Reddit reviews Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior

So ... on the one hand, there are books like Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior or Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience that try to tell you about all the tiny indicators of 'politeness' or 'propriety' within the scope of a particular class, register, or social scene believed to be typical and what those interactional differences look like from the point of view of an outsider or careful observer.

If those are the quirks you have in mind, I think the most important thing to say is that you shouldn't read too much into them. They're worth knowing for practical reasons, because understanding them is part of communicating effectively and getting along with others, but they're probably not coherent configurations of behavior that impart distinctive psychologies. I think that kind of thing comes from everywhere that language change also comes from: accidental drifts in collective behaviors, intentional signification of a subcultural style that gradually becomes the norm, mimicry of both individuals and groups that happen to have high status for some reason, etc.

On the other hand, you do still hear anthropologists say things like "the Pirahã do this" or "the Yanomami do that" and actually mean something about an overall cultural pattern--typically but not always in some small-scale society. And to be totally honest about it, you should doubt them. Alcida Ramos wrote a great article about how three different anthropologists have represented the Yanomami: "Reflecting on the Yanomami: Ethnographic Images and the Pursuit of the Exotic." The things that a particular society become known for have a lot to do with who is writing about them. Making an argument like "many things the Pirahã do are explained by a 'principle of the immediacy of experience'" ought to be based on a ton of verifiable evidence, and even if you believe it, you should still treat it as a shorthand theoretical construct, relevant to an extremely restricted context (in this case, around 420 people in Brazil).

Probably your question most relevant to the history of anthropology is this one: "Why are we even able to make broad based claims such as 'culture A is this' or 'culture B is that'?"

Anthropologists in the 30s-50s didn't doubt that we could, and they produced a good number of "national character studies" that tried to state something essential about the shared value orientations of large-scale societies. They were provocative but problematic. A few that you can try out for free on the internet archive are Geoffrey Gorer's Exploring English Character, G. Morris Carstairs's The Twice-Born: A Study of a Community of High-Caste Hindus, and Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.

Just as an aside, Benedict's is probably the most famous national character study, first because of its impact/readership but perhaps more importantly because it raises fundamental questions about anthropological practice. Just googling a bit, this article by C. Douglas Lummis seems to cover issues I was aware of (e.g. that Benedict's informants were drawn from Japanese-American internment camps in the US), and it also includes a re-interview of one of Benedict's informants. And I recall this article by Joy Rohde as one that discusses the ethical dilemmas of doing work that shapes foreign policy (Benedict was writing for the Office of War Information).

Getting back to your question about making broad claims, national character studies have been challenged frequently and on numerous grounds. "Anthropology and Politics in Studies of National Character" by Federico Neiburg, Marcio Goldman, and Peter Gow includes a summary of Dante Moreira Leite's doctoral thesis that's worth quoting:
>In the book, Leite describes in detail the origins of the notion of national character, from Romanticism to the culture and personality school, analyzes the various authors who have tried to apply it to Brazilian society, and also develops a critique with three main aspects. First, from an epistemological point of view, culture and personality studies and theories of national character fail to escape from a vicious circle. Starting from empirically observed behavior in a given society, they go on to deduce what is identified as
the general pattern for that society, claiming also that this pattern is reproduced in the personalities of the society's members. This pattern is then used to explain any behavior observed among them.

>Second, from a methodological point of view, these theories and studies are inevitably marked by a confusion between the supposed deep character of a society being analyzed and the observable behavior of a small section of that society. Thus, they offer accounts of German national character when in fact they are talking only about Nazis; they imagine that they are getting at the deepest parts of being Japanese when in fact they refer only to the military who dominated Japanese politics for a certain period; they believe they have grasped the Brazilian when they only have described some rural elite.

>Finally-and this is the most important point for Leite-from a political point of view, theories of national character are no more than ideologies, in the traditional Marxist sense of the word: discourses destined to disguise reality, whether through ethnocentrism, fully compatible with the replacement of European colonialism by U.S. imperialism, or through the omission of politics, economics, or history as the genuine reasons for the differences and inequalities between societies. The result of this process is a kind of substantialization of differences, located in a tradition and at a psychological level so deep that they become almost indistinguishable from the biological rootedness of diversity which racism promoted, and from which culturalism is supposed to have distinguished itself so clearly

And Wikipedia tells me that, more recently, Terracciano A, Abdel-Khalek AM, Adám N, et al. got this published in Science:

>Most people hold beliefs about personality characteristics typical of members of their own and others' cultures. These perceptions of national character may be generalizations from personal experience, stereotypes with a “kernel of truth,” or inaccurate stereotypes. We obtained national character ratings (N = 3,989) from 49 cultures and compared them to the average personality scores of culture members assessed by observer ratings and self-reports. National character ratings were reliable, but did not converge with assessed traits (Mdn r = .04). Perceptions of national character thus appear to be unfounded stereotypes that may serve the function of maintaining a national identity.

Basically, everyone believes in stereotypes, both about other groups and about their own. A fairly common way to deal with that is to treat stereotypes as insight not into the groups they misrepresent but into how the folks who believe them think the world works. Another way to deal with it is to be really, really specific about your observations and the contexts in which you think they occur.

HAVE FUN!
Its a bit of a change from US to UK lifestyles. Go to drinks. GO! If a classmate asks you for a drink, or to the pub, just go. Its the best way to make friends.

Also join a club! Even as a grad student, (you might feel like an old person when everyone is like 18 years old) it is a great way to meet people.

Living situations are...interesting. UCL accommodation is definitely overpriced, but its a grantee of housing. I would suggest taking it for the first year, getting a feeling of where you want to live see if other people are looking (maybe one of your friends that you make at the pub will have a room open up).

Uni (not college, that's the last two years of high school for an American) is hard. Study up and go to class. You will have much more time to study, but most of your finals are in spring (even for the classes that end in December), so try to keep that information stored.

Lastly, do be afraid of the Brits. I'm not sure what your humo(u)r is like, but the Brits tend to be dry. Don't take anything they say too seriously, especially if everyone has been drinking. Don't be afraid to be sassy and sarcastic. You'll do a lot better than a fresh, green American. Lastly, look up some slang. It will help.

If you want some reading material, I would suggest [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behavior/dp/185788616X) because it helped me get a more inside perspective on the social norms there.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. I am also an American who did a masters at UCL.

She absolutely is. If you want some English self-reflection, go and read „Watching the English“ by Kate Fox. It‘s hilarious whether you‘re English or not.

https://www.amazon.de/dp/185788616X/

May I suggest that you read Watching the English before you go? Key insight: the English believe strongly in not taking yourself too seriously.

I actually had a lot of positive experiences with the English.

I've been really interested in reading the updated version of Kate Fox's "Watching the English". I'm a life-long anglofile of the highest order, and I read the original version though my copy was destroyed by flooding. This copy has an extra 140 pages though, so that's pretty cool.

Thanks for the contest!

Mmmm I've gone through Quiet by Susan Cain, Watching the English by Kate Fox and am planning to read Silmarillion on the flight back.