What is going on with the elections...

Hello everybody!!

In Italy political elections are closer and closer and the situation is really sad: politicians continue to accuse the others and they rarely speak about serious problems. The main discussions of these last days is the “problem” whether to participate or not to TV programs…sometimes they seem to behave worse than children. Another important discussion of these days is the situation of Alitalia and I really hate it because they use it for their campaign (all the candidates) and I’m sure that, as soon as elections are finished, no one will speak f Alitalia with all this interest. Moreover, the situation of this company is not a surprise: it is in these conditions from a lot of time, but they seem to have discovered this problem only now. They only think to their personal interests.
As far as American elections are concerned, all newspaper talk about them with the same intensity and the main battle is still between Clinton and Obama. The discussions are about war and the problem of race. I think here the situation is more or less the same because elections are not so near as they are in Italy.

Elections from the point of view of United Kingdom, Germany and France

Hello everybody!

The goal of Intercultural competence implies the idea of understanding the differences and similarities among a number of countries, not only between U.S.A and Italy. For this reason, I’ve looked for different points of view and ways to present the topic of Italian and American elections in three foreign newspapers (in their online version): The Times, Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung and Le Figaro. In this way I wanted to compare the importance given by European countries to this two elections and I admit that I didn’t like so much the result! I discovered indeed that these three newspapers don’t give importance to Italian political situation while they give a lot of space to the American elections. I admit that this is quite comprehensible because U.S.A has an important role for all the world while Italy a is not so important, but I thought that they give importance to Italian elections because it is an European country. I was wrong!

The French newspaper Le Figaro has a special section called “élections USA 2008” through which you arrive on a web page with a number of information, videos, surveys and so on but you can find it under “international”. The German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has a special section, too under “Politics”. It calls “Wahl in America” and here you find a table with the primaries’ results and a lot of other information. In the English The Times, under “World news”, there are sections called “US elections” and I found only one article about the fight between Berlusconi and Veltroni. In Le Figaro the latest article about Italy regards the decision of Prodi to leave Politics and it is dated 03-11-2008.

As far as images are concerned I noticed that Le Figaro and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have an image for each article, while The Times has an image only for the first article of the page, while many of the others have not. All these three newspapers use the same kind of images that is the faces of the candidates: obviously it is quite normal in political campaigns because people have to know the candidate and it is thus important their face.

Second semester...let's start!

Hi! The second semester of the English course has started and I will continue to work on my English learning process through the e-ctivities that will be proposed to us. The main goal of this part of the course is to develop our intercultural competence and so…let’s start comparing the two right candidates for the elections in Italy and in the United States!: Silvio Berlusconi and John McCain.

I’ve listened carefully to many videos of their discourses and I’ve noticed some similarities and some peculiarities of these two politicians. As far as their behaviour and attitude are concerned, they both give the idea to be sure of their selves and they tend to speak with loud voice and to articulate words clearly, highlighting some of them with pauses, a louder voice and going slower. Berlusconi uses more hand gestures than McCain and they both are serious while they speak about their program and smiling while they speak about the future.

McCain has the purposes to cut wasteful spending and to keep taxes low but in his discourses he also promises more security by fighting Islamic terrorism, more economic development and changes. He tends to give importance to the value of nation and he often repeat the words proud, free, safe. I think he counts on the sense of nationality that is typical of Americans. For example he uses sentences as “we are American” or “we can, we must, we will”. He also speak about Iraq war but he doesn’t gives so much importance to the situation of the families such as Berlusconi do. It’s important to notice that there are some important men who endorse him such as Bush and Giuliani.
I’ve noticed that he often uses the word “fight” and “challenge” that is a military language.

Berlusconi proposes more development for the world of work, more production and thus more economic development (such as McCain). He also promises to help young people and families that are two big problems of Italy in this period. He tends to begin his speeches by accusing the other political wing and than he proposes his program. Such as McCain, he wants to cut wasteful spending of the state, to cut taxes and to assure more security (in this case not against Islamic terrorism but against immigration).

In general I can say that while McCain counts not only on his program but also on his personality and on his values , Berlusconi doesn’t give much importance to his personal history or values but he focalizes his attention on what he wants to better in Italy. I think the explanation for this difference is the fact that Italians have no more confidence on the Italian politicians, while Americans have.