result of
living here, it is still unlikely for them to call themselves American.
I think it is because of this that it becomes easy for us to judge
America as arrogant and whatnot. And regarding the "McDonalds" there is
one on every corner of every street in every city, so it is kind of
hard to ignore them! haha

Natalia

I
don't think it's necessarily the non-Americans who make negative word
associations with the United States. I think one of the main reasons
this country has improved over the last 200+ years is that its own
people have constantly been critisizing it. Also, everything in the
news recently has been about the US in Iraq, so I don't think it's too
surprising that "United States" makes one think of war.

-Dima

Ben
Driss Alami brought up the abundance of negative words directed at
America by the American students and their complete absence in French
students’ thoughts of their own country. There is still a minority of
students who wrote words such as “arrogant,” but the absence of words
like “liberty” is hard to ignore. I want to name the two historical
events which I believe spawned this self-critical attitude. The first
is Vietnam. Contrast it with World War II, which despite its horrors
left Americans in a position to feel like brave champions of liberty—at
the risk of revealing too much American arrogance—defenders of the free
world. Vietnam was radically different. The justification was never
clear, and the atrocities of war committed by Americans were televised.
Back home, the Hippies were among a movement which saw the government
as completely amoral and disconnected from the ideals that the people
professed. That antiauthoritarian sense has endured (“damn the man,” we
ambiguously say, where “the man” can be any and all authority),
although I believe this feeling was shrinking through the 80’s and
90’s. At the risk of sparking the wrong debate, I present historical
event #2: invasion of Iraq. Previously, even those of us who felt that
human rights were often sacrificed to economic interests could imagine
that such acts were planned in dark, hidden corners of the CIA or the
Pentagon, far from the conscience of the American public. George Bush
changed that. When congress proposed an anti-torture bill he threatened
to veto. When the entire world is outraged at indefinite detention
without trial in Guantanamo, he vehemently defends it without a trace
of apology. People born rich often criticize wealth, Germany and
Austria threaten (and impose!) jail sentences for those who trivialize
the holocaust, and a religion’s defectors are often its harshest
critics—all this to avoid being presumed guilty by association. At a
time when all the world is angry at America, those Americans who
despise the current policies (about half of us) cannot profess ideals
of liberty without fearing that you’ll think us naive. Ask me again in
a few years what I think of America and I hope that by then we won’t be
afraid to use words like “liberty,” “democracy,” and “equality.”

By the way--many of the French I've met here have been
surprised at the diversity of political opinion. In France is it widely
perceived that everyone in America agrees with and supports the current
administration?

Concernant
le début, je pense aussi quand on rempli un questionnaire qui est
destiné á être lu par une personne, on ne va pas l'insulter et même si
beaucoup de personnes peuvent penser des choses négatives sur les
Etats-Unis, ce fotrum est un lieu d'échange et non de règlement de
compte.

De plus concernant ta dernière question, nathan, les franחais
pensaient qu'au début Bush agissait par abus de pouvoir: président mal
élu, issud'une famille de politiciens: on avait l'impression qu'il
appliquait "sa" politique sans se soucier de l'avis des autres
américains et surtout du reste du monde. Quand il a été réélu avec une
bonne avance, les franחais ont compris que une grande partie du pays et
que ce qui était apparu dans nos médias qui disaient que le peuple
américain ne suivait pas Bush, est devenu relativement faux. Et les
franחais ont eu l'impression que ce sentiment d'arrogance et le fait
d'être sur de lui n'était pas le propre du président mais aussi de
"tout le peuple américain" ( c'est une idée que je pousse á l'extrème
ici masi qui n'est pas totalement inexacte pour certains), c'est
pourquoi la rupture est plus importante maintenant. Mais comment jugez
vous la politique de W? Est ce qu'il aussi populaire dans le nord, dans
une université, que dans le "Texas profond" (atttention ceci est un
cliché)?

Hi
Alban. I don't think you could have picked any two locations in the USA
that are more politically distinct than Texas and the universities of
Boston. A few blocks from our campus you can even find a small office
dedicated to promoting communism (outrageous in the States!), and the
senators representing our state (Kerry and Kennedy) are mocked as
"screaming liberals" on radio talk-shows nationwide. Still, there is
wide diversity of opinion, and the students in this class are probably
split approximately down the middle on W.

You should understand that the reelection vote was not as
monolithic as it may appear, and the motives were complex. My own dear
mother has been known to say that the GWB "needs a good spanking" yet
couldn't bring herself to vote for his opponent. Issues that had
nothing to do with geopolitics swayed her the other way.

We're generally reluctant to discuss politics here except
among like-minded friends and on bumper stickers, so I hope nobody
minds too much that I've deviated from the main topic.

Hatim:

I completely understand what you mean. As an American citizen, I
can comprehend why the rest of the world might view us as invadors or
over-powering. I'm not going to argue with that. What I resent to some
extent is the fact that other countries seem to assume that all
Americans are arrogant and greed-driven; not all of us voted for our
current president, not all of us agree with the war, etc. Some of us
are completely against the war (yes, I do not support the war). We
don't have anything to do with there being McDonald's in every single
corner of the world (well, maybe a little bit because I do like
McNuggets). There are things which are simply out of our control.

In that same way, I can see that the French also have many
different points of view and that is what I would like you to see.
Sometimes getting into someone else's shoes can help you understand.
So, think about what being an American must be like. I can say that it
has some great advantages and some disadvantages as well. For example,
I'll always treasure my US Passport. I can travel to many different
countries without special Visas, but, at the same time, I have to know
that in those countries I visit, they might see me as an intruder or
just another dumb American tourist.

I would like to know a bit more about what you think about
Americans? Are there any specific stereotypes that I might be able to
clarify?