British Culture Research Articles

The Royal Treatment

The Royal Treatment

Factors Contributing to EFL Learners’ Construction of Arguments in Culturally Infused Discussions

This study describes the factors that enhanced students’ construction of arguments when participating in culturally infused discussions at an undergraduate English as a foreign language British Culture course. The research was conducted at a university in Northwestern Colombia. This paper presents a section of the results of a larger project whose objective is to identify the elements that aid participants in building and elaborating arguments in culturally infused discussions. Socratic questioning was an integral element of the discussions. To attain the purpose of this study, a qualitative single-case design was employed. Findings show that the factors facilitating the construction of arguments could potentially be peer scaffolding, previous knowledge, connection to participants’ reality, and curiosity and inquiry. This study makes important contributions to the field of critical thinking skills work in English as a foreign language setting, particularly argumentation, as it sheds light on relevant aspects to foster students’ collaborative argumentation.

Target Language Culture Teaching and Learning in Moroccan Universities: Approaches and Challenges

The present study has two main purposes. The first purpose is to investigate students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards target language culture learning and teaching. The second purpose is to identify the challenges that may hinder the effective learning and teaching of the target language culture course. It was conducted with 200 students and 6 teachers from two Moroccan universities (Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah and Mohammed First Universities). To collect data, we made use of two data collection methods, namely the questionnaire and the interview. The major results of the study showed that both students and teachers had positive attitudes towards the target language culture course (U.S & British Culture course). The results also showed that the majority of students are not satisfied with both the content and the methodology used in the course. Based on the results, it was clear that the lack of technology and the lack of including some cultural aspects that students perceive to be important to know are among the most serious challenges that hamper achieving the effective learning outcomes of British and U.S Culture courses at the level of the university. It is hoped that the findings of this study will contribute to the improvement of the teaching practices related to target language culture teaching and learning in Moroccan universities.

Sociocultural and linguodiscursive characteristics of irony

The article is a review of existing scientific views on irony as a phenomenon at the junction of several disciplines. Definitions of this phenomenon are presented from the point of view of philosophical, aesthetic, anthropological, literary, linguistic approach. The views on irony as a category of the comic, a worldview category, as a way of perceiving and comprehending reality are listed. The author points out that in the process of communication, irony is a kind of barrier to dividing participants into "ironic" and their "victims", that is, those who are able to interpret irony and the "uninitiated". Discursive irony is considered as a product of interaction, cooperation between the author and the addressee, as a result of which an ironic effect may arise (if the ironic utterance is correctly interpreted) or not (in the case of a communicative failure). Various interpretations of the concept of "irony" are considered in comparison, arguments are given justifying the author's agreement / disagreement with existing formulations. The focus of the article is on irony, an effect that arises as a result of interaction between interlocutors: the ironic speaker and the recipient who perceives and interprets irony. The author's contribution to the development of the theory of discourse is expressed in the analysis of irony in English and Russian linguistic cultures. The article highlights the main socio-cultural and linguodiscursive characteristics of irony. The conclusion is made about the importance of irony in communication, about its role in the verbal and emotional intelligence of the participants of the discourse. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that in the proposed work irony is considered as an integral characteristic of modern English and Russian discourse, which ensures that the speaker achieves the fulfillment of a communicative intention. The main result of the work is the postulate about the ethnostilistic labeling of irony, which opens up wide prospects for studying the features of irony in national discourses. The data presented in the article can be used for the further development of ethnostilistics, linguistic pragmatics, and the theory of intercultural communication.

Visions of British Culture from the Reformation to Romanticism: The Protestant Discovery of Tradition. By Celestina Savonius-Wroth. Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 2023. ix + 311 pp. $129.99.

Visions of British Culture from the Reformation to Romanticism: The Protestant Discovery of Tradition. By Celestina Savonius-Wroth. Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 2023. ix + 311 pp. $129.99.

Correction to: The Mayflower and Historical Culture in Britain, 1620–2020

Correction to: The Mayflower and Historical Culture in Britain, 1620–2020

Forever Conquered: The Changing Role of Vikings in Modern and Contemporary Anglo-American Culture

Ever since their disruption and subsequent invasion of the British Isles in the early Middle Ages, the Scandinavian raiders known as 'Vikings' have had a significant presence in English culture and its self-perceived past. Anglo-American popular culture has become the primary home of the subject in the centuries since, with the Vikings appearing as everything from lecherous, bloodthirsty pirates to proud Christian heroes in the media of the English West. A timeline of this evolution can be drawn between Victorian era England and modern-day America, with works such as Walter Scott's The Pirate, Richard Fleischer's formative The Vikings, John McTiernan's turn-of-the-century The 13th Warrior, and DreamWorks Animation's highly successful How to Train Your Dragon presenting compelling examples of the conceptual transformation that the Viking image has undergone. The popularity of Vikings in media and the form in which they have been used also reflects the way that literary and visual symbols have contributed to the spread and impact of major sociocultural and political movements throughout this period. As a result, the study of the Vikings' presence in Victorian and post-Victorian popular media is also the study of the Vikings' importance in the Anglo-American zeitgeist, enabling us to see the degree to which differing national climates have both shaped and platformed the Viking image across the last two hundred years.

THE FEATURES OF RELIGIOUS TEXT AS THE TYPE OF RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE AND CLASSIFICATION OF ITS LEXICON

The main aim of this article is to study different standpoints about religious discourse, which includes sacred texts that are the core of universal culture. The article highlights the main linguistic features of religious discourse and combines several scientists’ various descriptions. This research mainly analyses religious texts as one type of religious discourse. Islamic literary and public texts are chosen as the object of research. In order to achieve the main aim of the research, linguistic observation and analysis, contextual and lexicographic analysis, as well as classification methods are used. According to the analysis's findings, it is clear that there are special features of religious discourse, and they are considered specialized texts. There are many levels of the Islamic religious lexicon, they cannot be understood by all people. The study introduces new classification of Islamic religious terms. Due to the canonic nature of Islamic religious texts and the existence of lacunae in the English culture in relation to the lexicon of Islamic discourse, the speaker or writer should be very careful while choosing the appropriate lexicon to achieve adequacy when using them in English.

Frustration and Aggression in John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger”

"ننظر إلى الوراء في غضب" هي مسرحية ظهرت في مرحلة انتقالية حاسمة من الماضي في بريطانيا الفيكتوري في القرن العشرين الحديث. الغضب جيمي والغضب هو تعبيره عن المشاعر المكبوتة وحاجته للحياة في عالم اصبح فاتر ورتيبا. وأصبح هذا الغضب رمزا للتمرد ضد التوعك السياسي والاجتماعي للثقافة البريطانية. غضبه مدمر لمن حوله والعنف النفسي للمسرحية تلقى قدرا كبيرا من الانتقادات. النقاد يتفقون اليوم، مع ذلك، أن المسرحية أمر أساسي لفهم الحياة البريطانية في القرن العشرين، وبالتالي، وعمل مهم في الأدب البريطاني الحديث.

Цветовая концептосфера в английском, французском и русском языках: лингвокультурологический анализ фразеологических единиц с цветовым признаком

The aim of the study is to identify the universality, diversity and uniqueness of the color conceptual sphere in English, French and Russian linguistic cultures, implemented through phraseological units with a color feature and color terms in English, French and Russian. The paper presents a linguocultural analysis of the GREEN, GRAY, YELLOW, ORANGE, PURPLE, PINK and BROWN concepts in the three languages. The study is novel in that it is the first to identify, systematize and describe peripheral and single color concepts using the material of three languages. As a result of the research, it was found that the color conceptual sphere is more relevant for French linguistic culture than for English and Russian linguistic cultures. The peripheral concepts GREEN, GRAY, and YELLOW in the linguistic cultures under comparison are widely used to reflect character traits, appearance, physical characteristics of a person and relationships between people. The single concepts ORANGE, PURPLE, PINK and BROWN mainly reflect the color characteristics of the inorganic world. Color acts as an expressor of universality, diversity and uniqueness in the construction of the color conceptual sphere in the considered linguistic cultures.

Digital echoes of heritage: toward a culturally balanced pedagogy in technology-enhanced bilingual education

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the integration of heritage language and culture in technology-enhanced bilingual education and examine the dominance of the English language and culture in computer-assisted language learning settings.Design/methodology/approachThis research used a narrative inquiry methodology. The data came from semi-structured interviews with 25 bilingual teachers in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and Texas.FindingsThe study found a significant bias in the use of technology toward the target language, often at the expense of heritage language and culture. The curricula analyzed were predominantly focused on superficial cultural elements of the target language, leading to a neglect of deeper cultural engagement.Originality/valueThis research highlights the phenomenon of cultural cringe within bilingual education and the skewed use of technology toward the target language.

The Representation of Culture in Moroccan EFL Textbooks: An Investigation of Reading Texts

As language and culture cannot be isolated, the teaching of culture in foreign language textbooks has gained great attention from experts in the field. The issue of which culture to introduce and how to introduce it has been a subject of debate among practitioners. The present study examines the representation of culture and its potential influence on the development of learners' intercultural awareness in three popular Moroccan EFL textbooks, namely "Window on the World", "Ticket to English 1" and "Ticket to English 2". A quantitative research design is adopted to examine how the textbooks represent (i) learners' native culture, (ii) English-speaking culture and (iii) international cultures. The results show varying degrees of cultural integration across the three textbooks. While "Window on the World" emphasized English-speaking culture in particular, potentially shaping learners' perceptions of global diversity, "Ticket to English 1" showed a lack of cultural references, indicating a gap in integration. In contrast, "Ticket to English 2" relatively adopted a more comprehensive approach, incorporating learners’ native culture, English speaking culture and broader international cultures. Despite this variety, the study revealed that the textbooks did not integrate culture effectively to enhance learners’ intercultural awareness. These findings suggest that a systematic and balanced approach to cultural integration is essential for Moroccan EFL textbooks. A gradual approach is recommended, through introducing learners’ native culture first, followed by English-speaking culture and finally including international cultures. The present study provided some empirical evidence for the discourse on cultural integration in EFL contexts and offered insights into its impact on intercultural awareness. The findings have some implications for the pedagogical practices in Morocco and highlights the need to promote the learners’ cultural awareness in foreign language learning environments.

Total Physical Response with Communicative Approach (TPRCA) Method in Primary School English Learning

English as an International language is a necessity in this era. However, in its implementation in elementary school, it was very difficult to teach English to children. Thus, an innovation was needed. One of them was learning English integrated with Indonesian culture. However, on the other hand, there were competencies that must be achieved by students in elementary school, namely oral skills, while the existing methods focus more on vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, the Total Physical Response with Communicative Approach (TPRCA) method based on the introduction of Indonesian culture was proposed. The purpose of this research was to develop the TPRCA method based on the introduction of Indonesian culture for students in elementary schools and how it is implemented. The research method used was ADDIE with a literature study approach. Data was collected through literature study, then analyzed using qualitative methods such as reduction and results analysis. There are 5 methods such as giving orders, role playing, dialogue, storytelling, reading and writing. The competencies to be achieved were communicative, able to understand the text, able to write a simple summary, able to mention things related to Indonesian culture in English, and able to give reciprocity to the commands given in English. The conclusion was that the development stage starts from analysis, competency adjustment, formulation of skills and indicators, validity testing, to the application and evaluation stages. The application started from the teacher explaining the method used, the implementation of learning, till the test stage.

DESIGN THINKING FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DESIGN THINKING TECHNIQUE TO ENHANCE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AND TEACHERS OF VARIOUS ACADEMIC FIELDS

Design thinking is a dynamic approach and mindset employed to explore innovative and creative solutions to a wide range of challenges. At its core, design thinking places significant emphasis on the individual, their emotions and needs. Professionals who embrace design thinking actively seek out issues that impact people and offer appropriate solutions that will benefit users. Consequently, design thinking is an ongoing and iterative process, continuously researching and enhancing a product or service to the user’s satisfaction. This study aims to compare how English language and culture in specialized communication students and university teachers of various academic disciplines at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava and the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology at Trnava, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia, perceive the application of design thinking in the educational process. Two workshops were conducted to explore the application of design thinking in American literature seminars, with a total of 45 students who took part in the survey. The third workshop focused on enhancing intercultural awareness through online seminars and searching for the most appropriate methods of teaching intercultural communication in the online space. The workshop had a total of 25 students, with 21 participating in the research. A pilot workshop for teachers was organized in May 2023 within the project titled “Support of internal systems for ensuring the quality of higher education at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia”, with 25 university teachers participating (21 of whom took part in the survey). The research results indicate that both students and teachers perceive design thinking as a suitable method for the current educational process. Students identified presentation skills as their biggest challenge, whereas teachers did not face significant issues in this area due to their profession. Conversely, teachers expressed difficulties with digital skills, which were less prevalent among the students. Design thinking offers numerous benefits to students by creating a supportive learning environment. Additionally, for teachers, this method can become a part of their lifelong learning, as innovation relies on their motivation and efforts to teach traditional content differently.

Creating Colonial Christian Cultures in Canterbury: St. Augustine's Missionary College

Throughout the nineteenth century, religion and Empire became increasingly fused in the Victorian imagination through a lens of providentialism that saw Empire as an instrument for worldwide Christianisation. This article uses the case of St. Augustine's Missionary College to explore the creation of a distinctly colonial Christian culture in Canterbury. This culture was both created and curated through networks and connections made between Canterbury and colonial dioceses, the imagined world of letters fostered by the College, and the presence in Canterbury of “foreign students” whose apparently exemplary lives brought the Empire home to the “garden of England.” Reinforcing the important point that Britain was part of a mutually‐constituted Empire, this article demonstrates how colonial cultures in Britain could be sustained through various means–cultural, social, and here institutional. It moreover uses the case of St. Augustine's to showcase the increasingly self‐conscious links between religion and Empire within Established Anglicanism as colonisation forged the city of Canterbury into the head of a colonial and global Anglican Communion.

Civic art galleries and interwar exhibition cultures in Britain

ABSTRACT Exploring the interwar exhibition histories of four civic art galleries in the East Midlands, this article demonstrates how such institutions in Britain became active agents in the production of interwar art exhibition cultures. It argues that networked curators were instrumental in moulding the practices and structures that fed civic exhibition production, and that their active involvement in wide-reaching professional networks such as the Museums Association meant that they also shaped art exhibition practices at a national level. By promoting public consumption of a wide range of artistic periods and styles, highlighting regional cultural assets, and supporting local art production, civic galleries in the 1920s and 30s helped to build regional capacity, ultimately providing a fertile basis for the centralisation of public and governmental support for the arts in Britain after 1940.

Uncivil and unruly Englishness: mythologies of England recast in the work of Jez Butterworth and Angela Carter

ABSTRACT Written eighteen years apart Jez Butterworth's play Jerusalem (2010) [Jerusalem. Nick Hern Books] and Angela Carter's final novel Wise Children (1992) [Wise children. Vintage Classics] both attempt to recreate a sense of Englishness for the marginalised ‘under-class’ of post-imperial England without falling prey to nationalist interpretations. The two texts present raucous, vulgar protagonists who force an alternative rebellious form of proudly proletarian English identity into being. Where Carter’s work is seen against the post-war backdrop of industrial decline, Butterworth’s work is connected to a renewed interest in vernacular rural English culture. The action of both texts take place on one day, 23 April, making use of the fact that the day of national celebration, St George's Day, coincides with that of Shakespeare's birthday. Both texts, in fact, reclaim the mainstays of English national identity, Shakespeare and the myth of St George and recast them with characters who revel in the enactment of their anti-establishment identities. This paper will argue that the purposefully unruly behaviour of the protagonists of these texts continue the tradition of incivility as a form of social resistance in England, allowing the creation and assertion of an alternative Englishness that emanates from the margins and sees its roots in Shakespearean bawdiness and England’s pagan past.

British Identity in the 1990s–2020s in the Context of Multi- and Interculturalism

This article presents the results of a study of the discourse of British identity formed between the 1990s and 2020s and includes, in addition to elements of “indigenous” British culture, foreign ethnic elements introduced by immigration — in the context of the development of multiculturalism and Islamic “immigration”. Following public discourse, groups or individuals who are qualified by British society as “other” or “low-ranking” because of religious beliefs, skin colour, or origin, even if we are talking about people who have British citizenship and have lived in Britain for several generations, are referred to as “immigrants”. The authors conduct an analysis of modern national and foreign historiography on the topic of research based on official documents, statistical data, media materials, and authorial ethnographic materials (including observation, in-depth interviews, testing) collected between 2010 and 2020 in England and Scotland, mainly among the Islamic population. For the contemporary UK, it is relevant to search for an adequate interracial and intersocial paradigm for a multicultural community. British society is actively discussing the question of the prospects of multiculturalism (or interculturalism) as the basis of the modern national identity of all British citizens. Such “Britishness” is rejected not only by “immigrants”, but also by “indigenous” Britons due to the vagueness, idealization, and negative connotative connection of this concept with imperialism and colonialism, and antagonism towards the priority of regional and local identities of the inhabitants of the country. The authors conclude that in the 1990s–2020s, for the “immigrant” population, “Britishness” remained the highest priority of the existing national or regional identities of England, Wales, and Scotland. However, modern attempts made by both the authorities of the country and the public to form positive ideas about each other among white Britons and members of foreign ethnic communities, despite some successes in comparison with other countries, have been subjected to destructive criticism from all groups of the British population due to the difficulty of integrating “immigrants” into British culture and British identity. In most post-industrial regions of the country, the proposed strategies for integrating communities today are perceived as ineffective or even utopian.

Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Teaching Strategies for English Cultural Communication in Colleges and Universities

Abstract This paper utilizes artificial intelligence-related technologies, such as intelligent agents and text mining, to form the two basic modules of the English Cultural Communication Platform, which facilitates simple online English cultural communication. This study employs questionnaires and surveys to comprehensively understand and analyze the English cultural communicative competence of international education masters who have used the English cultural communication platform for teaching purposes. Independent sample t-tests and one-way ANOVA were used to look into how it affected different parts of English cultural communication competence. The results showed that most students could learn about the lives and cultures of other countries through the platform. 60.07%, 80%, and 90% of the students believe that they can effectively improve their knowledge, attitude, and skills in English cultural communication, respectively. The length of teaching practice on the English cultural communication platform has a significant effect on English cultural sensitivity and English cultural efficacy (P = 0.002), while English proficiency has little effect on influencing English cultural communication skills (P > 0.05). Through this platform, students can effectively develop multicultural communication skills and awareness.

Change and Decline in London's Jewish East End: The Yiddish Sketches of Katie Brown

Abstract: The British Yiddish writer Katie Brown wrote humorous stories and sketches for the London Yiddish newspapers Di post (The Post) in the 1930s and Di tsayt (The Times) in the 1940s. The stories, set in London's Jewish East End, concern the day-to-day effects of immigration, poverty, and Jewish culture in Britain. After the Second World War, in a bombed-out East End where Jewish migration to the suburbs was accelerating, Brown did not write entirely new sketches, but rather edited versions of her prewar stories. Looking at the earlier and later stories together, we get a sense of the changes happening to London's Jewish community: the decline of Jewish culture and religious practice, the changing relationship with the Eastern European homeland, and the decline of the Yiddish language. Through close reading and analysis, this article gives historical background to Brown and the social, cultural, and political context of her stories. It situates Brown as the only female journalist writing regularly for the press and identifies her unique perspective in making poignant interventions into Jewish debates of the day through stories of small incidents in family life. She raises questions around how to maintain a Jewish identity in England and visibility as a Jew in a Christian world, and traces change through two decades by describing the tension between the immigrant generation and their children. Using a range of neglected source material in Yiddish, this article throws new light on the Jewish East End in its twilight years.