Исследовательская работа "Надписи на одежде"

МУНИЦИПАЛЬНОЕ БЮДЖЕТНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ ГИМНАЗИЯ №4 города СМОЛЕНСКА

«Be careful: clothes that can speak»

(учебное исследование)

                                                            Выполнили работу: Сальникова Елизавета Юрьевна,

Федорова Полина Дмитриевна,

                                                                                               учащиеся 6 класса

                                                    Руководитель: Усова Алина Олеговна,      

                                                           учитель английского языка

Смоленск

2015

Contents.

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………3
2. The main part……………………………………………………………………5

1.  The history of inscriptions on clothes……………………………………5
2.  The functions of inscriptions……………………………………………….7
3.  The classification of inscriptions………………………………………....8
4.  The rules of creating inscriptions………………………………………..10

3. Research work…………………………………………………………………13
4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….16

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………18

Introduction.

It’s impossible to imagine modern teenagers without such attributes as cell phones, walkman, jeans, and, of course, T-shirts with a logo or inscription. Today the youth, as in a mirror, reflects new trends, current problems and the public interest. Nowadays different inscriptions on youth’s clothes serve as an essential attribute. They can tell us a lot about a person, in particular, the age, the level of knowledge of English and the interests of its owners. And quite a lot of young people do not fully understand the meaning of inscriptions written in English. However, they wear such clothes because they are fashionable, beautiful or maybe there are some other reasons for it. Most pupils and students do not pay much attention to inscriptions on their clothes, which in their turn can contain rude words, grammar and spelling mistakes.

The aim of our research work is to identify the level of the students’ understanding of the meanings of foreign inscriptions on their clothes.

We would like to discuss with you different inscriptions which can be seen on the clothes of many youngsters like jeans, caps, jackets, skirts, shirts, shoes, and of course T-shirts. Do the owners know the meaning of different inscriptions on the clothes, especially if they are written in a foreign language, mostly in English? Our research is aimed at finding an answer to this question.

The objects of study are the English inscriptions on people’s clothes.

The subject of our work is the kind of information that the inscriptions contain.

Our purpose is to establish the dependence of foreign inscriptions on the clothes on the level of English knowledge.  

To achieve this point it is necessary to solve several problems:

• To pick up a certain number of inscriptions on the students’ clothes.
• To translate them into Russian.
• To identify the age of people and the main reasons for buying these things.
• To generalize the obtained data and to come to a certain conclusion.

The hypothesis is: this research work can be useful for people of different ages – pupils, students and adults. They will be more careful in their choice of clothes containing inscriptions and the English language will help them in such situations.

The work was done in stages:

• At the preparatory stage the main information work was carried out.
• The analysis of the meaning of inscriptions ​​and their comparing from different points of view were done at the next stage.
• At the third and final stage conclusions were formulated, results of works were issued.

The novelty and urgency of the work is the fact that this subject has never been considered from this point of view.

The practical value of the research consists in use of the materials of this research directly in the course of studying English. We are far from thought of use of the primitive texts "printed" on clothes as manuals for studying the language. Nevertheless, meeting English-speaking inscriptions everywhere, we can't but react to their contents from the point of view of the people who are interested in English. The found samples often strike with the full senselessness and even nonsense leading to awkward situations. Rather worthy and interesting inscriptions aren't so frequent. Blind following of fashion forces people of different age, professions, social groups to wear the clothes "decorated" with unclear inscriptions.

This work will be useful and interesting by the fact that it will allow pupils and students to pay attention to the translation of inscriptions which have to reflect the true interests of the owner of such clothes.

Research was conducted by the following methods:

• information search;
• questioning;
• use of computer technologies;
• consultations (with teachers of the Russian and English languages);
• translation;
• analysis and comparison;
• generalization.

The history of inscriptions on clothes.

Inscriptions on clothes existed many centuries ago. The earliest are familiar to us since Ancient Greece. There we can find embroideries on belts which tell us the names of the owner, or we can find names on jewelry. On a set of Italian and German portraits of the end of XV and XVI centuries you can meet inscriptions which are interwoven into an ornament of men's shirts, into corsages of women's dresses. They are usually written in Latin and contain mottoes of noble families or the names of owners of these portraits or dresses. There always were many inscriptions of a very provocative character on women's garters. Very often inscriptions which represented a part of an ornament were fashionable. For example, at the beginning of the second millennium Gothic fonts were used in embroidery. Pelerines of the king Otto which are in the museum in Germany are quite well - known. There in storage of the cathedral there are surprising things with Gothic or Romance letters - as a part of an ornament of these ancient embroideries. They are dated from X-XI centuries of our era. We can find the mass of ornaments in jewelry where letters and phrases are interwoven into drawings. We can find it at Celts where letters play a huge role; we can also find it in ancient Slavic jewelry where words are part of a jeweler ligature too.

It all began very simply: at first inscriptions decorated only the uniform of workers, indicating their status on a workplace. Then they began to show what designer or what firm this thing belonged to, and after it inscriptions which really bear sense began to appear. It isn't known who thought up the first to write inscriptions on clothes.

You shouldn't think that inscriptions on clothes are the exclusive invention of mass street fashion, many venerable couturiers didn't avoid this means of expression. Franco Moschino was the biggest "hooligan" in the Italian fashion. The best-known models of Moschino are a suit with an inscription on a waist "A waist of money" (it is possible to read it as "The wasted money" — it fell to pieces on the client exactly in a week), a dress - a plastic package, a hat-plane and a hat-hanger. The success to Moschino was brought by models with inscriptions and accessories with the gold volume letters "MOSCHINO" - bags and belts. Texts of inscriptions were ironic and gave new sense to classical dress code. Moschino understood that it is impossible to treat fashion too seriously, thus his clients often turned into "walking advertizing" of the Moschino brand, wearing jumpers, dresses, hats, bags and belts with his name. Moschino turned the small label sewn from a wrong side into huge slogans on the most visible and unexpected places.

The collection of 1955 of Christian Dior was created on three letters - H, A and Y. All dresses had such outlines, and their stitches repeated these three letters. They were the most fashionable collections in the season of 1955 – it was just the moment when young Yves Saint Laurent came to Dior. Perhaps, the letter Y also symbolized Yves's arrival.

     In 1985 for "The Russian collection" fall/winter of 1986 — 1987 Jean Paul Gautier created the models decorated with inscriptions with the use of
Cyrillics. This surprising collection included Slavic letters - Cyrillics, he wrote them on the clothes in an ornament "Jean Paul Gautier". It was a hit, all French dandies wore things with this logo, and especially they liked the letter “J” because it is similar to a bug or to some Chinese ornament. Then Cyrillics became fashionable in general, Slavic letters were used in the second half of the 80th years in jersey, sweaters, jackets, in many accessories. Now we can meet it too: for example, many designers of clothes use stylized letters in the logos of the fashion houses.

     The mankind will never walk away from using words on clothes as the use of letters allows focusing dreams of dandies on concrete products. Besides, the inscriptions interwoven into an ornament allow learning more about opinions, knowledge, addictions of the one who wears such clothes.

The functions of inscriptions.

As we already noted, t-shirts are the irreplaceable attribute of youth clothes. They can be free and fitting, one-color or with drawings and inscriptions, sports and girlish.

We owe the emergence of t-shirts to the American soldiers of World War I. First, the t-shirt was nothing but comfortable underwear from cotton which wasn't planned to be shown. In World War II Americans decided to raise an easy and cheap t-shirt from underwear to a uniform rank. Over time, the t-shirt left a framework of a military uniform and became daily and widespread clothes.

The t-shirt with an inscription is a data carrier! And therefore, it can be to the point in various situations. We won't begin to list them, but we will try to look at a t-shirt from another point of view with advantage and benefit for ourselves.

1. The inscription makes you original and outstanding.
2. It is known that the brighter the inscription or picture is, the more attention you get from other people. So, choosing a t-shirt with inscriptions be sure to get your portion of attention – you won’t be unnoticed.
3. A cool t-shirt is good not only to shock people around. Such clothes can cause a great number of other emotions. It turns out that clothes with harmless inscriptions causing smiles and laughter can dispose a lot of strangers to you. You can draw the attention and produce a positive impression. In other words, you put on a t-shirt with a cheerful inscription and become a social mixer.
4. T-shirts with suitable inscriptions will help a KVN team, a group of adherents, a sports team or a usual staff of any office to become brighter, more noticeable and, what’s more important, more solid. A carefully chosen inscription strengthens the team spirit of any collective.
5. Inscriptions on shirts can bring money and be effective advertizing! Promoters in t-shirts with symbolics or a slogan will draw attention of clients to goods or services better than any column with announcements. Gifts of t-shirts to clients during any action are an advertizing which is carried by clients – what can be better?

Imitation or fashion? So to say, nowadays it is fashionable to be different from other people, stand out from the crowd!  It is not interesting to be ordinary.  And are your clothes talking to? Lots of options! Creativity knows no boundaries! From the loud screaming platitudes such as «Rich», «Hero», «Follow me», «Kiss me» and «I love NY» to expressions which thinkers reworked according to our modern life.

 We are responsible for what is written on our clothes. When children are small, their wardrobe completely belongs to their parents. At this age babies usually do not worry about what they wear. However, the older they get, the more attention they pay to their appearance. Pupils at school appreciate each other’s clothes. So Youth Fashion has its trends and subject to obey its rules. If the inscription on the shirt somehow reflects the sphere of the interests of its owner - it's all right. Generally, the inscriptions on the clothing should be treated carefully. Surrounding people often take them as the words spoken aloud by the master of fashion, which is natural; otherwise there is a question - if you do not know written foreign inscriptions on your clothes why should you pin it on yourself? So, to paraphrase a famous phrase, we can say - we are responsible for what is written on our clothes.  

The classification of inscriptions.

The inscription on the clothes is not just a decorative element; it is the means of communication, which has a variety of semantic content. All labels on clothing (shirts) can be divided into several semantic groups according to their contents.

1. The name of the brand.

A symbolism of sportswear as «Nike», «Adidas», «Puma», «Reebok», and so on is popular among young people. T-shirts of popular brands show the well-being of the owners.

2. Titles of the music bands or just directions in music, the names of sports teams.

You can often find T-shirts with slogans: «Metallica», «Linkin Park», «Green Day», «Punk you», «Madonna for you», «All you need is rock-n-roll», «Manchester United». Seeing the man with such an inscription on the clothes, we can immediately conclude that he’s a fan of a band, or a sports fan, that is, we get some information about him, about his tastes and preferences. This is one of the easiest ways to meet people, or, on the contrary, people with opposing views.

3. Funny words or phrases.

People with humor opt for: «Princesses don’t do dishes and take out garbage», «Same Shirt different day», «Space for free advertisement». This person seems positive and sociable. In this case, the inscription on the clothes is a way to cheer up ourselves and others.

4. Negative, abusive, obscene words and expressions.

This is another proof that the inscription on the dress is a way of expression and relationship to others, in this case — the negative, the possibility of not pronouncing the words to express your displeasure, contempt, frustration. For example: «Devilish girls», «Don’t copy me! », «Minimum of the contact with surrounding». Unfortunately, very often, there are foul lines, but the style and format of this work do not allow such examples. Such inscriptions are not only unethical, but they can also cause a conflict, though some people are deliberately choosing such inscriptions to shock others.

5. The expression of a personal relationship to politics, the world around them and ecology.

People who want to express their opinion about the surrounding reality, prefer shirts with calls: «Stop pollution», «Save the earth! », «Stop and think», «Peace and love», «Don` t worry! Be happy! ».

6. The call to establish contact with the opposite sex, become acquainted: «Call me! », «Follow me», «My boyfriend is out of town»

7. Neutral inscriptions which bring no concrete information, and therefore do not comply fully with their communicative task:«Sunday», «Space», «Summer time», «Butterfly».

8. Human characteristics.

For example: «Forever Young», «Legendary», «I was born to be blond», «Born to be Free». That is why it is so important to know how to translate the inscription on your clothes not to be in the absurd situation.

9. Quote.

Basically, it is the string of popular songs: «Diamonds are best Girls’ Friends», «All you need is rock-n-roll».

10. Challenge to society: «Boxing match between you and me», «Trouble here I come», «Catch me if you can».

Of course, being a product of society, labels on clothes are dynamic, that is, in a state of constant change. Often they reflect some short-term problems, which after some time become irrelevant; they are replaced by new trends in society that are immediately reflected in the inscription on clothes. Nowadays you can hardly meet «Eurovision in Russia», but a lot of “Sochi 2014” due to the location of the Olympic Games.

That is, as can be seen from the above classification, the semantic classification of inscriptions on clothing is very diverse. In addition, the label has a very powerful communicative potential, and therefore the inscriptions should be treated with caution.

The rules of creating inscriptions.

The force of psychological influence of the text is defined not only by the sense of an inscription, but also by a graphic registration of an inscription – by style, font, size, tracing, color execution and decoration of letters. We summarize: words need to be written beautifully to be more willingly read.

The way of writing of letters of the alphabet and the accompanying symbols – punctuation marks, figures – is called a font. Letters of one word are usually written by one font. For the majority of fonts various ways of a tracing are characteristic. For example, they can be:

a) to straight lines;

b) the italic;

c) the semiboldface;

d) semiboldface italic,

e) and underlined.

From psychology positions on perception of an inscription its colour has got an important impact.

Red is the color of leadership and energy. Saturated shades (crimson, claret, brown etc.) convince the client in the efficiency of the company.

Pink generates the aura of refinement round goods or that is even more important, around "I» of the consumer.

Orange is a stimulator of positive emotions, it operates mood and forms the rational relation to the shopping process. It can be used in large quantities provided that such "orange attack" is made infrequently.

Yellow, as it is considered, activates perception, loads with positive emotions, gives self-confidence, and makes you open for new ideas and ready to compromises.

Gold colour applies for a goods elitism.

Green allows the person to calm down, reach harmony with himself, to feel a burst of energy. Light shades of the green are the best choice.

Blue is the color of freshness, the free movement. It loads with pleasure and declines to levity.

It also clears up thoughts, exempts from an uneasiness syndrome and induces to courageous decisions.

Violet is the colour of mysteriousness, exotic.

Lilac, on the contrary, is the colour of spring delights, levity, carelessness and cheerfulness.

Brown imitates the atmosphere of comfort, hints at pleasant pastime.

Research work.

As objects of our investigation, we chose clothes (t-shirts mainly) with inscriptions of pupils of our gymnasium, students of the Smolensk Industrial and Economic College and of our elder friends and relatives. Each of them was given a questionnaire or was interviewed face to face. We wanted to find out the age, gender of the person. Then we asked if he/she had clothes with different inscriptions, whether they understood the meanings of the written text. Finally, we asked about reasons for buying such clothes. You can become acquainted with the questions of our questionnaire that are listed below.

1. Name of the owner.
2. Age and education of the owner.
3. Have you got clothes containing inscriptions on them?
4. Do you know the meaning of the written words on your clothes?  
5. Why do you usually buy such clothes?

According to the questionnaires of the participants of the survey we found out a great number of inscriptions. We would like you to become familiar with both most common and most outstanding ones.

  In the course of our research work we came to the conclusion, that the greatest part of our respondents has clothes with inscriptions on them. We interviewed 91 people all in all, and it turned out that 76 people have clothes with inscriptions in their wardrobes and only 15 people never buy them (they are 83.5% and 16.5% accordingly). From all respondents about 75% of pupils, students and elder people know the meaning of the inscriptions which they have on their clothes; also they noted that they usually pay attention to an inscription before the purchase of things. Other 25% found it difficult to translate the inscriptions. During the research there were inscriptions containing grammatical and spelling mistakes to which owners didn't pay any attention. Very often the inscriptions consisted simply of a set of letters. The sense in such inscriptions is absent.

It was interesting to find out that mostly girls buy clothes with inscriptions on them – there are 65% of women and 35% of men. Moreover, it was rather surprising that not only teenagers and young people choose such clothes, but people of other ages as well. In the course of the research we interviewed 69% of teenagers and 31% of people aged from 20 to 50.            

According to our research, we also were interested in the reasons for buying clothes with foreign inscriptions on them. We divided the results into the following groups according to the age of the respondents:

Our research managed to take out this problem on a surface and to suggest respondents to think over before buying some fashionable clothes with an unclear inscription. Some people note that difficulties in translation don't stop them from purchasing pleasant clothes and they don't pay attention to finding out the meaning of inscriptions and perceive them just as a decoration on clothes. Our research shows that it is very important by the fact that it’s extremely actual that we are responsible for information which we wear on ourselves, and it is extremely imprudent to hope that people around us don't know a foreign language and don't understand what is written on our clothes. It is always necessary to remember that clothes do not make the man and count only for first impressions!

Conclusion.

So, answering a question put in introduction whether teenagers consider semantic meaning of an inscription in English, it became clear that 75% of the interviewed people paid attention to the translation of English phrases when buying clothes with inscriptions on them. Pupils and students noted that difficulties in interpretation don't stop them from the purchase of pleasant clothes. 25% of respondents didn't pay attention to the translation of inscriptions and usually perceive them as decoration of clothes. The analysis of collected material showed that the level of proficiency in English which is defined by the age of the interviewed pupils of our gymnasium and students of the college, allows them to orientate themselves in the wide range of inscriptions on clothes and to use this written information in the correct way. So, the level of knowledge of foreign languages can help us to understand the meaning of written words and phrases on our clothes. 

The research also showed indissoluble connection of the language level with the culture of a person.

During our work on the subject we successfully solved the following research objectives:

• investigated various sources of obtaining information;
• considered a problem of wide use of English in the  design of modern clothes;
• analysed features of English-speaking inscriptions on clothes.

The study of various Internet resources, the media, the use of research techniques have allowed us not only to make a classification of inscriptions, but also to identify the main trends in the historical development of this means of communication. First, the use of English and various semantic meanings allows them to make a universal means of communication. Second, the language of the inscriptions is the principal characteristics of conversational speech. Third, the semantic content of the inscriptions reflects the level of a society’s culture, its main trends. It should be noted that our research would be impossible without language skills, so, with the help of one subject we were able to raise our level in other disciplines: history, sociology, social science.

As for the practical significance of our study, it is worth noting its educational and awareness-raising function. After all, we were able to bring to the surface the problem and to offer young people to think before they buy the next fashionable thing with incomprehensible text.

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