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Studying Irish Culture in Argentinean EFL Teacher Education Programs

Marcela B. Calvete yMara Cristina Sarasa

Universidad Nacional del Mar del Plata, ArgentinaFacultad de Humanidades, Departamento de Lenguas Modernas.

Introduction

This paper examines the interaction between language, content, and different literacies

in the study of Irish culture in a sophomore language course called Overall

Communication, which is taught in the EFL Teacher Education Program at Mar del

Plata State University, Argentina. This subject aims at using the FL to explore some of

the multiple identities existing in the English-speaking world. This blending is achieved

by working interdisciplinarily with a variety of cultural products representing pluraldiscourses and authorial voices. To this end, language, culture, and literature are

explored and redefined in the course of the three units Overall Communication

introduces. Literature stands as the re-presentation of a society, since its productions

give voice to cultures; Overall Communication also uses films to integrate language,

culture, and content (Williamson and Vincent 1999). Films bring the world of the target

cultures into the classroom since they present not only language but also cultural

knowledge essential to function in foreign language societies. Thus, Overall

Communication aims at developing media literacy, which can be defined as the ability

to comprehend information that is contained and conveyed through a variety of non-

print media. This involves complex intellectual tasks that go beyond the simple

manipulation of the language being used (Krueger 1998: 17). Students are encouraged

to develop critical watching strategies through activities which analyze different aspects

of the target culture, exploring how different issues may be similar to, or different from,

their counterpart in their native-language cultures.

The first unit, called "A World of Multiple Identities," focuses on a variety of socio-

political and cultural issues affecting some current realities of different English-

speaking peoples. The second unit, named A Postcolonial World, aims at exposing

students to cultural productions of the Empire that writes back (Ashcroft, Griffiths,

and Tiffin 1989). The focus of this paper is on the last unit, which is called A World of

Multiple Cultures, and deals with Irish cultural re-presentations used, in this case, to

suggest the cultural plurality of the British Isles. The materials introduced since the

course started being taught in the year 2000 have included short stories such as, for


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example, A Letter to Rome (Moore 1987), Death in Jerusalem (Trevor 1987),

Dragons (Barnes 1996), and The Outfielder, the Indian Giver (McKinney 2000);

and a selection of narratives and essays by Glenn Patterson (2006). Films shown have

featuredIn the Name of the Father (Universal Pictures 1993), Michael Collins (Warner

1996), and Gangs of New York (Miramax 2002). Students have also explored a variety

of print and media background materials.

Throughlines for Teaching about Irish Culture

In the Introduction to his bookInventing Ireland, Kiberd (1996: 1) poses the question

who invented Ireland? providing three answers to his query. This section will

examine how the aforementioned media and print texts relate to each of the authors

responses.

The first natural answer, according to Kiberd, would be that the Irish invented

themselves without any outside intervention. George Moores work A Letter to Rome

is set in the Irish countryside around the time of the Famine. Father MacTurnan is

concerned about the fact that Ireland will soon become a Protestant country if migration

does not cease. In order to save Irish Catholicism and to form an Irish Catholicism

suited to the ideas and needs of the Irish people (91), he decides to write a letter to the

Pope asking him to rescind the decree of celibacy for the clergy. In this way, the

birthrate would exceed the emigration rate and religion will become effectively national

and parochialin the sense of truly stemming from the Catholic parishes.

William Trevors story Death in Jerusalem also exhibits these features that seem to

belong to Irelands essential idiosyncrasy, such as Catholicismsince both characters

share a feature that has commonly represented Irelandand localism. There are two

main Catholic actors: Paula Catholic priest who has emigrated to the USdecides to

take his brother Franciswho runs his own Dublin-based business and looks after their

old motherto the Holy Land (Sarasa, Calvete, and Gmez 2001b).1

Julian Barnes Dragons is set in late seventeenth century France, where Louis XIV

hired Catholic Irish soldierswho had been allowed to leave Ireland after the Battle of

the Boyneas les dragons trangers du roi to persecute the HuguenotsFrench

Calvinistsand to force these heretics to abjure their religion after the revocation of the

1 The authors wish to acknowledge J. A. Gmezs invaluable contribution to the analysis of the literary

texts.


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Edict of Nantes. The dragons immovable Catholic identity has been forged in eternal

hatred of the Protestant English, singly embodied by Oliver Cromwell.

Blnaid McKinneys story The Outfielder, the Indian-Giver concerns the Irishman

Fergalresearch assistant to the Politics professor at Trinity Collegeand the

Englishman Martinsportswriter for the Telegraph. Cricket commentator mainly

(580). Both men meet in Dublin and embark together on a car trip through the US

from Chicago to New Orleans. Martin has been sent to cover the beginning of the

baseball season, although he knows absolutely nothing about the game. Fergal is going

to Mississippi to visit the lands of the Choctaws, a Native American tribe who in the

midst of their own misery in 1847 collected $710 to help the starving Irish. The quest

for absolute essences is translated to the American continent, where Fergal is

fascinated by the first true Americansi.e. Native Americans. He offers no

comments about Ireland but it occurred to Fergal that if a thing belonged to the man

who worked on it, who built it, the London belonged to the Irish (583). For his own

part, Martins behavior mocks the stereotypes of Englishness by, for example, sounding

like Prince Charles stoned (593).

Kiberds first answer that the Irish have invented themselves from pre-English Gaelic

sources and have had to re-invent themselves in their struggle for independence are

suggested by the name Sinn Fein (We Ourselves), the party founded by Arthur Griffith

in the early 20th century. In this context, Neil Jordans film Michael Collins (Warner

Brothers 1996), traces the public career of the homonymous Irish revolutionary leader

from his imprisonment after the 1916 Easter Rising, through his organization of the

Irish armed revolutionary movementthe future IRA, his participation in the peace

negotiations that led to the creation of the Irish Free State and the partition of the island,

concluding with his assassination in Co. Corkhis birthplacein 1922, at the

beginning of the Civil War. Collins struggle shows that the Irish created a wholly new

way of fighting for their cause. Statements in the film such as we wont play by their

[English] rules Well invent our own; our only weapon is our refusal to bow to any

order but our own, any institution but our own; as well as youll [the Twelve

Apostles] engage the enemy on nobodys terms but your own; and well defeat the

British Empire by ignoring it emphasize these Irishmens belief in their own native

methods to defeat the British Empire (Jordan 1996).

Jim Sheridans productionIn the Name of the Father(Universal Pictures 1993) is basedon the true story of Gerry Conlon and three other Northern Irish peopleknown as


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The Guilford Fourwho, together with Gerrys father Giuseppe, were mistakenly

identified as IRA members by the British police, and given long sentences for crimes

they did not commit. Once in their English prison, the Conlons meet the man who

confesses to actually having planted the bomb in the Guilford pub. This character is

politically uncompromising and determined, inspiring Gerry Conlons determination in

his personal struggle for justice.

Finally, Martin Scorseses Gangs of New York (Miramax 2002), an urban epic about

19th century gang warfare in pre-modern New York, exhibits polarities between

Catholic Irish and Protestant American gangs in the period spanning from the year 1846

to the draft riots of 1863. Xenophobic Americansironically calling themselves

Nativistsclash with Irish immigrants escaping from the worst phase of the potato

Famine. Dominated at home and unable to overcome the polarities between rich

Protestant landlords and poor Catholic peasants, Irish immigrants face additional socio-

religious opposition in the US.

Kiberds second answer states that the English invented Ireland by creating negative

polarities. A Letter to Rome addresses the apparently irreconcilable dualities between

Catholicism and Protestantism. This story and Death in Jerusalem also present a

binary clash between localism/parochialism and cosmopolitanism/universalism.

Dragons manipulates enmities by reversing them: the persecuted/dominated Catholic

Irish in Ireland become persecutors/dominant when they arrive in France. The

Huguenots in Francethe religious equivalent of Protestant victimizers in Ireland

become the victims in their own homeland. Likewise, The Outfielder, the Indian-

Giver complexly interweaves and recreates polarities in its relocation of the English-

Irish relationship. In this case, Martin the Englishman is pitted against US mainstream

culture to the extent that Fergal the Irishman has to defend him in bars when the former

verbally abuses his hosts stereotyped customs.

This idea that the English helped to bring Ireland into existence by creating opposing

essences or polarities is usually summarized by the words us [the dominant] and them

[the dominated].In the Name of the Father features the suffering and bewilderment of

non-guilty Catholic Irish trapped by Britains Prevention of Terrorism Act. For

Republicans, the Guilford Four can be regarded as the main targets of offenses

committed by the British Establishment as part of a broader aggression against the Irish

people. In turn, Michael Collins reverses the us-and-them polarity: the Irish become


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Francis). In Jerusalem, the story reaches its climax because this trip to the Holy Land,

and their mothers concomitant death in Ireland, reveal the affective, moral, and even

religious breach between the brotherssomething that is suggested by their names: i.e.

the Apostle to the Gentiles Paulthe Pharisee who persecuted the first Christians until

he converted to Christianity and established it as a separate religionand the mystic

Francis of Assisithe perfect imitator of Christs life on earth (Sarasa, Calvete, and

Gmez 2001a and b). In the case of Dragons, exile translates the Catholic-Protestant

conflict to another timethe late 17th centuryand placeFrancein order to revisit

it and rewrite its history.

The Outfielder, the Indian-Giver deals with territorial and emotional exile in

historythe Choctaws Trail of Tears and the massive exodus caused by the Famine,

in the private realm of feelingsFergals and Martins separation from their partners,

and in the spatial sensethe trip through America where both mens identities are

redefined. The sense of the unhomely/uncanny [unheimlich] (Bhabha 1994) pervades

the whole text as the two men are unhoused, estranged from home and relocated in the

vast unfamiliar and at times frightening American spaces. Eventually, their

displacement allows them to develop new selves.

In Pattersons work, exile can take the form of displacement from narrow localism to a

wider, richer European identity. The broader perspective of European history and

culture allows for the recognition of the fact that nations are mostly narrations (Bhabha

1994). Expatriation for Patterson has been a personal experience in the shape of self-

imposed banishment across the water (i.e. to England) to voluntarily adopt an

unhomely condition in the hope of transcending Orange/Green dichotomies. This has

involved his self-willed renunciation of religious and political allegiances in order to

fully embrace opposed ones.

The problematic of exile is briefly addressed in Michael Collins, when Mick recites

Old Skibbereen, a ballad which mourns the long Irish history of eviction and

emigration. In its verses, a father tells his son how they came to America (Coogan

1992). Likewise, In the Name of the Fatherand Gangs of New Yorkboth deal with the

issue of expatriation. In Sheridans picture, Gerry Conlon and his friends leave Belfast

in search of a life free from Catholic-Protestant dichotomies in Northern Ireland, only to

be caught in English-Irish polarities in England, where conflict takes on a different

dimension. On the other hand, Scorseses film portrays the period following the Famineduring which huge numbers of Irish immigrants arrived in New York City only to face


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extremely poor living conditions in a hostile environment. The difficulties encountered,

and the distance from their country of origin, contribute to the re-definition of their

nationality. As Kramsch (2000) states, immigrants sense of self in a new country is

linked to their national citizenship and/or religion of origin, because this is the identity

that is usually imposed on them by their hosts, who tend to regard them, for example, as

either Catholic or Protestant Irish.

Discussion

Kiberds answers concerning the Irish inventing themselves or being created by

polarities point to an essential identity. Essentialism involves invariable and fixed

properties that are defined in opposition to difference (Niranjana 1992). While the

former is static the latter is complex. In other words, essentialism involves reducing a

people to a central, simplified idea. This diminishment is not only carried out by

dominant groups, but also by formerly dominated, nationalist sectors, who may define

themselves as the authentic essence of their land with a homogenous, unbroken tradition

of pre-colonial sources. In this sense, they use the same categories of though of the old

rulers. Most of the texts and films studied here, with the probable exception of

Pattersons work, offer insights into essential/essentialized/essentializing visions of

Ireland, England, and the world beyond the British Isles.

Kiberds answer that the Irish and the English need each other for self-definition points

to hybrid identities. Bhabhas use of the term hybridity may suggest a strategy

introduced by the subaltern in reckoning with a dominant order. In this sense, hybridity

is not relativism or a third term but a negative transparencya black-on-white picture

that reverts the process of domination and enables a form of subversion. Thus, hybridity

as an encounter of differences or separationsas for example in consciousness or in

language (Bakhtin 1981: 358)is meant to foreclose the forces of purity encompassed

within the aforementioned essentialist theories. In this vein, Barness, Pattersons,

McKinneys, and Jordans hybrid works question the images and presences of authority.

Finally, (un)willing exile with its attendant unhomeliness is the nursery of national

identity because immigrants sense of self naturally changes in a new land under the

scrutiny of others. In many cases, the distant home becomes an imagined community

in the positive and creative sense of the term (Anderson 1993). In Bhabhas words

(1994: 172), exilic movements refer to the transnational dimension of culturaltransformation characterized by migration, diaspora, displacement, relocation. The


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issue of the Irish Diaspora is powerful enough to be represented in all of the productions

analyzed here.

This analysis has endeavored to substantiate the authors beliefs that cultural contents

and linguistic manifestations can complement each other in the teaching of the English

language to its prospective instructors. The notions that language and culture are

inextricably bound, that the study of TL cultures significantly impacts on learners

linguistic competence, and that teacher educators disciplinary knowledge base should

be dialectically integrated have long constituted the basis for the new agenda in EFL

Teacher Education Programs (Shanahan 1997).

References

Anderson, B.Imagined Communities. New York: Verso, 1993.Ashcroft, B.; G. Griffiths; and H. Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice

in Post-Colonial Literatures. London and New York: Routledge, 1989.Bakhtin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: The U. of Texas Press, 1981.Barnes, J. Dragons, in J. Barnes Cross Channel. London, Picador, 1996.

Bhabha, H. K. The Location of Culture. London-New York: Routledge, 1994.Coogan, T. P.Michael Collins. Boulder, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart, 1992.

Gangs of New York. Dir. M. Scorsese. Perf. L. DiCaprio, D. Day-Lewis, C. Diaz, L.Neeson. Miramax, 2002.

In the Name of the Father. Dir. J. Sheridan. Perf. D. Day-Lewis, E. Thompson.

Universal Pictures, 1993.

Jordan, N.Michael Collins. Screenplay and Film Diary. New York: Plume, 1996.Kiberd, D.Inventing Ireland. London, Vintage, 1996.Kramsch, C. Language and Culture. Oxford: OUP, 2000.Krueger, E. Media Literacy Does Work, Trust Me, English Journal 87 (1): 17-20

(1998).

McKinney, B. The Outfielder, the Indian-Giver, in D. Bolger ed. The New PicadorBook of Contemporary Irish Fiction. London: Picador, 2000.

Michael Collins. Dir. N. Jordan. Perf. L. Neeson, A. Rickman, A. Quinn. Warner, 1996.Moore, G. A Letter to Rome, in J. McCarthy ed. Stories from the Great Irish Writers.

Dublin, Mercier, 1987.

Niranjana, T. Siting Translation. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1992.Patterson, G.Lapsed Protestant. Dublin: New Island, 2006.Sarasa, M. C.; M. Calvete; and J. A. Gmez. Kramschs Dichotomies: Facing the

Challenge. Bs. As: FAAPI-APIBA. CD-ROM, 2001a.---. Presentation The 5 Cs en EFL Teachers Education, Segunda Convencin de la

Enseanza de Ingls a Nivel Superior. UNMDP, Facultad de Humanidades,2001b.

Shanahan, D Articulating the Relationship between Language, Literature, and Culture:Toward a New Agenda for Foreign Language Teaching and Research, The

Modern Language Journal81 (2): 166-174 (1997).Trevor, W. Death in Jerusalem, in J. McCarthy ed. Stories from the Great Irish

Writers. Dublin, Mercier, 1987.Williamson, J. A.; and J. C. Vincent. Film is Content. Michigan: The University of

Michigan Press, 1999.


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