By: Saad Ejaz
Are Canadians more polite than Americans? A new study conducted by two McMaster researchers claims that there is some truth to the stereotype.
The study analyzed over three million geo-tagged tweets in Canada and the United States between February and October 2015. Removing words such as “a”, “the” and “to”, the researchers sorted the remaining words into word clouds, with the words that are more commonly used in the middle in larger text, while less commonly used words on the sides in smaller text.
Based on the word cloud, the most common words in Canada’s word cloud include “great”, “amazing”, “beautiful” and “favourite.” Other prevalent but less commonly used words include “awesome”, “nice”, “praise”, “congrats” and “enjoy.” There were no offensive or questionable terms in Canada’s word cloud.
Meanwhile, the American word cloud was the complete opposite. Negative words such as “hate”, “hell” and “damn” were favoured more by Americans, along with other profanities and racial slurs that have been blurred out in the graphic. Other less commonly and mildly negative words used include “tired”, “annoying”, “hurt”, “bored” and “dumb.”
The two Ph.D. candidates Daniel Schmidtke and Bryor Snefjella explained that their interest started with the question of border regions. “We thought that this was very interesting to study linguistically […] you have two places that are very close together and you have language differences at a border,” said Schmidtke.
The pair began their work by compiling a large amount of raw text and used different linguistics and computer science techniques to cut out words.
“Nicely, one reason we get such a nice crisp result is that this particular statistic we are using is good at both correcting the relative proportions — there are more Americans than Canadians — and helping with some of the tricky things such as word frequency distributions,” said Snefjella.
Schmidtke and Snefjella have both analyzed a number of different border regions. These include East and West Germany, Scotland and England, Netherlands and Belgium, the U.S. and Canada. They mentioned that they have not seen such a distinct difference in language as between the U.S. and Canada. “I think what’s most interesting is that we evaluated a number of different border regions … and you only see this divide in positivity in the language with Canada and the US in this particular way,” said Snefjella.
“You only see this divide in positivity in the language with Canada and the US.”
The study gained worldwide attention almost overnight, which was a huge surprise to Schmidtke and Snefjella. “I think it just seems to hit a nerve in general. I knew it would be of interest to people but not of such huge public interest,” said Schmidtke.
Schmidtke and Snefjella work in linguist Victor Kuperman’s lab and the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship at McMaster University.
Drago Jančar’s The Tree With No Name was published in his native Slovenia in 2008 and only managed to enjoy a release in English this year. It’s a shame that it wasn’t translated sooner.
Always a controversial figure in his homeland, Jančar turns his eyes to the grim past that haunts all former Yugoslav nations, but looks further than most. Instead of dealing with Slovenia’s hand in the dissolution of the Yugoslavian republic, The Tree With No Name splits most of its time between modern Ljubljana and the tail end of the Second World War.
Known for his penchant for modernist techniques, Jančar opens the novel from the middle of the story, with the first chapter readers see being 87. It is there we meet Janez Lipnik, an archivist and possessor of the most quintessential Slovenian name one could think of. Like the reader, Janez is befuddled to find himself on a country road after climbing a tree that bears close resemblance to one in a Slovenian fable that his mother told him as a child.
When he wanders upon a schoolhouse in the woods and somehow compels the pretty teacher there to open the door for him, we aren’t yet sure whether or not Janez is dreaming. When the woman’s lover comes home and is revealed to be Aleksij Grgurevič, a captain of the Slovenian Home Guard, we are further compelled to wonder what circumstances led Janez here.
After a partisan siege that Janez barely survives, the story shifts, and we are thrust into the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana in spring of 2000. A younger Janez is in a bustling shopping mall, a mecca of the post-socialist state. Janez is melancholic, and his thoughts soon shift to how his life and marriage have derailed in three weeks.
As an archivist, Janez has the mundane job of settling old land disputes and other trivial civic matters. His marriage to Marijana, a professor, might not be the most exciting, but memories of happier times exist. It is when Janez is confronted with these memories that he struggles to cope with his current challenges.
After finding the journal of a sex addict from the Second World War, Janez becomes obsessed with uncovering the writer’s identity. He spends weekends at the office to Marijana’s detriment, and increasingly becomes lost in the pages and consequently shoves aside all other work. For a long time, Janez romanticizes his trip with Marijana to an island right before the full onslaught of the Yugoslavian War, but he is crushed to hear that she may have taken the same trip with a sleazy co-worker of his.
Janez’s increasing obsession with the journal renders him a mess. Unable to confront Marijana with his accusation, Janez becomes increasingly passive-aggressive until she cannot bear it and moves back in with her parents. This abrupt change leads Janez to reminisce about his father who, in episodes similar to those that appeared in Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, suffered from PTSD and made Janez get up in the wee hours of the night to sing for his drunken war friends.
With a stunning conclusion that revolves around one of the most horrific war crimes committed in Slovenia at the end of the Second World War, The Tree With No Name is a brave, unflinching look at the past that scorns nationalistic sentimentality in favour of astute reflection.
Anyone who has had the pleasure of savouring ćevapi adorned with ajvar knows that good things come out of the Balkans. But for some time, a problem has been threatening the favourite sport of the southeastern European nations.
Soccer has always been plagued by organized fan violence, but it is in former Yugoslav nations like Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Albania that a bevy of right-wing nationalistic hooligans have been wreaking havoc.
If you’re any of the aforementioned nationalities, you’ll know about the 1990 riot that occurred at Zagreb’s Stadion Maksimir between not just the players of Dinamo Zagreb and Crvena Zvezda, but the thousands of Croatian and Serbian supporters there. Tensions had been rising to a boiling point, with Croatia electing a president favouring independence from the Yugoslavian communist state and the riot — which saw Dinamo’s Zvonomir Boban rise to the defence of a fan and kick a police officer in the chest — marked the turning point that saw Yugoslavia enter into a brutal war.
Being Croatian and a Dinamo Zagreb supporter myself, I’ve heard laudatory talk of Boban’s kick at family gatherings after everyone’s had a few shots of rakija. I never thought anything of it until recently when I’ve begun to grow increasingly disgusted with such nationalism. As I’m sure other Serbians, Bosnians, and Albanians raised in Canada by diaspora parents can attest to, they’ve been conditioned by their family to, if not hate, then dislike their former neighbour.
What happened at the match last week was avoidable and shouldn’t have happened. I had grimaced upon hearing that the two had been drawn in the same group, but having seen the Croatia-Serbia World Cup qualification matches go off without a hitch — with the exception of Josip Šimunić’s cynical clattering of Sulejmani — I was optimistic about the chances of these two nations sharing the same luck. UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, took no chances and allowed no away fans into the match held in Belgdrade. But all that did was create an even more toxic atmosphere in which flares were numerous and laser pointers where shone at Albanian players.
Near the end of the first half, a drone was flown over the field with a flag bearing the Greater Albania insignia. When it dipped towards the players, Serbia’s Stefan Mitrovic pulled down the flag, eager to restart play. He was subsequently rushed by several Albanian players who objected to his actions. From there, both benches erupted, and dozens of hardcore fans took to the field to throw chairs at the Albanian players and get punches in where they could.
One of the fans present on the field was Ivan Bogdanov, a Serbian member of Crvena Zvezda’s hooligan firm, the Deljie. Bogdanov is notorious for leading a massive riot in Serbia’s Euro qualification match against Italy in Genoa, and the question remains as to how such a volatile figure was allowed into the stadium let alone onto the pitch.
While the hooligans and even some of the stadium stewards were assaulting the Albanian players, most of the Serbian players gathered round the Albanians to shield them from the violence, and others like Serbian fullback Aleksander Kolarov voiced their displeasure directly to the fans who were infiltrating the field.
Despite how admirable the Serbian team’s reaction was, it should not have been needed. Allegations against Olif Rama, the Albanian prime minister’s brother, have surfaced, claiming that he controlled the drone. While nothing concrete has been established, whoever flew the drone should be ashamed of themselves. There is a place for political statements, and a soccer pitch is not one of them. The act was a rash one that endangered both sets of players and will ultimately lead to heavy fines being levied against both federations.
It is time for the Balkans to look inwards instead of finger-pointing any longer. While each nation romanticizes their past, all of their histories have been built on a dangerous brand of nationalism that is no longer needed and should be stifled at whatever cost. Although there was a heavy police presence at the match, the hooligans were able to take the field all too easily, which raises questions of corruption that may answer how Bogdanov got into the stadium.
My reaction toward the riot was similar to the one that Serbian midfielder Nemanja Matić had as he lingered on the field after both teams had disappeared down the tunnel — one of disbelief and disappointment at what had just happened. Ethnic tensions will probably always be there, but it’s the responsibility of the more levelheaded members of each Balkan country to take the moral high road and attempt to separate soccer from state feuds.
TIna Cody / The Silhouette
2012 marked a groundbreaking year in cinema. Both Paramount and Universal Pictures celebrated their 100th anniversary while The Avengers became the third highest grossing film of all time. Other blockbusters like The Hunger Games and The Dark Knight Rises were released in 2012, making it the most profitable year in cinema history. At the same time, film producers and critics became increasingly focused on historical and politically oriented films.
Some of the year’s most acclaimed movies began with the moniker “based on a true story.” Films like Lincoln, Argo, and Zero Dark Thirty all garnered heavy praise and seem to supply the same message: that the United States is a powerful force of social justice. Perhaps 2012 should instead be recognized as the year of political cinema.
For much of history, the connection between politics and film has been both intimate and concealed. Films have often served as a tool of propaganda given their unique ability to reproduce images, movement and sound in an extremely lifelike matter.
Unlike other art forms, films possess a sense of immediacy and are capable of creating the illusion of reality. For these reasons, movies are often taken to be accurate depictions of real life. This issue becomes even more pronounced when films depict unknown cultures or places.
While serving as a source of entertainment, movies are able to arouse social consciousness by distorting historical events. This makes film both a persuasive and extremely untrustworthy medium. Political officials have long been aware of cinema’s powerful attributes, and have thus used this media forms to mobilize and indoctrinate society with different views.
During the Second World War, for example, Reich officials commissioned the film Ich Klage or “I accuse” to persuade German citizens to accept the practice of euthanasia. A related purpose was to test public opinion as to whether there was sufficient support to officially legalize the program.
Ich Klage was an evident falsification of actual Nazi policy. The Nazis murdered medical patients against their will while the film depicts a physician giving a lethal injection to his incurably ill wife.
Throughout the film, the woman pleads her husband to put an end to her misery and suffering by ending her life.
During World War II, President Roosevelt also apparently recognized the benefits of cinema as a medium of propaganda.
He encouraged members of the American film industry to insert morale-building themes that would generate a patriotic mindset. This ultimately led Frank Capra to create seven government-sponsored films that were intended to support the war effort. Other propaganda movies of this period, like Casablanca and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, have become so well loved that their initial role as propaganda vehicles has been almost entirely forgotten.
In some ways, the relationship between politics and cinema has become even more pronounced. For instance, North Korea and China maintain strong public control over their nation’s film industries. Within North America, however, it is often difficult to realize the implicit connection. If this year’s Academy Awards provide any indication, it appears that movies can still be effectively employed as tools of propaganda.
Lincoln, Argo, and Zero Dark Thirty all garnered critical and commercial attention last year with each film receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. During a period of deep American unrest, these films showcase triumphs of the United States government and its political authorities. In order to provide this depiction, however, these films grossly distorted historical events.
Watching these films impresses the notion of America’s superiority at the expense of factual information and cultural sensitivity. These films led many people to draw erroneous conclusions regarding the U.S. government and its foreign policy.
The social power of cinema became further evidenced when Michelle Obama presented the Academy Award for Best Picture.
With an impassioned speech on film’s ability to incite an emotional response, one could not help but realize the authority of the film industry. All this being said, it is essential that moviegoers maintain a critical eye when viewing films. As a tool of propaganda, cinema can either create divides or bridge them. So often it has been used with the former goal in mind, but by remaining a critical and rational viewer, one can prevent this unfortunate outcome.
