British Identity Research Articles

Building EFL Preservice Teachers’ Professional Identity: Does Gender Matter?

This study explores the beliefs of English as a foreign language preservice secondary education teachers regarding the construction of teachers’ professional identity. A questionnaire was used to obtain the opinions of 131 future teachers in the 2014–2020 academic years. Results showed that the participants understood teachers’ professional identity to be connected to the ability to motivate students, manage the classroom, and care about interpersonal relations. Women and men think differently regarding the effect of the acquisition of new methodologies, the psycho-pedagogical training, and a longer placement period in the construction of teachers’ professional identity. To conclude, this study provided the chance to reflect on the importance of strengthening the professional identity of English as a foreign language teachers while considering the gender perspective to introduce changes in the curriculum.

수능 영어 절대평가 세대 대학생들의 영어 능력 인식, 향상 추구 영역, 교양영어 만족도 및 향후 개편 방안 연구

Objectives This study examined the students’ perceptions about English competence, domains to improve, satisfaction with college English program and an reorganization for the future. Methods The research questions were designed to report participants’ perceptions about four categories as follows: (1) how to perceive about their own English competence (2) what English doamin(s) they want to improve, (3) whether they are satisfied with current college English program, and (4) what type of English program would work best for achieving their ideal English performance. A total of 60 research participants who registered two subjects of liberal arts classes in a university located in Seoul completed a perception analysis questionnaire at the fifteenth week of their courses. The normality test verified the homogeneity of variance of these groups. Results The analysis results demonstrated that these participants perceived their English abilities negatively in the domain of speaking, writing, listening, reading and grammar respectivly. They also wanted to improve their abilities of speaking and writing meanwhile they were not satisfied with the current English program provided by their general English education program. As a result, while they wanted to improve their abilites of speaking and writing, they also showed some interests in improving their English ability affiliated with major area. These ideals were revealed through their wishes to be educated from a writing and speaking - centered prospective college English program. Conclusions The findings imply that new-age learners who were admitted from a new college entrance admission process need to be provided with more satisfactory general English education curriculum with students. By doing this, the university administration may successfully meet the needs of college students while assisting students’ needs of improving major-affiliated English abilities and developing teaching and learning program required for the colloege level higher-education. The further studies regarding how to reflect learners' needs as well as to improve their English competence of speaking and writing affiliated with major are sincerely recommended.

'Boundary Objects' in Archaeological Finds and Environmental Research: Using Bowker and Star's Concept of the 'Boundary Object' to Analyse and Interpret Disparate Archaeological Legacy Data

Recently the concept of big data has been employed in archaeology to push forward research on very large-scale legacy datasets, often with a developer-funded component; however, relatively little of this effort has focused on artefact and ecofact data. This paper explores the possibility of using Bowker and Star’s concept of the boundary object to manage the issues caused by data scale, complexity, diversity, and variable information standards when attempting to carry out large-scale research on artefacts and ecofacts. The critique of archaeological data standards as it impacts research into artefacts and ecofacts is reviewed. A methodology for the construction and use of a large database of legacy data is described, and a case study on the regional histories of food production/consumption in southern Britain, using datasets derived from the author’s PhD as part of the English Landscapes and Identities (EngLaId) Project (Gosden et al. 2021) at Oxford University is presented.

Towards conceptualizing linguistic identities in English as a lingua franca communication: the experiences of multilingual international students in a Hong Kong university

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to our conceptualization of linguistic identities in English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication by analyzing a group of multilingual international students’ narrativized accounts of their ELF communication experiences in an international university in Hong Kong. The findings of the study indicate that despite their status as L2 speakers, the participants considered themselves as legitimate speakers of English when interacting with others through ELF. Moreover, they oriented to their national cultural identities and personal identities indexed through their accents in ELF communication. Their frequent use of ELF with other students from diverse linguacultural backgrounds also prompted them to identify positively with a local ELF-using community and envision their imagined identities as members of a global ELF-using community. The findings further reveal that the participants’ ELF communication experiences opened up a space for them to take on new and alternative L2-speaking personal identities which they perceived to be markedly different from and more desirable than their L1-based selves. Overall, the analysis provides empirical support for applying a tripartite model of linguistic identity for understanding ELF communication experiences and calls attention to the multidimensional nature of linguistic identities and the interrelatedness between different dimensions of linguistic identities in ELF communication.

Bannister in parliament: sport, synecdoche, and national identity

ABSTRACT In 1954, Parliament was divided over Roger Bannister’s appearance on an American television programme and how it would portray the nation to the world. This moment, and others like it across the decades, show Bannister to be a significant figure in the collective British identity, and as such, one in need of careful examination. The following work examines statements from both Houses positioning Bannister as synecdoche, a rhetorical device in which a single instance or representative is used as archetype of the larger whole. Findings from this examination revealed two themes: first, Bannister’s newfound glory reflected the best of Britain, and second because of the first, his status, and by proxy Britain’s status, should be carefully managed. These findings demonstrate the ways in which Parliament used Bannister to idealise, shape, and manage British identity. To conclude, we consider how athletes like Bannister may serve such purposes.

Northern Memories and the English Middle Ages

Northern Memories and the English Middle Ages

A Persistent Borderland: Glasgow, the Anglo-Scottish Border, and the Making of (North) British Identity, 1700–1730

Abstract Borderlands are not just zones bisected by a border but are also conceptual spaces and areas defined by ‘borderwork’ activities. Eighteenth-century Glasgow was one such area, in which the typical activities associated with borderlands – tax evasion, feuds, and violence as a hallmark of inter-community relations or resistance to an overmighty state and its lieutenants – shaped the effort to produce a new ‘British’ identity after 1707. This article examines two instances of riot in Glasgow and emphasises the importance of the role played by lower-status actors and prevailing concepts of fairness in forging the Anglo-Scottish Union in one of its most important cities.

British Borders and/in East Africa: World War II and Multidirectional Memory in Nadifa Mohamed’s Black Mamba Boy

Abstract The British myth of World War II has long been successfully mobilised to police the ideological borders of the UK. The article considers narratives about the war as a key site for the negotiation of British identity and the UK’s relation to its imperial past. It, first, seeks to unpack some of the contradictions of the dominant British view on the war to then consider the 2010 novel Black Mamba Boy by Somali-British writer Nadifa Mohamed. It is argued that the novel effectively opposes ideas of an ethnically homogenous nation. Drawing on Michael Rothberg’s notion of multidirectional memory, the article shows how the novel interweaves different traumatic histories and thus presents memories of the war as an opportunity, not to consolidate national borders, but to forge new solidarities.

The influence of the United Kingdom Independence Party on english national identity at the present stage

The article analyzes how the activities of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) influenced the development of English national identity in the years leading up to the British vote on Britain's membership in the European Union. A brief history of the creation and electoral success of the party is given. The focus is on the period when Nigel Farage held the post of head of UKIP. The factors that determined the current state of English national identity and its relationship with British identity are investigated. The article explains how the connection between these identities was reflected in the policy of UKIP. The article examines the attitude of the party leadership to the problems of the establishment of English parliament and celebrating St. George's Day in England. UKIP has always been viewed as a haven for the oppressed, disaffected and disillusioned people. This image was used by the party leadership to secure its support in England. Emphasizing the theme of unfair treatment of England by the British government and Brussels and the need to respect specific English national identity bore fruit. By 2014, the largest share of English people began to perceive UKIP as the party that best defended English interests. The strengthening of the existing eurosceptic sentiments in England ensured the decision to end Britain's membership in the EU in the 2016 referendum thereby contributing to the implementation of the UKIP's key mission. Thanks to the active appeal to the English question, UKIP was able to acquire a very significant weight in the British political arena.

'Unity in Diversity': Centralised British Identity in the Post-War Work of Robert Colquhoun and William Scott

This paper examines how representations of British working-class cultures and identity were appropriated during the post-war period, and how this was undertaken in the pursuit of constructing a collective British identity. This is explored through the work and lives of painters Robert Colquhoun and William Scott, both born in Scotland in the 1910s to working-class families, and both of whom established themselves amongst the most prominent painters of the post-war generation. Through examining their work in the context of the post-war trope of ‘unity in diversity’, this paper shows how a romanticised image of the working-classes – seen as having a natural connection with the ‘ancient lands’ of the British Isles – contributed to a centralised image of the national character that all the while maintained more conventional class distinctions.Banner image: Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde (1951) Design for Second Scene for Donald of the Burthens [collage, watercolour, ink, and gouache on medium weight, slightly textured, light green paper, sheet], Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. © Estate of Robert Colquhoun. All rights reserved 2022 / Bridgeman Images.

LINGUOSTYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE ORIGINAL AND DUBBED TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH FILM ADAPTATION OF THE NOVEL “ANNA KARENINA” BY L. TOLSTOY

The article considers the translation of the feature film “Anna Karenina” from the point of view of linguistic and cultural identity of English and Ukrainian languages. Much attention is paid to the difficulties of translation of linguostylistic devices, in particular, phraseological units, proper names, similes, epithets, metaphors, and allusions. As a result of the research, the author came to the conclusion that an adequate translation of phraseological units requires a good knowledge of phraseological units of both source and target languages, the necessity to be aware of the main ways of their translation and skillfully use them in practice. In the research phraseological units were grouped into phraseological remodeling, phraseological unities, phraseological combinations, and phraseological phrases. The distinctive feature of proper names translation is that all they, in fact, save their original sound images. Translation of film’s proper names is done with a help of transliteration, transcription, transposition and loan translation. Simile usually directly compares two things. The similes from the film can be translated with a help of direct equivalent, addition, omission, generalization and concretization. Metaphors are usually translated with a help of corresponding metaphors or metaphors with other images in the target text. Allusion assumes covert or indirect reference to an object or circumstance from an external context. Biblical texts are the source of allusions in the analyzed film.

Negotiating social belonging: A case study of second‐generation Kurds in London

AbstractThis qualitative study aims to contribute to our understanding of how second‐generation immigrants negotiate their multiple identities, and construct their feelings of belonging. We focus on second‐generation ethnic Kurds, a stateless ethnic group with a complex political and social history, who have seldom been investigated in a UK context. Drawing on data from interviews with 14 Kurds living in the UK, this paper outlines the tensions in Kurds' lived experiences of Kurdish and British identity; in particular, experiences of feeling “othered” and how this manifests in relation to their identities. We found that Kurds most commonly dealt with some of the tensions they experienced from not belonging or feeling like an “other” by constructing new identities with more permeable boundaries of belonging; in this study, this was achieved through a “place‐based” identity. In sum, this paper offers a novel contribution to discourses of belonging, by demonstrating how the nuances of belonging and its lived complexities manifest in the experiences of UK‐based second‐generation Kurds, and the resultant strategies that they adopt to navigate tensions.

Indifference or hostility? Anti-Scottishness in a post-Brexit England

ABSTRACT The UK's decision to leave the EU was partly influenced by a desire to reduce immigration. This followed a period of increased Euroscepticism, and an ‘othering’ of those of a different background, nationality or religion, and ultimately the EU itself. Post-Brexit, this has been linked to a rise in hate crime in England, and the referendum decision has been characterised as an expression of a strengthened English identity. Hostility towards those perceived as ‘foreigners’ or ‘others’ seems also to have affected people from the other nations within the British Isles, with speculation that Brexit might lead to the break-up of the UK. Here, we focus on Scots living or who have lived in England and, while their experiences are mixed, it appears that some hostility towards Scots (and indifference to Scotland) has grown. We speculate that this and additional political tensions may, eventually, bring about the end of the union.

Investigating Ecuadorian Students' Perspectives on the Characteristics of the Ideal English Teacher

This descriptive quantitative research aimed to identify Ecuadorian students' perspectives on the characteristics of the ideal English teacher. The sample was composed of 322 (n=322) learners who were taking the A1 English level in a public university. The data were collected by using an online questionnaire composed of 30 Likert scale items, which were divided into 3 categories 1) profile, 2) personality and 3) instructions. The analysis was done using descriptive statistics. Results demonstrated that regarding the teacher profile, the participants indicated that the ideal teacher must hold a degree in language teaching and be familiar with the social and cultural background of the language. In personality, the ideal teacher motivates, inspires, and promotes students' self-confidence and participation in the classroom. Finally, about teaching instruction, the ideal teacher uses technology and has good communication with students in English in each lesson. We can conclude that identifying these perspectives will be useful in implementing curricular changes based on what students expect to receive in class.

I’m So Bored with the USA: Reflecting America in British Punk Memoirs of the 1970s

In recent years there have been an increasing number of biographies and autobiographies written by the leading figures of the British punk scene of the Seventies and Eighties. As we pass the 40th anniversary of 1977, it can be argued that the British punk scene has also ‘come of age’ in academia with a number of retrospectives that examine not only the contemporary impact of punk in the Seventies but also the legacy of the punk movement in shaping British culture.
 With a focus on John Lydon’s text Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1993) and Viv Albertine’s Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys (2014), this article will examine how these autobiographies draw attention to ways in which the British sub-cultural scene offered a platform through which British culture and identity could be reassessed as anti-American and anti-capitalist. This study will also highlight to what extent the self-reflexive framing of these personal narratives within the larger political, cultural and social landscape, can be read as a characteristic feature of the British punk memoir. Through these texts it is possible to uncover the pivotal role of the British punk scene in the development of a counter cultural identity that mirrored changes in the contemporary national identity. As such, punk memoirs, biographies and autobiographies not only give perspectives on a subversive youth cultural scene but, perhaps more importantly, can offer unique insights into the evolution of post-imperial British identity.

Transformative Experiences of EFL Lecturers’ Professional Identity in Online Education

<p style="text-align: justify;">English teachers had to retrain and build a new normal in order to prepare for an online classroom while keeping their teaching pedagogy and professional identity as a result of the sudden changes brought by the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in education. In this study, the effect of English teachers' professional identity transformations, attitudes toward online teaching was explored. The study's sample comprises 130 English as a foreign language (EFL) lecturers from a state and a foundation university in Turkey. The research data was gathered from a questionnaire, the Teacher Professional Identity scale, and a semi-structured interview with 12 volunteers. Qualitative data collected via semi-structured interviews were apportioned into pattern coding and analyzed through content analysis. EFL lecturers did not appear to be properly prepared for their online pedagogical and technological difficulties, which had a deeply corrosive effect on teachers' professional identities as they shift away from face-to-face education. The results showed that participants who were educated on EduTech during their undergraduate education or as professional development affected their perceptions of professional identity throughout the transition to online language teaching. Future studies can broaden the field of study by making use of exploratory action research, awareness of the teaching community, and continued professional development.</p>

John Major’s Assessments of Brexit: Prospects for the UK

The article introduces an alternative opinion on Brexit voiced by John Major, who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom when it joined the European Union. In his public speeches, John Major touched upon such issues as national sovereignty, British identity, migration, economy, political and diplomatic influence, state unity, etc. John Major believes that Brexit will eventually do more harm than good and that the pro-Brexit rhetoric is a manifestation of populism. He does not consider the European Union as a threat to the British identity. The research was based on I. S. Semenenko’s idea of the panEuropean identity as a resource for the development of the European Union. Even though Brexit and Covid-19 weakened the European identity, the further development of identity policy is likely to strengthen the sense of belonging. Thus, John Major’s reasonable rhetoric can be considered from the opposite standpoint.

Symptoms of Paranoia Experienced by Students of Pakistani Heritage in England: The Role of Explicit and Implicit Identities and Perceived Discrimination.

Individuals belonging to ethnic minority groups are less likely to experience symptoms of psychosis, such as paranoia, if they live in areas with high proportions of people from the same ethnic background. This effect may be due to processes associated with group belonging (social identification). We examined whether the relationship between perceived discrimination and paranoia was moderated by explicit and implicit Pakistani/English identification among students of Pakistani heritage (N = 119). Participants completed measures of explicit and implicit Pakistani and English identity, a measure of perceived discrimination, and a measure of paranoia. Perceived discrimination was the strongest predictor of paranoia (0.31). Implicit identities moderated the relationship between perceived discrimination and paranoia (−0.17). The findings suggest that higher levels of implicit Pakistani identity were most protective against high levels of paranoia (0.26, with low implicit English identity; 0.78, with medium English identity; 1.46, with high English identity). Overall, a complex relationship between identity and paranoia was apparent.

The use of exemplars differs between native and non-native listening

AbstractThis study compares the role of exemplars in native and non-native listening. Two English identity priming experiments were conducted with native English, Dutch non-native, and Spanish non-native listeners. In Experiment 1, primes and targets were spoken in the same or a different voice. Only the native listeners showed exemplar effects. In Experiment 2, primes and targets had the same or a different degree of vowel reduction. The Dutch, but not the Spanish, listeners were familiar with this reduction pattern from their L1 phonology. In this experiment, exemplar effects only arose for the Spanish listeners. We propose that in these lexical decision experiments the use of exemplars is co-determined by listeners’ available processing resources, which is modulated by the familiarity with the variation type from their L1 phonology. The use of exemplars differs between native and non-native listening, suggesting qualitative differences between native and non-native speech comprehension processes.

British Identity in World War I: The Lost Boys, by Mary K. Laurents

British Identity in World War I: The Lost Boys, by Mary K. Laurents