Why do English people howl?

[seth.destructor]

I don't know, either I live in a some strange area or it's more
common - all my co-workers and neighbours keep howling and wailing
echoing every "na-na-nah" and "sha-la-lah" and "ooo" in a song in a
radio. Sometimes I go down the High Street and I see youth howling
one to another like a bereaved wolves. And they I sober! You know,
Poles tend to ululate when heavily drunken, English do this when
sober! My neighbour now is pretending that he is a banshee and his
mate answers him in a kinda pseudo-operatic voice. Maybe it is
something in the aaaaaair?

[Gość: Steve]

Being an Englishman living in Poland, I have wondered about a rather similar question: why is it that people from different cultures have such fundamentally different forms of oral communication? I also recall that English people used to, and may still, make fun of what we consider to be the highly emotional, Latin way of talking: extreme modulation of voice, arms and body waving about, extreme exaggeration of statement, etc: see South American soap operas.

In Poland, it seems to me that people generally speak in a monotone, with emotional content being expressed by words and meaning, with sarcasm, etc being primary tools for emotional persuasion. The volume of speaking normally only rises with the level of background noise, which is particularly noticeable when several people are speaking at the same time when having a discussion. Speaking at the same time is a thing we all do, but in England it tends to be used to get control of the conversation, and is often considered extremely rude, while in Poland everyone just talks at the same time not caring what anyone one else is saying. Even shouting at demonstrations and the whining sound of women pleading for help, eg during the floods, are generally done without modulation of tone, even if not delivered in a normal, quietly spoken voice.

I understand your feeling that the difference is very strange. My wife is extremely sarcastic about my sub-conscious moving of hands and raised volume when speaking. Indeed, I suspect that these differences are so ingrained in me that I will never adjust sufficiently to appreciate many things: Polish singing and dramatic programmes and films all seem emotionally lacking. I actually leave the room in highly charged emotional moments in M Jak Miłość to avoid laughing. That ultimate symbol of a husband's extreme anger - the camera focuses on his left cheek and his jaw muscle tightens once - just seems hilarious. I also detest the completely emotionless lektor system, which, for me, is an absurd failure to deliver the vocal content of foreign dramas. My Polish friends don't understand this view.

To answer your question, therefore, I suspect at least part of the reason is that English (British?) people are generally more conditioned to communicate with each other by modulation of voice and physical expression than Poles. Indeed, I think you might appreciate why my Polish friends were puzzled that I was always amused rather than hurt by their stereotype criticism that the English are stiff upper-lipped, cold and emotionless. (We seem to share the same trait of insulting our friends to get a good vigorous discussion going though.)

If any of this makes sense to you, I would appreciate your views on the extent to which you have already and may in the future adjust and adapt yourself to the difference. I suspect I am too old and conditioned to be able to change. My wife is even younger emotionally than me than she is physically and has borrowed some of my modulations when speaking to me, but has no reason to do so when speaking to normal (ie Polish) people. However, I wonder whether it is easier to adapt to a more extravagant form of expression than a reserved one.

Sorry for the length, but I find this a fascinating topic. As always, please read a lot of 'ifs', 'buts', 'maybes' and 'possiblies' - however the latter is spelt. I know this might all be quite wrong.

[Gość: Ralph]

> completely emotionless lektor system

That's the whole point: lektor's voice is emotionless and stays in the background allowing us to hear real voices of the actors! In countries where all films are dubbed the viewers don't have a chance to know the original voices, they have no idea how fenomenal Mel Blanc's voice was... In Poland if the translation is bad I am usually able to listen to the original text (at least partially). I would prefer subtitles (I would hide them straight away), but if I have to choose between Polish lektor system and dubbing, I definitely prefer the former solution.

You are right about the monotonous Polish speaking. For the first time I noticed a big difference in expression between Polish and British speakers when I started to work hard on my pronounciation and Steve (my teacher) noticed that I was trying to speak English the same monotonous way I was speaking Polish. It took me quite a few months to learn to speak with the British expression and I think I am still very far from what I want to achieve.

[jeanie_mccake]

Intonation explains a lot of cultural misunderstandings. One of the
most famous sociolinguistic studies in Britain in the 70s or early
80s showed that South Asians use a falling intonation in questions
in some contexts where most Europeans use a rising intonation. This
fact was obvious to linguists from books, but in practice it meant
that Indian and Pakistani dinner ladies in schools and canteens who
smiled and said 'Soup?' were understood as saying 'Soup!' and
considered rude, which they weren't, and white folks who
misunderstood and looked at them funny were construed as racist,
which they weren't.
Standard English has a pitch accent, which means English folk stress
a word or syllable by melodramatically raising or lowering the pitch
of their voice. Scottish accents more commonly lengthen vowels for
stress (English folk can't because for them vowel length is
phonemic, i.e. a vowel is either short or long and if you change it
folk get confused). This is one of the reasons why English accents
sound gay to Scots.
Western Scottish accents are even more monotonous, and sound
expressionless and slightly menacing to Eastern ears, which miss a
lot of the subtlety of expression. In the same way, the nice,
melodic eastern and northern Scottish accents sound soft to
Westerners (but obviously not as soft, at least in the negative
sense, as English ones).
A Polish accent is the same - to Glaswegian ears it sounds soft and
(apparently) pretty in a woman, but effeminate in a man. It'd be
interesting to know how it sounds to Edinburgh folk.

[seth.destructor]

Well, I didn't mean an intonation, but as you've mention it this is
something unusual for me; anyway Hindus much more sing their words
than British:)

I like Welsh accent.

[Gość: nedzioza]

That is intonation which is the trickiest to master. While I was
learning phonetics I realized that pronunciation and stress was
quite acceptable but intonation OMG!!!! There're 3 types of
intonations in English: 'falling-rising', 'falling' and ' rising'.
The hardest is the first one. Eg.: the question" 'What's that car
over there?' should be asked with your voice fallin' at the
beginning and rising at the end of the question. Normally when you
don't think about that it is impossible to perform that 'trick'
while speaking. Only people from Wielkopolska have potentials to
master that as they speak with more vivid intonation.