ABSTRACT
In the prior chapters we have focused on ways a popular US American discourse has cast Finns as “inexpressive,” “shy,” and “sad.” We have noted how these verbal interpretations derive from popular features of a US American discourse that say one should be “open,” “outgoing,” and “happy.”1 We demonstrated how the quality of “inexpressiveness” (in short) does not say anything necessarily from a Finnish perspective about Finns through a Finnish discourse. From a Finnish stance, “thoughtfulness, privacy, and respect” are seen and hearable as socially situated values and as momentarily valuable. The play between these discourses, as summarized here, demonstrates how the process of seeing and speaking about a cultural other can get caught within either discourse-by “mirroring” its own contrasting features-even as it believes it is saying something important about another.
