Forget about business collaboration in virtual worlds, it’s all about cultural cross-over according to blogger Ari at Common Sensible who’s mystified by the Canadian dialect but says that we really seem like we mean it when we ask “How are you.”
In a round-up of national characteristics filtered through the lens of Second Life, Ari shares insight into how your nation’s personality shines through your avatar. In this view:
- Asians are perfectionists
- Germans are drunk
- Folks from the Netherlands are promiscuous and introverted
- and the French are “Stuck-up, rude, full of himself, thinks he’s God’s gift to the universe.”
Thankfully, Canadians are just too darn brilliantly awesome for words, in fact the quote is “Wow”. (Blushes).
Now, OK, it’s meant to be overly general, but there’s an interesting sub-text here, something I was talking about yesterday with someone from France and someone from the US. And the sub-text is that in a global melting pot like Second Life where the default language is often English, how the heck do you know whether you’ve bumped up against cultural dissonance or not? I’ve often found myself in conversation with someone and it was only after half an hour of befuddled chat that I realized their first language isn’t English (I’m barely understandable to other English speakers, so this just adds to the issues).
My friend said that these cultural friction points go beyond language. He recommended that avatars have some sort of little national flag option that you can toggle beside your floating avatar name, because it’s not just language, its cultural context, and within a virtual world there are no cultural markers to hint that not only might you be speaking in tongues, but that your context might be the kind of chat you have at the side of a hockey rink, while your friend is acting like he’s in a beer garden in Berlin.
As for Americans, they’re friendly too, but according to Ari:
“Lots of folks in the U.S. are friendly, caring people, too. Really, really good people. Oh, but those might be Canadian transplants, though.”
There’s a slightly mysterious option (new to me anyway) in the latest 1.21 Release Candidate. On the General tab of Preferences, beside your language choice there’s an option to “Share language with objects”. In other words there’s a (new?) option to tell SL what language u prefer to use and it’s accessible by scripts?
It would allow scripted items, vendors for example, to address users in their chosen language without any intervention by the user - assuming we all script our objects with multiple languages of course.
That kind of automatic and invisible preference-setting could be excellent in SL, but the idea of flags floating around people’s heads is HIDEOUS! I come into SL to get away from petty nationalism and flag-waving, that’s part of the joy of it - I can meet anyone from anywhere. Flags over outr heads, that has to be an American idea, they’ll stick a flag in anything…
In real life, Australians rarely use ‘Gday’ when we meet each other. In Second Life it makes a deeply convenient flag, eh. And why do Australians believe New Zealanders tag sentences with ‘eh’ and Americans believe Canadians tag sentences with ‘eh’. And do Canadians and New Zealanders share this belief about each other?
Hahah!
Great little write-up.
Yes it was all generalizations, and if you follow by blog, you’ll lear pretty quick it’s more tongue-in-cheek than anything serious, that’s for sure.
Never met an Australian or New Zealander in person. But, as for Canadians proclaiming ‘eh’ often - as in every 10th sentence or so… well, I’m here in Canada now. Maritime Provinces. And it’s true ~grins~
Yes, likely it’s the dialect of this part of Canada, but it just goes to show: there often is a little truth in most things you hear about.
I thought tongue-in-cheek was British eh.
And Eris - saw that, really great addition to the Grid.
Myself, I wear a shirt made of Canadian bacon now to avoid confusion because you’re right, those little flags are a problem - I can’t even tell the French flag apart from the American one - which one has the hammer and sickle again?
Little Australian and New Zealand flags would be no use to anyone, eh. The state of Queensland, where I grew up, is another ehist area.
Uhm… pardon me, but isn’t stuff like this what the profile is for?