Pointing out Americans in Oxford is easy to do because of our accents. The difference in our accents often causes the locals to wonder where we are from.
After being here over a week, I have learned that when a Brit asks me where I
am from he/she is well aware that I am from the United States. When
they ask where we are from they want to know where in the States we live. While
chatting with friends at the King's Arms I was casually interrupted by
a young British man curious as to where we were from. I responded,
"We are from
Georgia."
He then said, "Oh,
Georgia! Where you drive Mustangs!?"
What, Mustangs?
Typically, when I meet
people back in the US and tell them I am from Georgia they ask if I love
Coca-Cola or they make a comment about how I am a "Georgia Peach." I
have never had anyone associate our state with a Ford Mustang so I was
instantly intrigued. I asked the man why he was under the impression that we
drove Mustangs in Georgia. He then went into a
long dissertation about some TV show he had seen in which the main characters
were involved in a crazy car chase though the state of Georgia while driving
Mustangs. This was a prime example of the cultivation theory at work in this
man's life. Granted, there was a tinge of joviality in his tone, but regardless,
television definitely had influence on him as a viewer.
Ironically the my friend from the UK that studied at UGA for a year drives a Mustang in the States.
ReplyDeleteThe cultivation theory works both ways I think. When I thought of English people I always thought of tea and crumpets and techno music simply because of what television portrays. In reality the UK has so many different races and nationalities each with their own culture. Also many of the pubs and clubs I went to played American music and showed me how different cultivated views are from reality.
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