The Grandmother's Proverb: Cultural Framing in a Mediation Task
In a bilingual mediation task, German Year 12 students read a short story by a fictional Nigerian author, set in Enugu. The grandmother says: 'The lizard that jumped from the high iroko tree said he would praise himself if no one else did.' The task asks students to explain the function of the proverb in the scene and to write a short email to a partner class in Enugu explaining which aspects of the story German readers might find unfamiliar, without stereotyping. Student Paula writes: 'The proverb shows the grandmother is uneducated and superstitious. In Africa, old people use proverbs instead of normal language. German readers would find this strange because we are modern.' Her teacher marks the language as accurate but the content as failing the intercultural criterion.
1. Identify the intercultural errors in Paula's response and explain, with reference to the proverb's function, how a full-mark answer would reframe it.
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Paula's errors are intercultural, not grammatical. First, she reads the proverb as evidence of the grandmother's deficiency ('uneducated and superstitious'). In the story, the proverb performs a communal function: it lets the grandmother praise the child indirectly, teaching self-worth without boasting, and it draws on an oral tradition in which proverbs are a respected rhetorical resource. Second, 'In Africa, old people use proverbs instead of normal language' totalises a continent and frames a cultural practice as a lack of normal language. Third, 'we are modern' sets up an ethnocentric hierarchy in which the German reader is the norm and the story is a curiosity.
A full-mark answer would contextualise and invite comparison: 'In this Igbo setting, the proverb allows the grandmother to affirm the child's achievement indirectly, while also teaching that self-praise may be necessary when others do not recognise you. German readers might compare this with sayings in their own families; the unfamiliarity lies in the indirectness, not in a lack of education.' That describes, situates and avoids ranking.
2. Paula's email draft begins: 'Dear partners, you people use a lot of proverbs, why?' Rewrite the opening two sentences and explain the register and pragmatic choices.
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Draft: 'Dear partner class, in the story the grandmother often speaks in proverbs, and we found this striking. Could you tell us how proverbs are used in your everyday lives, and whether this scene feels familiar to you?'
Why: 'you people' constructs the partners as a homogeneous other and carries a history of distancing; 'why?' alone reads as an interrogation of a cultural practice rather than an invitation. The rewrite uses a named addressee ('partner class'), states the observation from the readers' perspective ('we found this striking'), hedges the generalisation ('in the story'), and asks a reciprocal, open question ('how ... in your everyday lives'). It also avoids presuming that the partners speak for all Nigerians. The politeness strategy is positive: show interest, soften the face threat, and offer a shared object of enquiry - the story - rather than the partners' culture as a specimen.