Traditions and Stereotypes in British Culture

МОУ Восточно-Европейский лицей

Traditions and Stereotypes in British Culture

Традиции и стереотипы в британской культуре

Творческая работа

Баязитовой Дины, ученицы 11 М класса.

Руководитель: Блинова Е. Г.,

учитель английского языка

Саратов 2006

Introduction

Culture is all around us. Our culture is second nature of us. Culture is the pattern of activities, beliefs, attitudes and way of life. It is the system of learned behavior of the members of a society. Culture is passed from one generation to the next. It is learned, not inherited.

I have been learning English for several years and I feel that studying British culture should be part of a general English course. I realize that knowledge of British life is necessary to improve one’s understanding and use of the English language.

Sometimes we do not fully understand a phrase in a British text and find that the dictionary does not help.  Sometimes we do not understand what a British person says. In a society, writers and speakers leave some things unsaid or unexplained because they think that their readers and listeners share the same cultural background. We find British people hard to understand because we lack this background. Of course, it is impossible for us to put ourselves in the same position as natives of Britain – we live in a different culture. But studying British culture can help us a lot to understand the British approach to life in general and to improve our English.

On the one hand I feel enthusiastic to study British values and attitudes, traditions and customs. On the other hand I want to find some stereotyped images of the British which seems both interesting and useful.  

The British, like the people of every country, tend to be attributed with certain characteristics which are supposedly typical. However, it is best to be careful about accepting such characterizations too easily, and in the case of Britain there are three particular reasons to be careful. In this paper I am going to deal with them in turn and comment on several stereotyped images of the British.

Chapter 1

Stereotypes and change

Societies change over time while their reputations lag behind. Many things which are often regarded as typically British come from books, songs or plays which were written a long time ago and which are no longer representative of modern life. One example of this is the popular belief that Britain is a 'land of tradition'. This image should not be perceived to easily. This is what most tourist brochures claim.

A reputation for tradition can lead to its artificial preservation - or even its re-introduction. A notable example is the Asquith taxi. This was introduced onto the streets of London in 1994. It is an exact replica of London taxis of the 1930s (except, of course, that it has modern facilities — and a modern meter!). It is deliberately designed that way to appeal to tourists, who equate London with tradition.

                                       An Asquith taxi

Similarly, when London's famous red buses were privatized (sold to private companies) in the early 1990s, the different bus companies wanted to paint their buses in their company colours. The government ruled that all buses had to stay red because that is what the people of London wanted, and that is what the government believed would help the tourist trade.

In December 2005 the last Routemaster bus was retired. What is a Routemaster? Routmaster is the name for the classic red London bus. It is red, has two decks, a 1950s-style bonnet, and an open platform on the back. The first Routemaster took to the London streets in 1954, and served the public for more than fifty years. It had a revolutionary design: special brakes, a light aluminium body, and power-assisted steering. Because the platform on the back was open, passengers could easily get on and off the bus. The drivers did not need to open the doors, but they did need to look carefully in his mirrors, to see if anyone was about to get on or off. There was a special place for the conductor near the platform. He communicated with the driver using a bell system. The stairs to the upper deck were very steep and the conductor (and the passengers) had to climb them while the bus was in motion.

The Routemaster has been replaced by “bendy buses” (buses with two sections connected in the middle, like in Moscow). Some Routemasters will still be used for special tourist routes and can be hired for wedding parties.  

The reputation of Britain as a land of tradition is based on what can be seen in public life and on centuries of political life. And at this level - the level of public (and political) life - it is undoubtedly true. The annual ceremony of the state opening of Parliament, for instance, carefully follows customs which are centuries old.

 The  state opening of Parliament

These photographs show two scenes from the annual state opening of Parliament. This is an example of a traditional ceremony which reminds MPs of their special status and of their “togetherness”. In the first photograph, “Black Rod”, a servant of the Queen, is knocking on the door of the House of Commons and demanding that the MPs let the Queen come in and tell then what “her” government is going to do in the coming year. The Commons always refuse her entry. This is because, in the seventeenth century, Charles I once burst in to the chamber and tried to arrest some MPs. Ever since then, the monarch has not been allowed to enter the Commons. Instead, the MPs agree to come through to the House of Lords and listen to the monarch in there. This is what they are doing in the second photograph. By tradition they always come through in pairs, each pair comprising the MPs from two different parties.

The military ceremony of “trooping the colour” is also a very old tradition. The Queen is the only person in Britain with two birthdays. Her real birthday is on April 21st, but she has an "official" birthday, too. That's on the second Saturday of June. And on the Queen's official birthday, there is a traditional ceremony called “trooping the colour”. It's a big parade with brass bands and hundreds of soldiers at Horse Guards' Parade .in London. The Queen's soldiers, the Guards, march in front of her. At the front of the parade is the flag or "the colour". The Guards are trooping the colour. Thousands of Londoners and visitors watch Horse Guards' Parade. And millions of people at home watch it on television.

Trooping the colour

The changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace is also a tradition which never changes.

However, in their private everyday lives, the British as individuals are probably less inclined to follow tradition than are the people of most other countries. There are very few ancient customs that are followed by the majority of families on special occasions. The country has fewer local parades or processions with genuine folk roots than most other countries have. The English language has fewer sayings or proverbs that are in common everyday use than many other languages do. The British are too individualistic for these things. In addition, it should be noted that they are the most enthusi astic video-watching people in the world - the very opposite of a traditional pastime!

There are many examples of supposedly typical British habits which are simply not typical any more. For example, the stereotyped image of the London 'city gent’ includes the wearing of a bowler hat. In fact, this type of hat has not been commonly worn for a long time. Food and drink provide other examples. The traditional 'British' (or 'English') breakfast is a large 'fry-up' preceded by cereal with milk and followed by toast, butter and marmalade, all washed down with lots of tea. In fact, only about 10% of the people in Britain actually have this sort of breakfast. Two-thirds have cut out the fry-up and just have the cereal, tea and toast. The rest have even less. What the vast majority of British people have in the mornings is therefore much closer to what they call a 'continental' (i.e. European) breakfast than it is to a 'British' one. The image of the British as a nation of tea-drinkers is another stereotype which is somewhat out of date. It is true that it 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 the tradition of afternoon tea with biscuits, scones, sandwiches or cake, this is a minority activity, largely common to retired people and the leisured upper-middle class (although preserved in tea shops in tourist resorts). Traditional English tea is a myth. Nowadays, they also don’t drink it at 5 o’clock. Freedom of choice rules the cuisine – an English person would choose between tea and coffee in the morning, tea and water at lunch, and they would have some juice with dinner. Children ask parents for a glass of Coke; young people, sharing the latest fashion for a healthy way of life, take a bottle of pure water. Tea seems to be in the shadows.

So, the stereotype is to some extend correct – the English usually do drink tea with milk and with no sugar.

Even when a British habit conforms to the stereotype, the wrong conclusions can sometimes be made up from it. The supposed British love of queuing is an example.

Waiting for buses allows the British to demonstrate their supposed passion for queuing. Whether this really means civilized patience is debat able. But queuing is certainly taken seriously. When buses serving several different num bered routes stop at the same bus stop, instructions on it sometimes tell people to queue on one side for some of the buses and on the other side for others. And people do get offended if anybody tries to 'jump the queue'.

Yes, British people do form queues whenever they are waiting for something, but this does not mean that they enjoy it. In 1992, a survey found out that the average wait to pay in a British supermarket was three minutes and twenty-three seconds, and that the average wait to be served in a bank was two minutes and thirty-three seconds. You might think that these times sound very reasonable. But The Sunday Times newspaper did not think so. It referred to these figures as a 'problem'. Some banks now promise to serve their customers 'within two minutes'. It would therefore seem wrong to conclude that their habit of queuing shows that the British are  patient people. Apparently, the British hate having to wait and have less patience than people in many other countries.

Chapter 2

English versus British

Because English culture dominates the cultures of the other three nations of the British Isles, everyday habits, attitudes and values among the peoples of the four nations are very similar but not identical. This is the second reason for care about generalization. What is often regarded as typic ally British may in fact be only typically English. This is especially true with regard to one notable characteristic — anti-intellectualism. Among many people in Britain, there exists a suspicion of intelli gence, education and 'high culture'.

Teachers and academic staff, although respected, do not have as high a status as they do in most other countries. Nobody normally proclaims their academic quali fications or title to the world at large. No professor would expect, or want, to be addressed as 'Professor' on any but the most formal occa sion. There are large sections of both the upper and working class in Britain who, traditionally at least, have not encouraged their children to go to university.

In England there is no tradition to put money into the education of their children. Why? Firstly, it is not customary to change the family’s social status. The child of a yard-keeper should be a yard-keeper. Secondly, parents think the following: “Why should I rob myself of money? I’I receive fewer desirable things and for whose sake? If I give a higher social position to my child I’ll be despised by him after that.” Sounds wild? But it’s a standard – a child who moves up ceases to communicate with his relatives.

This lack of enthusiasm for education is certainly decreasing. Nevertheless, it is still unusual for English parents to arrange extra private tuition for their children, even among those who can easily afford it.

Anti-intellectual attitudes are held consciously only by a small proportion of the population, but an indication of how deep they run in society is that they are reflected in the English language. To refer to a person as somebody who gets all their ideas from books' is to speak of them negatively. The word 'clever' often has a negative meaning. It suggests someone who uses trickery, a person who cannot quite be trusted.

 The slang word 'swot' was first used in public schools. It describes someone who works hard and does well academically. It is a term of abuse. Swots are not very popular.

In the English mind, schol arship is something rather strange and exotic, so much so that the sight of the manager of a football team simply writing something down during a match is considered worthy of comment. During the 1990 English football Cup Final, when he saw this happening, the BBC com mentator said (without apparent irony), 'And you can see Steve Coppell's been to university - he's taking notes!'

 Evidence of this attitude can be found in all four nations of the British Isles. However, it is probably better seen as a specifically English characteristic and not a British one. The Scottish have always placed a high value on education for all classes. The Irish of all classes place a high value on being quick, ready and able with words. The Welsh are famous for exporting teachers to other parts of Britain and beyond.

Chapter 3

Multiculturalism

The third reason for care about generalization relates to the large-scale immigration to Britain from places outside the British Isles in the twentieth century. In its cities at least, Britain is a multicultural society. There are areas of London, for example, in which a typically Indian way of life predominates, with Indian shops, Indian clothes, and Indian languages. Because in the local schools up to 90% of the pupils may be Indian, a distinctively Indian style of learning tends to take place.

These 'new British' people have brought widely differing sets of attitudes with them. For example, while some seem to care no more about education for their children than people in traditional English culture, others seem to care about it a great deal more.

However, the divergence from native British attitudes in new British communities is constantly narrowing. These communities sometimes have their own newspapers but none have their own TV stations as they do in the United States. There, the numbers in such communities are larger and the physical space between them and other communities is greater, so that it is possible for people to live their whole lives in such communities without ever really learning English. This hardly ever happens in Britain.

In fact, the new British have made their own contribution to British life and attitudes. They have probably helped to make people more informal; they have changed the nature of the 'corner shop'.

          A shop by itself in a residential area is often referred to as 'the corner shop'. These sometimes sell various kinds of food, but they are not always general grocers. Usually their main business is in newspapers, magazines, sweets and tobacco products. Only in corner shops do shopkeepers know their customers personally. Only in them is the interaction across the counter often social as well as transactional. People working in other shops are often very helpful, but the conversation usually has some clear purpose. In the last few decades, many corner shops have been taken over by people from southern Asia who have delighted the neighbourhood by staying open very long hours.

A corner shop

 The most popular, well-attended festival in the whole of Britain is the annual Notting Hill Carnival in London at the end of August, which is of Caribbean inspiration and origin.

Chapter 4

Conservatism

The British have few living folk traditions and are too individualistic to have the same everyday habits as each other. However, this does not mean that they like change. They don't. They may not behave in traditional ways, but they like symbols of tradition and stability. For example, there are some very untraditional attitudes and habits with regard to the family in modern Britain. The stereotyped nuclear family of father, mother and children is becoming less common. Britain has a larger rate of divorce than anywhere else in Europe (except Denmark) and the proportion of children born outside marriage has risen dramatically and is also one of the highest (about a third of all births).

 Nevertheless, politicians often cite their enthusiasm for 'traditional family values' (both parents married and living together, parents as the main source of authority for children etc.) as a way of winning support.

        In general, the British value continuity over modernity for its own sake. They do not consider it especially smart to live in a new house and, in fact, there is prestige in living in an obviously old one. The British pay much attention to cosiness of their homes. The important thing is to feel cosy – that is to create the atmosphere which seems warm even if it isn’t really warm. To many, tradition is part of cosiness, and this can be suggested by being surrounded by old items of furniture. And if you cannot have furniture which is old, you can always have other things suggest age. The open fire is an example. In Britain, it is regarded by many as very desirable to have a ‘real fire’ (as it is often called). It is the perfect traditional symbol of warmth because it is what most people used in the past to keep warm. So strong is the attraction of a ‘real fire’ that many houses have an imitation of open fire, complete with plastic coal which glows red when it is switched on.  

They have a general sentimental attachment to older, supposedly safer, times. Their Christmas cards usually depict scenes from past centuries. Many people send cards at Christmas time depicting some aspect of the birth of Christ. Most people, however, do not. Christmas is an opportunity for the British to indulge their dreams about a van ished rural past. You can see this on many typical Christmas cards. They often show scenes from either the nineteenth or eighteenth centuries and may be set in the countryside, very frequently covered with snow. (In fact, snow at Christmas is rare in most parts of Britain).

Christmas cards

The British like their pubs to look old. The photograph of a pub shows several typical features. First, it looks old. Most pubs are like this. It is a part of their appeal to tradition. Even a new built pub is often designed to look, inside and out, as if it were several hundred years old. Second, the windows are small. It is difficult to see inside the pub from the outside. The Victorians thought that it was somehow not proper for people to be seen drinking. That’s why pubs have no tables outside.            

Thee British   were not enthusiastic to change their system of cur rency to what they called ‘new money’.

        Moreover, a look at children's reading habits suggests that this attitude is not going to change. Publishers try hard to make their books for children up-to-date. But perhaps they needn't try so hard. In 1992 the two most popular children's writers were noticeably un-modern (they were both, in fact, dead). The most popular of all was Roald Dahl, whose fantasy stories are set in a rather old-fashioned world. The second most popular writer was Enid Blyton, whose stories take place in a comfortable middle-class world before the 1960s. They contain no references to other races or classes and mention nothing more modern than a radio. In other words, they are mostly irrelevant to modern life.

Lord S

        Lord Snooty illustrates the enthusiasm of British children for charac ters from earlier times. He first appeared in the Beano, a children's comic, in 1938. He is a young English aristocrat aged about ten, who loves sneaking out of his castle to play with local village children. He has always worn the same clothes, typical of wealthy young sters of an earlier age but by now out of date. Surely, the children of the 1990s would prefer a present-day hero with whom to identify? That is what the editors of the Beano thought. In 1992 they decided to give Lord Snooty a rest. But loud protest fol lowed, and he quickly found a new job in The Funday Times  (the children's comic which is issued with The Sunday Times newspaper), as well as making further appearances in the Beano.

Chapter 5

Being different

The British can be particularly and stubbornly conservative about anything which is perceived as a token of Britishness. In these matters, their conservatism can combine with their individualism; they are rather proud of being different. It is, for example, very difficult to imagine that they will ever agree to change from driving on the left-hand side of the road to driving on the right. It doesn't matter that nobody can think of any intrinsic advantage in driving on the left. Why should they change just to be like everyone else? Indeed, as far as they are concerned, not being like everyone else is a good reason not to change.

Systems of measurement are another example. The British govern ment has been trying for years and years to promote the metric system and to get British people to use the same scales that are used nearly everywhere else in the world. But it has had only limited success. British manufacturers are obliged to give the weight of their tins and packets in kilos and grams. But everybody in Britain still shops in pounds and ounces.

The weather forecasters on the television use the Celsius scale of temperature. But nearly everybody still thinks in Fahrenheit.   British people continue to measure distances, amounts of liquid and themselves using scales of measurement that are not used anywhere else in Europe. Distances on road signs in Britain are shown in miles, not kilometres, and people talk about yards, not metres. If you described yourself as being 163 tall and weighing 67 kilos a British person would not be able to imagine what you looked like. You would have to say you were ' five foot four' (5 feet and 4 inches tall) and weighed 'ten stone seven' or ' ten and a half stone' (10 stone and 7 pounds). British people think in pounds and ounces when buying their cheese, in pints when buying their milk and in gallons when buying their petrol.

Imperial                     Metric

1 inch                    2.54 centimetres

12 inches (1 foot)        30.48 centimetres

3 feet (1 yard)                    0.92 metres

1760 yards (1 mile)        1.6 kilometres

1 ounce                   28.35 grams

16 ounces (1 pound)        0.456 kilograms

14 pounds (1 stone)        6.38 kilograms

1. pint                   0.58 litres
2. pints (1 quart)              1.16 litres

8 pints (1 gallon)        4.64 litres

British governments sometimes seem to promote this pride in being different. In 1993 the managers of a pub in Slough (west of London) started selling glasses of beer which they called 'swifts' (25 cl) and 'larges' (50 cl), smaller amounts than the traditional British equivalents of half a pint and a pint. You might think that the authorities would have been pleased at this voluntary effort to adopt European habits. But they were not. British law demands that draught beer be sold in pints and half-pints only. The pub was fined £3,100 by a court and was ordered to stop selling the 'continental' measures. British governments have so far resisted pressure from business people to adopt Central European Time, remaining stubbornly one hour behind, and they continue to start their financial year not, as other countries do, at the beginning of the calendar year but at the beginning of April!

Chapter 6

The love of nature

Most of the British live in towns and cities. But they have an idealized vision of the countryside. To the British, the countryside has almost none of the negative associations which it has in some countries, such as poor facilities, lack of educational opportunities, unemploy ment and poverty. To them, the countryside means peace and quiet, beauty, good health and no crime. Most of them would live in a country village if they thought that they could find a way of earning a living there. Ideally, this village would consist of thatched cottages built around an area of grass known as a 'village green'. Nearby, there would be a pond with ducks on it. Nowadays such a village is not actually very common, but it is a stereotypical picture that is well-known to the British.

Some history connected with the building of the Channel tunnel provides an instructive example of the British attitude. While the tunnel was being built, there were also plans      to build new high-speed rail links on either side of it. But what route would these new railway lines take? On the French side of the channel, communities battled with each other to get the new line built through their towns. It would be good for local business. But on the English side, the opposite occurred. Nobody wanted the rail link near them! Communities battled with each other to get the new line built somewhere else. Never mind about business, they wanted to preserve their peace and quiet.

Perhaps this love of the countryside is another aspect of British conservatism. The countryside represents stability. Those who live in towns and cities take an active interest in country matters and the British regard it as both a right and a privilege to be able to go 'into the country' whenever they want to. Large areas of the country are official 'national parks' where almost no building is allowed. There is an organization to which thousands of enthusiastic country walkers belong, the Ramblers' Association. It is in constant battle with land owners to keep open the public 'rights of way' across their lands. Maps can be bought which mark, in great detail, the routes of all the public footpaths in the country. Walkers often stay at youth hostels. The Youth Hostels Association is a charity whose aim is 'to help all, especially young people of limited means, to a greater knowledge, love and care of the countryside'. Their hostels are cheap and rather bare and simple. There are more than 300 of them around the country, most of them in the middle of nowhere!

A notable indication of the British reverence for both the countryside and the past is the strength of the National Trust. This is an officially recognized charity whose aim is to preserve as much of Britain's coun tryside and as many of its historic buildings as possible by acquiring them 'for the nation'. With more than one-and-a-half million members, it is the largest conserva tion organization in the world. It is actually the third largest landowner in Britain (after the Crown and the Forestry Commission). It owns more than 500 miles of the coast line. The importance of its work has been supported by several laws, among which is one which does not allow even the government to take over any of its land without the approval of Parliament.

Polesden Lacey, built in the 1820s and now owned by                                                Allotments in London

the National Trust

Even if they cannot get into the countryside, many British people still spend a lot of their time with 'nature'. They grow plants. Gar dening is one of the most popular hobbies in the country. Even those unlucky people who do not have a garden can participate. Each local authority owns several areas of land which it rents very cheaply to these people in small parcels. On these 'allotments', people grow mainly vegetables.

Chapter 7

The love of animals

Rossendale Pet Cemetery in Lancashire is just one example of an animal graveyard in Britain. It was started by a local farmer who ran over his dog with a tractor. He was so upset that he put up a headstone in memory of his dog. Now, Rossendale has thousands of graves and plots for caskets of ashes, with facilities for every kind of animal, from a budgie to a lioness. Many people are prepared to pay quite large sums of money to give their pets a decent burial. As this example shows, the British tend to have a sentimental attitude to animals. Nearly half of the households in Britain keep at least one domestic pet. Most of them do not bother with such grand arrangements when their pets die, but there are millions of informal graves in people’s back gardens. More over, the status of pets is taken seriously. It is, for example, illegal to run over a dog in your car and then keep on driving. You have to stop and inform the owner.

But the love of animals goes beyond sentimental attachment to domestic pets. Wildlife programmes are by far the most popular kind of television documentary. Millions of families have ‘bird-tables’ in their gardens. These are raised platforms on which birds can feed, safe from local cats, during the winter months. There is even a special hospital (St Tiggywinkles) which treats injured wild animals.

Perhaps this overall concern for animals is part of the British love of nature. Studies indicating that some wild species of bird or mammal is decreasing in numbers become prominent articles in the national press. Thousands of people are enthusiastic bird-watchers. This peculiarly British pastime often involves spending hours lying in wet and cold undergrowth, trying to get a glimpse of some rare species.

It is said that the British often treat their animals as if they were people. Well, this is true. One of the most common things that people do is to be employed. And so, on British railways, are cats. The names of Olive, Katie, Pickles and around 200 others appear on the company payroll, officially recognized as employees. Their job is to catch rats and other vermin. There is usually one cat per station. Their pay (tax free) is food, and they also get free medical treat ment (without deductions from their salary). They are very popular with the human staff, who admit that their ‘productivity rate’ is not always very high (in other words, they don’t catch many rats) but claim that they are good for morale.

The desire for animal welfare has official recognition. Cruelty to animals of any kind is a criminal offence. Such offences are investigated and acted upon by a well-known charity, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).

Volunteers ready to collect money for the RSPCA

Chapter 8

Formality and informality

The tourist view of Britain involves lots of formal ceremonies. Some people have drawn the conclusion from this that the British are rather formal in their general behaviour. This is not true. There is a differ ence between observing formalities and being formal in everyday life. Attitudes towards clothes are a good indication of this difference. It all depends on 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, for example, is expected to wear a suit with a tie, even if he cannot afford a very smart one. So are politicians. There was once a mild scandal during the 1980s because the Leader of the Opposition wore clothes on a public occasion which were considered too informal.

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. The British are probably more tolerant of 'strange' clothing than people in most other countries. You may find, 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 collar unbuttoned. He is no longer 'at work' and for his employers to criticize him for his appearance would be seen as a gross breach of privacy. Perhaps because of the clothing formalities that many people have to follow during the week, the British, unlike the people of many other coun tries, like to 'dress down' on Sundays. They can't wait to take off their respectable working clothes and slip into something really scruffy. Lots of men who wear suits during the week can then be seen in old sweaters and jeans, sometimes with holes in them. And male politi cians are keen to get themselves photographed not wearing a tie when 'officially' on holiday, to show that they are really ordinary people.

The British are comparatively unin terested in clothes. They spend a lower proportion of their income on clothing than people in most other European countries do. Many people buy second-hand clothes and are not at all embarrassed to admit this. If you are somewhere in a Mediter ranean holiday area it is usually possible to identify the British tourist — he or she is the one who looks so badly dressed!

This difference between formalities and formality is the key to what people from other countries sometimes experience as coldness among the British. The key is this: being friendly in Britain often involves showing that you are not bothering with the formalit ies. This means not addressing someone by his or her title (Mr, Mrs, Professor etc), not dressing smartly when entertaining guests, not shaking hands when meeting and not saying 'please' when making a request. When they avoid doing these things with you, the British are not being unfriendly or disrespectful, they are implying that you are in the category 'friend', and so all the rules can be ignored. To address someone by his or her title or to say 'please' is to observe formalities and therefore to put a distance between the people involved. The same is true of shaking hands. Although this sometimes has the reputation of being a very British thing to do, it is actually rather rare. Most people would do it only when being introduced to a stranger or when meeting an acquaintance (but not a friend) after a long time. Similarly, most British people do not feel welcomed if, on being invited to somebody's house, they find the hosts in smart clothes and a grand table set for them. They do not feel flattered by this, they feel intimidated. It makes them feel they can't relax.

It is probably true that the British, especially the English, are more reserved than the people of many other countries. They find it compar atively difficult to indicate friendship by open displays of affection. For example, it is not the custom to kiss when meeting a friend. Instead, friendship is symbolized by behaving as casually as possible. If you are in a British person's house, and you are told to 'help yourself to something, your host is not being rude or suggesting that you are of no importance — he or she is showing that you are completely accepted and just like 'one of the family'.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, the general amount of informality increased. Buffet-type meals, at which people do not sit down at a table to eat, are now a common form of hospitality. At the same time, the traditional reserve has also been breaking down. More groups in society now kiss when meeting each other (women and women, and men and women, but still never men and men!).

The British are always talking about the weather. Unlike many others, this stereotype is actually true to life. But constant remarks about the weather at chance meetings are not the result of polite conventions. They are not obligatory. Rather, they are the result of the fact that, on the one hand, to ask personal questions would be rude while, at the same time, silence would also be rude. The weather is a very convenient topic with which to 'fill the gap'.

Chapter 9

Privacy and sex

Respect for privacy underlies many aspects of British life. It is not just privacy in your own home which is important. Just as important is the individual's right to keep information about himself or herself private. Despite the increase in informality, it is still seen as rude to ask people what are called 'personal' questions (for example, about how much money they earn or about their family or sex life) unless you know them very well. The conven tional formula on being introduced to someone in Britain, 'how do you do?’ is not interpreted as a real request for information at all; the conventional reply is not to 'answer the question' but to reply by saying 'how do you do?' too.

The modern British attitude to sex is an example of how, while moral attitudes have changed, the habit of keeping things private is still deeply ingrained. British public life has a reputa tion for demanding puritanical standards of behaviour. Revelations about extra-marital affairs or other deviations from what is consid ered normal in private life, in the past, ruined the careers of many public figures. This would seem to indicate a lack of respect for privacy and that the British do not allow their politicians a private life. However, appearances in this matter can be misleading. In most of these cases, the disgrace of the politician concerned has not been because of his sexual activity. It has happened because this activity was mixed up with a matter of national security, or involved breaking the law or indicated hypocrisy (in acting against the stated policy of the politician's party). In other words, the private sexual activity had a direct relevance to the politician's public role. The scandal was that in these cases, the politicians had not kept their private lives and public roles separate enough. When no such connections are involved, there are no negative consequences for the politicians. In fact when, in 1992, a leading politician announced that five years previously he had had an affair with his secretary, his popularity actually increased!

In 1992 a million copies of very explicit and realistic videos with titles such as Super Virility, Better Sex, The Gay Man's Guide to Safer Sex and The Lovers' Guide were sold in Britain. There was some debate about whether they should be banned. However, an opinion poll showed that the British public agreed that they were not 'pornographic' but 'educational'. Three out of four of those asked were happy for the videos to be freely on sale. Examples such as this suggest that modern Britons have a positive and open attitude to sex. However, they continue to regard it as an absolutely private matter. Sex may no longer be 'bad', but it is still embarrassing. Take the example of sex education in schools. Partly because of worries about AIDS, this is now seen as a vital part of the school curriculum. It is the legal responsibility of schools to teach it. However, research in the early 1990s suggested that little or no sex education was taking place in nearly half of the schools in the country. Why? The most common reason was that teachers simply felt too embarrassed to tackle the subject. Similarly, public references to sex in popular entertainment are very common, but they typically take the form of joking hint and clumsy double-entendre.

In the history of British comedy, there is a special place for the Carry On series of films. Starting in the late 1950s and continuing into the mid 1970s, there were twenty-nine Carry On films. All of them used the same formula (and always with more or less the same set of actors): a well-known situation or place (a hospital, the army, the British empire in India) peopled with absurd charac ters whose dialogue consists of almost nothing but puns relating to sex or toilets.

Nevertheless, they became, over the years, an essential part of British culture. Anybody who went to see a Carry On film knew exactly what sort of thing to expect. This predictability, in fact, was part of the enjoyment. The jokes, so obvious and continu ous, could often be spotted by the audience before they came.

A poster advertising a 'Carry On' film

Blind Date is a very popular television programme. In it, a member of one sex asks three members of the opposite sex (whom he or she cannot see) questions and then chooses which one to go out with. The questions and answers are always full of sexual innuendo. The audience loves it.

On one show in 1993, one of the possible blind dates was a German girl. In conversation with the show's host, her knowledge of languages came up. The girl said, 'My teacher told me that the quickest way to learn a foreign language is to have sex with a native speaker. And you know, it really works!' Uproar! This remark caused the loudest audience reaction, the most hysterical laughs, which the show had ever known. The show's popularity is precisely because sex is possibly on the agenda, but this was the first time that anyone on the programme had actually admitted to having sex. Very un-British!

The same mixture of tolerance and embarrassment can be seen in the official attitude to prostitution in Britain. It is not illegal to be a prostitute in Britain, but it is illegal to publicly behave like one. It is against the law to 'solicit' - that is, to do anything in public to find customers.

Conclusion

In the conclusion it should be said that the investigation of British attitudes, values, traditions and customs is interesting and useful. It enriches my English and gives me the idea that there are no good or bad peoples and cultures. They are simply different.

Culture shock is an accurate turn of phrase. When people get abroad they feel astonished at such things as the natives’ behavior, manners, customs and way of life. In fact they feel “out of step”. They may be irritated by a new culture. These feelings may lead to the conclusion that our culture is better and superior to other cultures. This is ethnocentrism which is not normal for educated people.  Studying another cultural system reminds us that our own system is by no means universal, or superior. It is only familiar. This investigation helps me to realize that any culture must be learned from a realistic not from an ethnocentric position.

Cultural studies make people better informed and prepared to understand other peoples and their languages and make them tolerant.

Bibliography

1. J. O’Driscoll. Britain. The country and its people: an introduction for learners of English. Oxford University Press 2003

2. Karen Hewitt. Understanding Britain. Oxford University Press 2003.

3. J. Hill & M. Lewis. Welcome to Britain.  M., Просвещение, 2002.

4. I. A. Tenson., G. A. Voitiva. Habits and Ways in Great Britain and the United States. Айрис, 2004.

5. Konstantin Romanov. New View on the UK. “English” N 18 / 2005.

6. Tatyana Panteleeva. The Mixed Opinion of a Ttraveller to England. “English” N 47 / 2003.

7. David McDowall. Britain  in Close-up. Logman / 2003.