STEREOTYPE AS A KEY TO THE LINGUISTIC WORLDVIEW OF THE CZECH DEAF: PART 2
If you cannot speak Czech, you'd probably like to know
what the Romani man, or gypsy (cikán), is saying in the picture.
His words correspond to the stereotype of a Romani in the Czech environment:
"You Czechs are in no position to ask me to go to work. It's discrimination!!!"
This is one of the many levels of a stereotype.
I chose this one because it reflects well numerous things
and it is a very rich stereotype.
As stated, social stereotypes are the most typical stereotypes.
They are connected with designations of persons.
E.g. familial roles: mother, father, stepmother, mother-in-law.
Gender stereotypes: a typical man, a typical woman.
As you know, many anecdotes are based on our sharing certain stereotypes:
Those of occupations: stereotypical scientist, female teacher, policeman.
National stereotypes.
These will be addressed later by my colleague Lucie Břinková.
One entire workshop will also be dedicated to it.
One workshop is also dedicated to the stereotype of a hearing person
as viewed by the Deaf.
This is also where the "own-foreign" opposition is employed interestingly:
What is ours, what is foreign, certain value differentiation, etc.
Speaking of the workshops, the third one is dedicated to
exploration of colours in sign languages.
At first glance we can see that these are no social stereotypes.
They are stereotypes, or better to say prototypes.
In cognitive linguistics focused on colours
the term "prototype" of colour became established.
This is the context in which the term "prototype" will be used.
E.g. the prototype of blue is a sky.
The prototype of red in the Czech Sign Language is this and that.
It is very interesting.
You will learn it from Radka Zbořilová's talk.
But let us deal with the social stereotypes now.
When I let you guess
who is drawn or portrayed in these pictures:
We could describe the person's attributes: glasses, pointer...
She is also dressed in a certain way, her facial expression is unpleasant.
Her gestures are specific, too.
You must have inferred that she is a teacher.
I don't know if it is also the case in other languages, in sign languages,
but in Czech, in the Czech context,
the stereotype of a female teacher is very disagreeable.
An entire thesis on this topic is available.
What else can we demonstrate here?
That stereotypes materialize...
And this is the case in all languages, not only spoken ones or sign ones,
but in all possible codes, all diverse semiotic systems,
e.g. in art representation.
Caricatures of certain persons may accentuate certain features.
And based on these pictures, stereotypes in certain milieus can also be explored.
This is what we can see here.
There are two main types of social stereotypes.
This is based on the "own-foreign" opposition.
I can explore an autostereotype of a Czech.
I.e. what we, the Czechs, are like.
I am Czech and will be exploring
what typical Czechs look like, how they behave, what is characteristic of them,
which is what I will do on the basis of the Czech language and Czech texts.
This is the autostereotype.
A heterostereotype of a Czech: a Czech viewed e.g. by a Slovak,
a Czech viewed by a German, an American...
What they, the Czechs, are like from the perspective of another language.
If we use German materials, dictionaries, phraseology,
anecdotes on Czechs, national stereotypes, etc.,
we could explore the heterostereotypes of Czechs.
I think Marie Basovníková will also address this in her talk.
We have now arrived at our example.
The stereotype of a gypsy (cikán), or a Romani (Rom),
which is a politically correct designation
of the person of certain nationality or race...
Hard to figure out how to conceive this...
So this is the heterostereotype.
I.e. saying cikán (gypsy) is a heterostereotype
because the minority itself prefers to call its member Rom (Romani).
Two questions arise:
1) What is characteristic of an exemplar located in the category’s centre?
That is the ring at the very centre.
What is a typical gypsy like, as viewed by a Czech?
2) And how is it stored in the Czech language?
How is it shown, reflected in Czech,
in Czech texts, in common Czechs' communication?
That is the second question.
I.e. what data can we base the image of the typical Czech on?
Now we are addressing spoken languages and you can already start thinking
if this, or what from this, can also be applied to sign languages.
This was our fundamental question.
And it will be probably answered later by my colleagues in their talks.
We will successively address the linguistic data,
textual data, empirical data.
Some will be mentioned only briefly
but I would like them to be presented in the aforementioned order.
Let us begin with the linguistic data, i.e. linked with the language system:
Slang, what is frozen in dictionaries,
in the dictionaries of Czech.
I.e. by looking up the basic term cikán in the dictionary,
this is, among other things, the information we will find.
We will find that he is a member of one of the nationalities
of Indian origin, dispersed all over the world
and still living, to a certain extent, nomadically.
OK, this is a sort of denotative label, which, however,
corresponds to the reality, to the usual use of the word,
only to a very limited extent.
I would say that it rather fails to correspond.
This is because the stereotype of cikán is different
and is contributed to by connotations which will be demonstrated.
One type of the linguistic data is the origin of an expression,
its etymology or motivation.
By looking into a Czech etymological dictionary,
we will learn that the word cikán has its origin in the Greek word
written in the slide: Athinganoi, which means "the untouchable",
people not wishing to be touched.
The connection might be as follows: Cikáni (gypsies)
had been an appellation for a heretic Christian sect
originating from or related to India.
So it is certainly connected with the caste behaviour in India
because we know, even from the present,
that the Romani are distinguished by a range of customs
and various cultural peculiarities which we, the Czechs, fail to grasp fully.
What we consider dirty they consider clean and vice versa.
This will be seen later.
Other linguistic data:
An important role in spoken languages is played by polysemy,
i.e. which secondary meanings can be found in the dictionaries.
In this case for the word cikán.
One older dictionary states that cikán might stand for:
"a person resembling a gypsy in bearing a certain gypsy trait,"
"e.g. vagrancy, dishonesty, quarrelsomeness".
Another dictionary presents a more general statement:
"a person resembling a gypsy in physical traits or traits of character,"
"usually bad ones".
The dictionary points out their tan, dark skin, vagrancy,
the fact that gypsies had no permanent residence,
and lived nomadic lives, changing the place of residence.
Also, cikán can stand for a liar, trickster, thief,
as well as, in the negative sense of the word, for a child,
which wears everything to rags, is dirty,
needs to be taken care of, etc.
I don't think this would still be in use nowadays, or I am not aware of it.
The stereotype of cikán in Czech has been developing for a long time.
Most of the evidence dates back to the 19th century,
but much older evidence is also available,
capturing that Romani were not always accorded positive welcome in our lands.
Exceptions will also be shown, though.
Other linguistic data: synonyms.
The word Rom (Romani) has already been mentioned.
It is a politically correct synonym of the word cikán (gypsy)
and an expression which is used by the Romani themselves
with respect to their autostereotype.
There are many marked, expressive appellations for cikán.
These are only some of the expressions.
At my instigation, the translator attempted
to explain them in English because many are culture specific.
Cigoš, cikorka are based on the sound form
of the basic appellation cikán.
Also, cikorka is a substitute for coffee,
which is black, i.e. the aspect of darkness is also present.
In most of the other appellations what is prominent is the black colour,
or physiognomy of which dark skin is symptomatic:
Černej, černý, as well as indecent expressions
which I will pronounce only with certain embarrassment:
černá svině, černá huba (variations of "darkie") and even worse ones
not even mentioned here.
The following expressions are metaphorical.
They also feature the black colour
but it is no longer derived from the adjective "black".
Kofola is a Czech sort of Coca-Cola, a dark, sweet nonalcoholic beverage.
This is how the Romani are termed in certain parts of the Czech Republic.
Briketa (literally "briquette"), uzenáč:
The latter is derived from "smoke-curing", "smoke", etc.
And there are others.
Other recorded marked synonyms:
černoch (Negro), indián (Indian), Ital (Italian),
again because of how their dark skin is reminiscent of these nationalities.
The antonyms might be significant: "the gypsies" vs. "the white".
The Romani, too, define themselves often in this manner against "the white",
i.e. "the black" vs. "the white".
Other linguistic data: Derivatives.
Czech is a derivative language.
Derivatives can tell us a lot about stereotypes.
The following two verbs might only be used in dialects today
and only very sporadically:
One of them is cikánit, meaning "to lie".
The other one is cikánovati, i.e. "to vagabond", "lack a domicile".
They former points to one quality stereotypically linked with the gypsy:
The aforementioned lying.
The latter stereotypical quality is vagrancy, lack of permanent residence.
What can be read from proper nouns is also interesting.
Czech features anthroponymic surnames Cikán, Cikánová, Cikánek.
Also, coming back to the darkness, blackness,
when naming a dog or horse Cikán,
it may be assumed that the animal is black.
There are also some toponyms,
although I could not find motivation for the names.
But Czech features frequent names of meals
which are connected to the noun cikán.
I found pictures on Google.
Cikánské řezy (gypsy cuts): they are dark,
again confirming the aspect of darkness.
Cikánky, i.e. "female gypsies", which we might find funny.
but these are small Christmas sweets.
Cikánská omáčka (gypsy sauce): you can see the labeled bottle for sale.
Its important aspect might be its spiciness,
its connection with grilling, with cooking on fire.
which was probably linked to the older stereotype of gypsy.
Let me now turn to the linguistic data No. V.
A very significant element which can
help to explain the stereotype of gypsy is phraseology in spoken languages.
In Czech, we say: "He is black as a gypsy", "filthy as a gypsy",
"he steals as a gypsy", "lies as a gypsy".
Also, when wanting to say that a place, e.g. a flat, is messy, needs cleaning,
we say: "The place looks like a gypsy den."
There are also numerous folklore examples.
I'd like to divide the folklore into two parts:
On the one hand, there is the traditional folklore,
i.e. old proverbs, riddles, songs.
And as will be also explored later, the songs
feature a rather positive stereotype of gypsy.
Take, for example, the songs created in our territory in 18th century:
Their gypsy is good-looking, erotically attractive.
He is black, has dark curly hair, white teeth...
The same goes for a female gypsy. This stereotype is no longer alive
and is linked solely with the certain group of older texts.
Your handouts contain the modern folklore, especially jokes.
I.e. the internet folklore that we may come across in social media.
Internet is full of servers providing the jokes.
There is an entire category called "gypsy jokes".
Textual data: We can follow various language corpora,
selected text types, which, due to lacking time, we will not be doing here,
although the artistic or pop-music texts featuring a gypsy are very interesting.
Again, the older ones, dating back to 19th century, contain a different
stereotype of gypsy, a romantic one.
E.g. the protagonist flees to join gypsies or a beautiful female gypsy.
This stereotype was very frequent in the 19th-century literature.
Today's textual data, however, are different.
The next type are empirical data,
i.e. research by means of social media, questionnaires...
We will not address these here, either.
I would only like to mention
the so-called diagnostic method, diagnostic phrases,
as Bartmiński calls them.
To verify stereotypes, he uses the so-called "but-test".
Our task is to complete a phrase:
He is a gypsy but...
What the respondents write, how they complete the phrase is interesting.
They tend to complete it with: "but is decent, hardworking"...
From which we can infer the opposite.
In the aforementioned thesis on the female teacher,
the student included a questionnaire asking:
draw a female teacher; also, complete the phrase:
"She is a teacher but..."
The children wrote: "but is very nice", "but likes children"
"but is clever", "but is not nervous at all", etc.
So this is also an interesting method for detecting a stereotype,
the way it works in our minds, in our culture.
OK, based on the aforementioned data,
we could ask ourselves questions
and also answer them in a certain fashion.
How does, in the Czech sociocultural context,
in Czech speakers' minds, the term "X" work?
I.e. cikán in our case. What does the word mean?
Not in the denotative sense in line with the dictionary definition,
i.e. that he is a member of an originally Indian tribe, etc.,
but what its connotations are.
What aspects does his stereotype have?
And in order to determine this, to say: "a gypsy is such and such",
"a gypsy does this and that", we have the linguistic and textual data.
Again, the material is not politically correct but this is what emerges:
The phrases, aspects of the stereotype will be addressed one by one.
You can supplement these by reading, perhaps even at home,
the corresponding jokes which I found on the internet.
This is based on the linguistic data:
A gypsy "is black", "is filthy",
with various submeanings: a gypsy "smells bad", "has a hygiene problem",
"eats dogs"... The "own-foreign" opposition comes into play,
as well as, on a sublevel, the "clean-unclean" opposition,
a rather frequent one.
A gypsy "does evil", "commits crimes",
"destroys material values", "lies", "steals and robs", etc.
A gypsy "refuses to work", "lives at the expense of the majority society",
"is on welfare wrongfully", "abuses the social system"...
If you check the internet servers with the gypsy jokes,
the ones related to this type of stereotype are most frequent.
What is also important is that a gypsy "is found in groups",
that they are always numerous.
Another perspective: a gypsy "has a lot of children",
"fails to look after them", has them chiefly to receive social benefits.
This is then often distinctive in the stereotype of a female gypsy.
As far as this stereotype is concerned, the picture that you can see
shows the older, traditional stereotype linked with a female and male gypsy,
dating back to 18th, 19th century and even further.
This itself proves certain "frozenness" of the stereotype,
i.e. one can disguise as a female gypsy,
go to a carnival in a female gypsy mask.
I borrowed this picture from a costume hire shop's website,
offering many masks, including a female gypsy one.
Based on the older stereotype, a female gypsy is black, has dark skin
wears bright colours, etc.
I'd like to pay attention to one of the attributes:
In Czech, I wrote that she leads a nomadic life and is free,
by which I meant that she is unrestrained.
This is why the protagonist often flees to join the gypsies.
But the translator had a different understanding:
that she is not married, taken.
This proves what I stated in my first presentation.
The brackets mention what supplements the stereotype of female gypsy nowadays:
What is striking is the early start of sex life,
she has, stereotypically, many children, is cunning, does not work,
lives on welfare, etc.
Again, the jokes are numerous.
I might not even read the following vulgar definition,
or rather parody or travesty of a zoological definition,
which characterizes the "common gypsy" as a kind of animal species.
I found this on the Internet in many versions and borrowed frequently.
I think it characterizes the stereotype very vividly, despite its indecency.
Let me add here what also features as a motto on your handouts:
"Stereotypes often betray more about their authors"
"than the persons or objects that they relate to."
I.e. we also testify about ourselves, our reflection of the gypsy minority.
The social interest is to suppress the negative stereotypes.
We attempt to do so in public communication.
There is e.g. a flyer with the following text:
"The gypsy cleaned out my flat."
Our translator succeeded to convert it to English nicely,
indicating there is a double meaning at play: "clear out" x "whitewash".
And, consequently, that a gypsy can be a capable worker,
who can whitewash the flat in the capacity of a house painter.
The defensive and self-defining function of stereotype has been addressed:
Whereas, for some Czechs, gypsies, or Romani, are
"black swines" (the literal translation that you can see)
the non-Romani Czechs are, contrarily, viewed by the Romani as "white swines".
The stereotype of a white Czech is very negative again
and would be perhaps even uglier if I decided to explore it.
Again, I am coming back to the fact that the addressed data
were related to spoken Czech.
And now for the fundamental questions with respect to
exploring stereotypes in sign languages.
What data, giving similar evidence, about stereotypes, are available in SL?
They are different from the spoken ones in many respects.
They lack the written form, without the possibility to freeze them.
What I mentioned about stereotypes dating many centuries back,
about having them in dictionaries of Czech, even very old ones,
this is not the case in sign languages.
Still, a stereotype is frozen somewhere a bit,
as my colleagues will show you in three talks following my talk,
i.e. after the third part.
It may be already revealed that the sign form and its modification may be used,
that synonymous signs or derivatives may be sought,
i.e. which other signs are shown in a similar way.
And another source is the Deaf folklore.
You might figure out many other things yourselves.
I shall now conclude my talk.
At the very end, I would like to ask Marie Basovníková
to become my helper here
and show two signs
for a gypsy in the Czech Sign Language.
As you can see, the first sign is shown by a movement away from the nose,
as is the case for many signs of negative meanings.
This is the handshape.
Let me repeat it: This is what the sign for the Czech word cikán looks like.
As you can see, the sign is shown by a downward gesture.
The opposition up-down is significant, "down" meaning mostly something bad.
It may contain the negative connotation of being smelly. I am not sure.
This is the usual sign.
As I was informed, there is also a second sign...
-...which is used in Brno, Moravia. -This is what the sign looks like:
The handshape "five", flexed fingers and the articulation in front of one's face.
Again, we could possibly perceive the connotation of filth, soiled face...
Let me thank Marie. Thank you.
Not at all.
So based on the form of these signs we could make deductions about
the stereotype of a gypsy in CzSL.
You might be able to make other deductions.
We are now coming to the end of the second part.
Let me conclude by saying:
Marie Basovníková will present her talk here
and lead a workshop showing the definition of
the opposition "Deaf-hearing" in CzSL.
In a way, the "own-foreign" opposition is also realized there.
This is why one of the selected topics of the international workshop is
the stereotype of a hearing person as viewed by the Deaf.
We are likely to find out that they are called "hearing swines"
or something similarly negative.
We shall see what the facets of this stereotype are,
what attributes a hearing person has from the perspective of the Deaf,
i.e. what their behaviour, their characteristics are.
But this will be addressed later by my colleagues.
Let me hereby conclude the second part of my presentation.
And thank you for your attention.