Short story "Bella Makes life" and questions of "The Merchant of Venice"

11 November 2008

In this class the short story "Bella Makes life" was presented by Aline. The short story was more or less well presented although Aline was nervous and started to cry in the end of the presentation. This story was about a women that left Jamaica and went to New york. It talks about the intercultural difficulties that a person can have when leaving homeland. Some can adapt outhers don´t. I understood the story and also the interculturality of the story.

We have also finished the correction of the questions of "The Merchant of Venice". These questions were a good way to better understand the movie and also what Shakespeare was thinking when he wrote the play.

Short Story and "The Merchant of Venice"

10 November 2008

Paula presented her short story called "Martha, Martha", this story was very difficult to understand, because Paula had some problems to explain the story. What I realise with these presentations was that we need to have the short stories before the presentations to read it and to be able to participate more in the interation with our colleagues. I like very much to participate in the presentations but I felt some lack of information in the retell of the stories.

In this class we also continue to talk about "The Merchant of Venice". In the correction of the questions I felt some difficulties in one because as we had the opportunity to see the movie, this influenced the way we understand the story. The question was "Are we meant to sympathize with the moneylander´s daughter?" In my opinion I would say that we are not meant to sympathize with her because of what I have seen in the movie, but in the perception of Shakespeare she represents love, so we should sympathize with her. In spite some doughts I am enjoying the story.

Short Story and visualization of some parts of "The Merchant of Venice"

04November2008

"The end of the world", this is the name of the short story presented in this class by Andreia.

This short story was about a man who was dying and wanted his soon William to visite him.

The story will go around the relationship between a father and a soon.

The second part of the class was used to see some parts of "The Merchant of Venice" that showed the differences between the Christians and the Jews.

In the two parts, we saw that Shylock was afraid of the Christians and that he was invited to dinner just because he has money. Showed us that Shylock led a very serious live, very different from the live that the Cristians led. He didn´t felt as being part of Venice society.

We also saw in the scene court that the law had double standard, because in the end it was used a law against Shylock that was not written in the contract. he was accused for attempting against the live of a Venice citizen, he was concidered as a foreigner not a citizen of Venice like Antonio just because he was a Jew. Even when the judge calls for Shylock he didn´t called for his name but said "Call the Jew". Shylock said something that tell us what he thing about the Christians. He said that he prefered to see her daughter with Barrabás rather than with a Christian.

"The Merchant of Venice" and Short Story

03November2008

Today we began to talk about "The Merchant of Venice" and the first thing we focus was the Globe Theatre. We also talked about Shakespeare who was borned in the 16/17 century, during the time of Queen Elizabeth I. The plays in Shakespeare are based in the English History context. After this introduction we point out the name of the characters of the play and we give our idea about the main plot and sub-plots and we also descrived the relations between the characters Antonio/Bassanio - Shylock/Jessica - Jessica/Lorenzo - Graciano/Nerissa - Bassanio/Portia.

In the second hour it was the time for Carlos Barroso to present his short story, this was called "What do you do in San Francisco". This story is about a family that left San Francisco and went to a small village. In this village they staid in a house in whish they didn´t change anything. The women was a painter and the man did´t work. The way of live this family was taking was very strange for the people of the village and because they didn´t knew anything about the family rumours started to happen.

Short story 3 and 4

30 Octobre 2008

In this class Alexandra presented is short story called "The Ultimate Safari" the story talked about a mother and her daughter that had to ran away from Mozambique civil war in direction to South Africa in a journey that obliged them to pass in a Wild Park and behave like animals.

When they get the refugee camp they stayed in the same tent with several other people so they consider that, almost the same as living in their village. The narrator is a little girl with 8 or 9 years old who didn´t understand what was war.

The other story presented by Mara was called "The joy luck club". It talked about a chinese women that went to live in America, leaving her two daughters in China. Another daughter has borned in America living as an american. But her mother created a "joy luck club" where she forget her problems and have fun and kept her chinese traditions. After her mother have died this daughter who have borned in America went to China to meet her two sisters and to tell them the story of their mother.

Second short Story

october 21th 2008

Today we have to give our final decision about the film or book that we had chosen for the work based in english culture.

My decision stayed in "Oliver Twist" from Charles Dickens because for me the subject is very interesting and it will be a good way to learn more about one of the greatest writers of English culture.

The next thing to do was my presentation. It could be better.

I really work hard, but this is to forget because although it was ok, I know that I can do must better. I continue to maintain some doughts about the story but I will try to find the unswers to rest my mind.

In this class we also got to know another task for the next week. We have to see the film "The Merchant of Venice" and then try to answer some questions about the film.

First short story

october 20th 2008

Today we began with the presentations of the short stories. The first one to begin was Mercedes. Her story was called "American Dreams" from Peter Carey.

This story was about a community that didn´t care with a man of the village. This man went to the highest point of the village an began to built four walls hidding something inside of them that created some curiosity in the rest of the community.

When the man died the walls were sent down and all the people of the village wanted to see what the walls were hidding. They discovered a replica of the village in such detail that inside this replica existed not only the houses but also the people of the village and the secrets they had.

In the end they became the American Dream for the tourists that visit the village just to see the replica.

Short story

october 14th 2008

There was a new task to be done for the next week based in a book called "A world of difference". We have to chose a story from the book and then prepare an oral presentation of the story. This task will consiste in retell the story to the class in some detail and then chose some excerpts of the story that are related to intercultural communication, and also to do a 3 page hand-out about the problems of interculturality. The story that I have chosen was "The distant Past" from William Trevor.

Raymon Williams "Culture is ordinary" 5m talk

october 13th 2008
This class was very interesting because we had to prepare a 5m talk about an article of Raymon Williams called "Culture is Ordinary". In my point of view I think I did a good job in my presentaion.
In my opinion the article of Raymond Williams talks about the different definitions that the word culture has.
He first mention the word culture as a noun “colere” from latin and that it was related with agriculture, cultivate something, like potatoes or carrots.
He also tells us later on, the use of the word culture as a metaphor, that is when we give a meaning with our own perspective/educational input. If you had education or if you learned a lot, you were culture.
But the word developed during time and became an abstract noun with several meanings describing intellectual and artist’s activity. The word can be associated with a nation, a country a group of people or even with just a person, because culture must be a whole way of life with its common meanings, as well as the processes of discovery and creativity in the arts and learning. He believes that culture is unique to each person but is something that everyone has. Many times people can draw experiences from the same things but as they lead different lives, the culture derived from those occurrences would be different. Culture is ordinary as it is all around us constantly affecting our way of thinking and our actions; we draw from everyday, ordinary experiences in constantly forming and adapting our own culture. Our own perspective and the way we define culture will change depending the place we live, the education that we have and also when we go to an institution like a hospital, a school, a museum these places will shape the way we see culture.

Don´t over look the impact of empire

october 07th 2008
The last night was used to read the text "don´t over look the impact of empire". After reading the text was obvious that I would need to do some research to understand the text because as it was a university text the issue becomes ambiguous and obliged me to look further in my readings.
We answered some questions in class about britissness, scottishness and englishness, complex concepts that can only have a response if we know something about the English Empire and the formation of the United Kingdom. (Union Jack)

The beginning

october 06th 2008
For everything there´s a start, and today I start writting in this blog saying that my expectations for this blog are the best. I say this because I will use it to gather information during the two semesters of Language and English Culture.
This is an important discipline because to do a translation with quality is very important to know the background of a language.
In the end I really hope to better understand the english culture (history, language, literature etc.) and to reflect that in my translations.
Today we got an idea of what to expect during our learning time (works to do, evaluation etc.)
We also received a task to do based in a text called "don´t over look the impact of empire", we have to read it and then answer some questions related to the text.
I was a good start and show us that a lot of work was to come.