Министерство Образования Саратовскойобласти
Муниципальное общеобразовательное
Учреждение Лицей № 37
Фрунзенского района г. Саратова
Выпускная работа
Great Britain: the Land ofTraditions
Саратов, 2009 г.
Contents
Introduction
1. Roots of stereotypes
2. Parliament and the Royal Family
3. Clothes
4. Food and Eating Habits
Conclusion
List of Literature
Introduction
Every nationhas a stereotyped reputation of some kind or other, partly good, partly bad.The French are supposed to be cheerful, sophisticated, intelligent people, fondof good food and the opposite sex. At the same time it is often said that theyare intolerant, excitable and somewhat unpredictable. The Americans are said tobe energetic, hospitable, mobile and sociable, but rather boastful and showy.According to the results of the survey conducted among senior students ofLyceum 37 85 per cent find the British even-tempered, modest, tolerant, 60 percent believe typical Brits to be cheerful and generous while 5 per cent callthem calculating and prudent.
We don’t meanthat national reputations are simply a matter of prejudice and falsegeneralization. There is no denying that national differences in manners andoutlooks do exist. There is no denying either that since these differencesarise out of the specific development of each country they tend to change overtime while stereotyped images remain unchanged. As James O’Driscoll puts it,“Societies change over time while their reputations lag behind”.
We decided tostudy some stereotyped images of the United Kingdom and try to understandwhether they are true to life or have completely or partially changed. Since itis impossible to examine all aspects of public life in the country all culturaland socio cultural peculiarities, we have chosen only 3 areas: as the politicalsystem of the country, food and clothes. As political system of Great Britainseems to be rather complicated and deserves special studies we have onlytouched it upon focusing on a few changes. Besides the listed below ourresearch is based on the studies by James O’Driscoll and David MCDowal.
1.Roots of stereotypes
Before westart examining stereotyped attitudes to the British political system, food andclothing we find it only logical to touch upon the most typical assumptions andmake an attempt to trace their origin. In the introduction we mentioned asurvey of senior students of Lyceum 37. They were asked what Great Britain isassociated with. There were also required to make a list of 5 outstanding Britsand name 3 London tourist attractions. The majority of respondents call thecountry the land of traditions and say that it is mostly associated with rainyweather, the Queen, traditional ceremonies, music and football. Among thenumerous London sights Big Ben, the Tower and Trafalgar square occur mostoften. A couple of students mention the London Eye. All the sights whichappeared in the British capital in the 20ieth century remain obscure. Suchresults do not seem astonishing (do not raise the eyebrow) because “societieschange over time while their reputations lag behind”. For example, the image ofBritain as the country where it rains all the time is simply not true. In factLondon gets no more rain in a year than most other major European cities, andeven less than some.
Anotherexample is an open fire-place which is called the focus of a traditionalBritish home even in some recently published school course books. It is worthmentioning that open fire places were forbidden in London in the previouscentury which helped London residents get rid of pea-soup fogs described byEnglish classical authors.
Even thepopular belief that Britain is the land of tradition should be considered witha grain of salt. It is based on what can be seen in public life and oncenturies of political continuity. At the same time one should not forget thatmost of the formalized rituals, for example the State Opening of Parliamentand Trooping the Colour, were invented during the reign of Queen Victoria (notearlier) to generate a feeling of timeless tradition as a counterweight to thesocial shock waves of the industrial Revolution.
Neverthelessat the level of public life it is true. However, in their private everydaylives the British as individuals, are probably less inclined to followtradition than are the people of most other countries. There are very fewancient customs that are followed by the majority of families on specialoccasions. The country has fewer local parades and ceremonies with genuine folkroots than most other countries have. The English language has fewer sayingsand proverbs that are in common everyday use than many other languages do. Nowonder the most popular well-attend festival in the whole Britain is the annualNotting Hill Carnival in London at the end of August which is of Caribbeanorigin.
Even when aBritish habit conforms to the stereotype, the wrong conclusions can sometimesbe drawn from it. Let us take queuing, for example. The authors of the “How tobe British” collection Martyn Ford and Peter Legon write, “It is not true thatqueuing in Britain has died out. Only the bus queue seems to have dissolvedmore or less into continental free-for-all. For to a post office, or bank, orsupermarket check-out and you will find the custom is thriving, with special railsand tapes to keep the line straight.
Queue jumpingis a low and mean offence. Not fame nor wealth, not merit nor urgency will getyou to the front of the queue” All this, however, does not mean that Britishpeople enjoy queuing. Many of them refer to it as a problem. Some banks promiseto reduce the time they serve their customers from 2 minutes and 3 seconds to only2 minutes. In fact the British hate having to wait and are less patient thanpeople in many other countries,
Like manyother stereotyped images and false assumptions (for example those of Russianpeople drinking vodka from samovars and eating caviar with wooden spoons) theBritish ones derive from books, songs or plays which were written a long timeago and which are no longer representative of modern life.
Many of themare preserved in order to draw more tourists to the country. The Britishthemselves think that people from other countries should be cautious aboutgeneralizations as what is often regarded as typically British may in fact beonly typically English or typically Welsh. Another reason for caution relatesto the large-scale immigration to Britain from the countries-members of theCommonwealth. The new British have made their own contribution to British lifeand attitudes.
They haveprobably helped to make people more informal, they have changed the nature ofthe “corner shop”. The annual Notting Hill Carnival, mentioned above, isanother convincing argument.
All the abovementioned does not mean the British are not what they have always been. Theyare. They may not behave in traditional ways, but still they appreciate symbolsof tradition and stability. They value continuity over modernity and can beparticularly and stubbornly conservative about anything which is perceived as atoken of Britishness. In these matters their conservatism can combine withtheir individualism and result in great pride of being different.
Since the mainobjective of our research is to prove that many stereotyped images of Britainare not true to life any longer we are going to focus on a few out of dateassumptions and generalization including the political system, food andclothing.
2.Parliament and the RoyalFamily
What mostschool students know about the political system of the United Kingdom is thatthe monarch is the official head of state and an integral part of Parliament inher constitutional role, who, in fact, has no real power but plays a ceremonialrole and represents the country abroad. British Parliament, the lawmaking body,consists of two chambers-the House of Commons, the members of which areelected, and the House of Lords, the members of which are permanent. HoweverBritish Parliament is no longer what it used to be even 30 years ago.
In 1988 a group of distinguished politicians, lawyers, academics, writers and journalists began tocampaign under the title Charter 88 for wide ranging reforms. They called forBill of Rights, to protect individual liberties, and for a written constitutionto define and limit the powers of Parliament. This call could be explained bynumerous facts of violations of human rights and personal liberties duringthe1980ies.As a result of this campaign in 1990 the European Court of Justicemade a historic decision that British courts must suspend any act of Parliamentwhich breaches the rights of citizens guaranteed by European Community Law.Parliamentary sovereignty is, therefore, already limited by European Unionmembership.
The House ofLords has also undergone dramatic changes. Although it consists of more thanone thousand peers, average daily attendance is only about 300 and most ofthese are life peers who retain a strong interest in the affairs of state. Theidea of life peerage was introduced in 1958 to elevate to the peerage certainpeople who have rendered political or public service to the nation in order toenhance the quality of business done in the Lords.
Among thenumerous changes introduced to the activities of the House of Commons is“selected committee” system which was created to examine and monitor governmentdepartments and policies, and the manner in which ministers discharge theirresponsibilities.
The selectcommittee system consists of 17 individual committees “shadowing” theexpenditure, administration and policy of the main government departments. Eachcommittee has a more or less permanent cross party membership, all of whom haveacquired considerable expertise in their respective fields. They give anopportunity for MPs to act more independently of their party than they are ableto do in the debating chamber. During the period of Conservative government inthe 1980ies, for example, members of select committees, including theirConservative members, were strongly critical of the government.
The fact thatParliament debates are now televised in spite of the traditional Britishobsession with secrecy can tell volumes about the dynamic changes. Even theinstitution of monarchy has to get adjusted to the new conditions. For the lasttwo centuries the public have wanted their monarchs to have high moral standardsQueen Victoria as a hard working, religious mother of nine children, devoted toher husband, Prince Albert, was regarded as the personification of contemporarymorals.
In 1936 EdwardVIII, the uncle of the present Queen, was forced to abdicate because be wantedto marry a woman who had divorced two husbands. The government and the majorchurches in the country insisted that Edward could not marry her and remainKing. In 200 Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne married CamillaParker Bowles, a divorcee, who had been his lover for many years and themonarchy did not fall.
At the end ofthe 20ieth century the members of the royal family made the headlines of nearlyall the country’s tabloids. The year 1992 was called “annus horribilis” by theQueen and the fire at Windsor Castle was hardly the worst of the Queen’stroubles. In January the Duchess of York, Prince Andrew’s wife, popularly knownas “Fergie”, was reliably reported to be having an affair. In February PrincessDiana on tour with her husband in India, posed alone in front of the Taj Mahal,conveying the unmistakable message that her marriage was also in trouble. InMarch the Duke and Duchess of York announced their separation. In AprilPrincess Anne and her husband divorced. In June, a young journalist, AndrewMorton, published a book entitled “ Diana: Her True Story” which made publicCharles’s long standing relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.
Furtherrevelations came in quick succession as the newspapers competed to buy the mostlurid stories, photographs and tapes of telephone calls involving variousmembers of the Royal Family. It was little wonder that the Queen publiclyreferred to 1992 as her “annus horribilis”
Diana’s tragicdeath in 1996 made another blow to the image of the Royal Family. It revealedthe latter’s lack of warmth, frankness and spontaneous compassion. No wonderTony Blair who at that time held the position of the Prime Minister advised theRoyal Family to abandon protocol and show greater public feeling.
After Diana’sdeath the Royal Family began to modify its image in order to survive. It hasbecome less grand, a little less distant. Only few can say whether it will helpreturn people’s love and admiration.
3.Clothes
Another areain which stereotypes and modern life, traditions and innovations come intoconflict is clothes. For modern Russians a typically British gentleman ishardly associated with John Bull as the name and the character seem ratherobscure, but the stereotyped image of the London’s city gent’ includes thewearing of a suit and a bowler hat, holding a walking stick and smoking a pipeor a sigar. The stereotyped image of the lady of the manor is something betweenQueen Elizabeth, Margaret Thatcher and Miss Marple. When Madonna bought an ancientmansion in England she did her best to look like a lady wearing a woolen twinset and a thread of pearls.
In fact, aphotograph taken at random in a busy street on a Saturday, would tell anobserver very little about the lace, the season, the social class or the workdone by the people, so diversified have the clothes worn by the British become.One can make the generalization that people over 50 tend to dress moretraditionally and formally at least when on a visit to “town”, whereas thepopulation under the age of 45 to 50 presents a variety of costume that, at itsextreme, turns the street into a fancy – dress parade. There is no uniformityof skirt length, trouser width, or of style in general beyond some vaguesimilarities of detail that allow one to characterize some as “Punks”, othersas “Goths” or as executive types.
It is truethat a small number of the upper and professional upper middle class, forexample barristers, diplomats and Conservative MPs dress in specially tailoredsuits. Yet how they dress is wholly unrepresentative of whole society. Ingeneral the British are comparatively uninterested in clothes. It all dependson whether a person is playing a public role or a private role. When people are“on duty” they have to obey some quite rigid rules. A male bank employee, forexample, is expected to wear a suit with a tie, even if he can not afford avery smart one. On the other hand, when people are not playing a public role-when they are just being themselves – there seem to be no rules at all. You mayfind, for example, the same bank employee, on his lunch break in hot weather,walking through the streets with his tie round his waist and his collarunbuttoned. He is no longer “at work” and for his employers to criticize himfor his appearance would be seen as a gross breach of privacy.
Perhapsbecause of the clothing formalities that many people have to follow during theweek, the British, unlike the people of many other countries, like to “dressdown” on Sundays. They can’t wait to take off their respectable working clothesand slip into something really scruffy. Lots of men and women who wear suitsduring the week can then be seen in old sweaters and jeans, sometimes withholes in them.
The Britishspend a lower proportion of their income on clothing than people in most otherEuropean countries do. Many people buy second hand clothes and are not at allembarrassed to admit it. There can be few countries where people who can affordnew clothes deliberately choose to buy the “cast-offs” of others. It is truethat many who buy their clothes from charity shops are genuinely needy. Butequally, many are not. They choose to buy their clothes in these shops becausethey are cheap and because they sometimes find wonderful bargains, almost newhigh-quality items that cost next to nothing. Sir Paul McCartney, one, of therichest men in the UK, boasts of such purchases. David McDowall, the author of“Britain in Close-Up” writes, “There is a tolerance, shabbiness andinventiveness in the way some, particularly the young, dress.”
We havetouched upon shabbiness and tolerance, now we are going to focus oninventiveness. Since the 1960ies the British and not the French or Italianshave set fashion for young rebels all over Europe. It is not accidental that amini skirt which made not only a fashion revolution but a revolution in ourminds was designed by a British designer Mary Quant. It is not accidentaleither that she was awarded the O.B.E (Order of the British Empire) given bythe Queen, which she collected in Buckingham Palace dressed in a many skirt.
It may seemastonishing at first sight but in fact there is nothing odd in it. The Britishhave always been known for their individualism and independence. One can findthe freakiest freaks, Freaks with the capital letter, even among the charactersof Charles Dickens. So those who sold and bought clothes in Carnaby street inthe 60ies (Freddy Mercury was among those who frequented it) simply followedthe tradition.
Thus love ofsecond hand clothes can be explained not only by traditional British thrift butby a strong desire of the most dress-conscious young people to find astonishingapparel and look sensational, almost unique.
Thus slowlybut surely London is becoming the fashion capital of the world and St Martin’sschool has already become the fashion mecca. The label “Made in UK” does notmean only high quality and traditional cut. It also means the latest fashionand revolutionary design.
At thebeginning of the chapter we mentioned the image of a typical British woman thatresembles the Queen, Lady Thatcher and Miss Marple at one and the same time.The only thing Vivienne Westwood, a famous British designer, has in common withthe above mentioned ladies is her age. But in spite of her age this red-hairedwoman always dressed in clothes of her own design and accompanied by a veryyoung boyfriend represents a new, more sophisticated attitude of the British tofashion. May be soon their reputation for being the worst dressed people inEurope will cease to exist.
4.Foodand Eating Habits
Perhaps, thereis no other area, where stereotypes and change can be traced more vividly thanthat related to food. In their book “Managing Cultural Differences” Harris andMoran state, “The manner in which food is selected, prepared, presented, andeaten often differs by culture. One man’s pet is another person’s delicacy …
Feeding habitsalso differ …Even when cultures use a utensil such as a fork, one candistinguish a European from an American by which hand holds the implement”.
However, asit has been mentioned before, societies change over time and food and eatinghabits are not an exception .If we compare traditional English food to what themajority of the population (residents of big cities in particular) eat now thechanges will be dramatic .
If we askmiddle-aged English –learners (we refer teachers of English to this group aslearning a foreign language is a life-long process) what textbook was extremelypopular in the 60ies, 70ies and even the 80ies of the previous century, many ofthem are likely to name Essential English by C.E. Eckersley .At that time itwas the most relevant (reliable) source of information. According to the book“the usual meals are breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner or in simpler homes,breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. The usual English breakfast is porridge orCorn Flakes with milk or cream and sugar, bacon and eggs, marmalade (made fromoranges) with buttered toast, and tea and coffee. For a change you can have aboiled egg, cold ham, or perhaps fish”.
In fact, onlyabout 10% of the people in Britain actually have this sort of breakfast. Eventhose who do eat cereal instead of Corn Flakes and a fry-up instead of baconand eggs, a fry-up being a mixture of such ingredients as eggs, bacon,sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms and even bread fried together. Two-thirds of theBritish have cut out the fry-up and just have the cereal, tea and toast. Therest have even less. What the majority of British people eat in the mornings ismuch closer to what they call a “continental” or European breakfast than to theBritish one.
The image of aBritish gentleman eating an underdone beef steak is also out of date. Sincemost people have afternoon meals at work they have to do with what the nearesteating place offers. James O’Driscoll mentions two types of eating places usedduring the day, both of which are comparatively cheap. One is a workman’scafé (pronounced ‘caff’) frequented by manual workers who want a fillingor substantial meal. It offers mostly fried food. The other popular place is afast food outlet. Surprisingly as it may seem fast food outlets are now morecommon in Britain than they are in most other countries. Although it maycontradict the stereotyped idea of British conservatism and hatred of allforeign or American, the popularity of fast food restaurants can be explainedsociologically. They have no class associations and as a result are visited bypeople of various backgrounds.
The onlyeating place which can still be called typically English and can hardly befound anywhere else is the fish-and–chips shop, used in the evening for“take-away” meals. The fish is deep fried which contradicts another stereotypethat the British eat everything boiled. In fact typical British cookinginvolves a lot of roasting.
Healthylifestyle obsession which seized thousands of British people in recent yearshas made many of them vegetarians or even vegans. Their diet does not includesuch typically British foods as beef, mutton, bacon or eggs. James O’Driscollwrite, “There are quite a large number of vegetarians in Britain and an evenlarger number who are aware of the implications for their health of what theyeat.” Health food shops are as abundant in the country’s high streets asdelicatessens. In spite of their reputation British people are more tolerantand more open to new experiences including the cuisines of other countries. Inthe 1960ies the first British tourists in Spain not only insisted on eating(traditionally British) fish and chips but also on having them, as wastraditional, wrapped up in specially imported British newspaper. By now,however, the country’s supermarket shelves are full of the spices and soucesneeded for cooking dishes from all over the world. There is no town in thecountry which does not have at least one Indian restaurant and probably aChinese one too. Larger towns and cities have restaurants representing cuisinefrom all over the world. It can easily be explained by the increasingly multiculturalnature of the population and the cosmopolitan character of such cities asLondon.
All the abovementioned stereotypes can be referred to as minor and unimportant in comparisonto the stereotyped image of the British as the greatest tea drinkers in theworld. May be about 50 years ago this statement (assumption) was true. It isnot accidental that the English language is so rich in idioms related to tea.One can hardly imagine an English man or woman without a cup of strong tea theyenjoy sitting by the fire place. However, this may seem a bit out of date. Itis true that tea is still prepared in a distinctive way (strong and with milk),but more coffee than tea is now bought in the country’s shops. As for thetradition of afternoon tea with biscuits, scones, sandwiches or cake, this is aminority activity, largely confined to retired people and the leisuredupper-middle class.
More peoplehave “elevences” rather than five o’clock tea. Elevences is a cup of tea orcoffee at around eleven o’clock. In fact, people drink tea or coffee wheneverthey feel like it. This is usually quite often.
For the urbanworking class (and a wider section of the population in Scotland and Ireland)tea is the evening meal, eaten as soon as people get home from work. More oftenthan not this is called supper.
Althoughmodern Brits are not the world’s biggest tea drinkers, they take the firstplace in the world in consuming sugar- more than five kilograms per person peryear. It is common in most households for family meal to finish with a preparedsweet dish which is called either “pudding” or “sweet” or “desert”. Sugar isalso present in almost every tinned food item and sweets which means both allkinds of chocolate and also what Americans call “candy”.
Our researchwould be incomplete if we didn’t mention a pub, one of the strongholds ofBritish traditions, but even this has yielded (surrendered) to the time.Traditionally pubs used to serve almost nothing but beer and spirits. Thesedays you can get wine, coffee and some hot food at most of them as well. Whilein1980 food accounted for only 10 per cent of profits now it accounts for morethan 30 per cent.
At one time,it was unusual for women to go to the pubs. These days, only a few pubs existwhere it is surprising for a woman to walk in.
Even beerserved in modern pubs is not what it used to be. Since most pubs are notprivately owned and belong to huge breweries they offer their customers what isknown as keg beer, a pasteurized brew containing Carbon dioxide, which is easierto store. Another threat to pub quality is the noise of loud music makingconversation harder with a counterfeit atmosphere of conviviality.
Conclusion
It has becomea commonplace to say that studying a foreign language is impossible withoutstudying a foreign culture. Although food and clothing peculiarities we haveexamined in our research may seem unimportant at first sight their significancecan’t be underestimated. A lot of people still fail to understand that culturaldifferences arise out of the specific development of each country and tend toassume that the manners, customs and habits of their own country represent moreor less absolute norms. When they hear, or discover for themselves, that peoplein other countries act and think differently, they assume that this is odd,unnatural or even abnormal. Then it’s only a small step to regarding their ownnation superior to all others. When these people leave their home country foranother one “culture shock” is the merest problem they are destined to face.
Civil societyis based on four crucial notions: diversity, tolerance, respect, and consensus.Without an awareness of diversity and tolerance it is difficult to developrespect. Without respect it is impossible to achieve consensus. It is our hopethat the present research gives an opportunity to go beyond stereotyped images,to examine the more complex realities of modern Britain and its people. It alsoattempts to assess the changes taking place in modern Britain, at least, insome areas of activity. Consequently it may be viewed as our contribution tothe development of modern multicultural multi polar society.
Listof Literature
1.Adrian Room, An A to Zof British Life, Oxford University Press,1990
2.Ford Martyn, LegonPeter, The How to be British collection, Lee Gone Publications, 2007
3.McDowall David, Britainin close-up, Longman, Person Education Limited 1999
4.O’Driscoll James,Britain, Oxford University Press, 1995
5.Polhemus Ted, Streetstyle: From walk to Catwalk, Thames and Hudson
1994
6. Silk Paul, HowParliament works, Longman 1987
7. Sampson, Anthony, TheEssential Anotony of Britain: Democracy in Crisis, Hodolerand Stoughton 1992.