La famille est une notion très importante aux yeux des deux pays, comme en témoigne le foisennement de mots présents dans la liste. Elle se présente comme une valeur importante, et le terme d'amour revient très souvent. Cependant, les Américains semblent être plus matériels. Je veux dire qu'ils s'attachent plutôt aux personnes : parents, frères, soeurs. Ils intègrent également les amis. Au contraire, les Français retiennent plus volontairement des valeurs familliales : confiance, soutient, aide, solidarité. L'idée de groupe soudé est très présente. Enfin, de part et d'autre de l'océan, la famille suggère l'idée des fêtes, et de la sécurité, parfois même de la nostalgie. On touche là visiblement à un point sensible, mais les différences de point de vue entre les deux communautés apparaissent minimes.

Le mot famille/family semble évoquer des deux côtés la notion d'amour, de protection, de sécurité et rappelle pour la majorité les parents et les frères et soeurs. Il est amusant de trouver dans chaque pays une référence à Noël/Christmas, cela évoque probablement un des moments de l'année les plus favorable aux réunions de famille. Une réponse me paraît typiquement américaine: dog; effectivement, nous pensons en France qu'une très grande majorité des américains vivent avec des animaux domestiques et les considèrent comme des membres de leur famille... Le mot famille/family a pour tous une connotation très positive, ce qui rend d'autant plus étrange la politique française à cet égard... Le gouvernement américain est-il plus encourageant envers les familles?

The first thing i noticed while comparing the responses to the word "family" was the absence of "mother" from most of the french responses. Otherwise, the responses were rather similar. Do you, as french students, think that this difference is significant? If so, why do you think that "mother" does not come to mind as readily among french students?

I also noticed with the lists of the word "family" that the word "mother" never once appears on the French lists, while the word "brother" appears a lot. Why do you think that this happened? In class, we were hypothesising the perhaps in France, the word "family" applies more to friends and neighbors than just the immediate family, whereas in the United States, we tend to think of a "family" as being a mother, father, brother & sister... Do you agree with this?

Actually, in class we also came up with the idea that French students used the word "frere" more to describe "family" because of the fact that the concept of "fraternite" is so important in France (Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite). Also, we thought that Americans used more the word "mother" to describe "family" because she is seen often as the center of such entity. Do you think the "fraternite" idea makes any sense at all, or can you give further explanations?

The most frequently associated word was love. Therefore, both the french and the americans hold positive viewpoints regarding family. However, I did notice that the word sister appearred less frequently than did the word brother. (I don't understand why). In both cultures, family was associated with parents, and home.

I understand that we tend to generalize our concept of family throught these words but we don't realize that it is not right to adopt a sole point of view ignoring that our opinion is only an average of individual voices .Each one of us probably has a different mentality. Although some of our words for family tend to be sometimes negative that does not mean that we do not conserve family values .Remember that the US is composed of an heterogeneous population , many descendants from distinct cultures who are loyal in mantaining their family bonds. Making generalizations of a culture can sometimes be harsh.

In response to Hubert's point about animals, my family has a dog, and he is very much part of our family. To us, he has a very vivid personality, and sometimes he does things that seem very human. Do many French have pets? Would one call a pet part of the family?

I also would like to add that the word family has a universal meaning: it is rarely associated with negative terms. Family is at home. Regardless of culture, family has the same connotation.