British Working Research Articles

‘To Make Britain Concrete Minded’: Peter László Peri’s <em>London Life in Concrete</em> (1938)

In 1938, sculptor Peter László Peri staged a solo exhibition in London titled London Life in Concrete, a selection of sculptural works fabricated out of concrete. Contemporaneous critics enthused about Peri’s experiments with the exciting new medium. Multi-coloured relief works, set on a high ledge that encircled the room, showed scenes of everyday life in the capital: figures of shoppers, builders, and commuters arrayed across flattened backgrounds. The simple format of these sculptures belied the political entanglements of Peri’s chosen material. Rough finishes typify Peri’s concrete works, both those exhibited in London Life in Concrete and those later commissioned to decorate a post-war public housing complex in London. Their explicitly modelled surfaces present the medium as one tied to human labour and equate the work of builder and of artist. London Life in Concrete was sponsored by the Cement and Concrete Association (CCA), a new trade group established to promote the use of concrete in building projects in Britain. This paper traces the history of Peri’s concrete sculptures and the relationship between Peri and the CCA. It reveals the role that Peri’s work played in the commercial project to establish concrete as the architectural material best suited—both practically and ideologically—to the homes of the British working class.

The Conundrum of Similarity: Tsubouchi Shōyō and H. M. Posnett on the Meaning of Cross-Textual Resemblance

ABSTRACT How can a critic account for a perceived resemblance between texts that are not related by influence? The present article examines how this question was answered by Tsubouchi Shōyō, a key figure in the early history of the academic discipline of comparative literature in Japan. In 1890 or 1891, Shōyō lectured on a then-new field of inquiry: hishō (or hikaku) bungaku. His lectures were avowedly a free adaptation of Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett’s Comparative Literature (1886). Shōyō was among the first generation of Japanese to receive an education in European literatures and undertook pioneering work in what might be called “east-west” criticism, uncovering many similarities between works in Japanese and English. But since there had been almost no exchange between Japanese literature and European literatures for centuries, accounting for those similarities posed a challenge. This might explain why Shōyō found Posnett’s methodology valuable: Posnett applied social science to the study of literature as a way to supersede criticism based on identifiable literary influence. Shōyō’s own comparative criticism, however, differed from Posnett’s: while Posnett maintained that resemblances, even between notionally unrelated texts, must be referable to some commonality of context, Shōyō maintained that cross-textual similarity could arise purely by accident.

The formation of tea culture in British

When foreign people think of British culture nowadays, they can easily picture gentlemen and ladies elegantly dressed, surrounded by fine furniture and utensils, enjoying afternoon tea. The unique tea culture has already become a strong impression of Britain. This article explores the positioning of tea within the map of cultural differentiation, highlighting its status as a significant symbol of British culture, despite Britain not being its country of origin. The success of tea arose from the collision of Eastern and Western civilizations, with Chinese tea being introduced to Britain by Dutch merchant ships in the 17th century, marking its economic rise. The paper raises key questions about how tea transformed from an exotic product into a British cultural icon and whether the promotion of tea culture in Britain is mere imitation or rooted in local traditions. Additionally, it reviews research by Chinese and foreign scholars on British tea culture, focusing on the origins of tea culture in China, including the history of tea cultivation and consumption, and the evolution of tea culture in various dynasties. The second half describes in detail the thriving process of tea trade in Britain since the 17th century, the background of tea culture breaking the gender status and other restrictions in British society, and the different connotations and influences of tea culture in the British upper society and working class.

TRANSLATION OF THE MYSTERY PLAY NOAH, FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE THEORY

The general aim of this work was to translate the mystery play Noah, from medieval English literature. To this end, this article presents the theory behind the translation proposal: Dynamic Equivalence Theory (Nida, 2001). In addition to Nida (idem), our research was based on Orlin (2006), Herenkov (2011), Palmer (2008), Bell (1991), Venuti (1995) and Pym (2010). Since the methodological proposal is a Middle English work, we consulted online dictionaries of Middle English terms, online libraries specializing in medieval literature, and online translation tools. The result of this work (translation of the play Noah into Portuguese) can be found at the end of this article. In this way, we hope to have contributed to the democratization of reading, the dissemination of knowledge, and the perpetuation of knowledge.

An Overview of Works on the History of Kashmir: From Traditional Sanskrit to New English Sources

This article provides an overview of key sources on the history of Kashmir, covering the period from ancient Sanskrit chronicles to more recent historical works in Persian and English. The paper analyses texts such as Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, which is considered to be one of the most important sources on the history of Kashmir, the works of Narayan Kaul, Muhammad ‘Azam Didamari, and others. The study of these historical works allows us not only to reconstruct the events of the past but also to understand whether the perception of the history and culture of Kashmir has changed in the minds of people over time. Comparison of various sources helps to identify common themes and differences in the interpretation of historical events, which contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex and multifaceted history of the region, and sheds light on the role of Kashmir as a cultural and political hub, its relationships with neighboring regions, and its influence on the development of the Indian subcontinent as a whole. This makes it possible to consider the history of Kashmir not in isolation, but in the context of broader historical processes taking place in South Asia.

ETHNOCULTURAL VOCABULARY AS A SOURCE OF ETHNICAL INFORMATION IN BRITISH LITERATURE

This article analyses S. Maugham’s and N. Hornby’s works, exploring how national values and ethno-culture are reflected in their writing. The study focuses on their works, one classic and the other modern, revealing the peculiarities of their styles, language. The article examines the role of phraseological units in creating character images in works of art, based on Hornby's modern English novel ‘About a boy’ and 'The Razor's Edge' by S. Maugham. Phraseology plays a crucial role in language as it helps to convey the author's true intentions. By updating the usual and occasional meanings in context, phraseological units allow readers to understand the depth and versatility of artistic images created by writers. The idiomatic and phraseological units employed by writers can be used to construct a cultural picture of nation and country. Therefore, studying the works of classic and modern writers is a significant objective in itself. The employed methods, namely comparative, cultural-historical and stylistic analysis of the collected data, contributed to the revelation of the principal approaches of the two writers in their representation of reality. The results of the study reflect the linguistic features of the prose of the two writers, including stylistic devices, fixed expressions and idioms. This enables a linguistic and literary analysis and interpretation of the British works, thus conferring practical significance upon the study. It is concluded that both writers use phrases related to their national mentality and historical periods.

Preventing and treating childhood obesity by sleeping better: a systematic review.

Childhood obesity represents a major public health issue worldwide. Evidence showed the need to implement prevention strategies mainly focused on lifestyle habits. Sleep hygiene is a variable of great interest and this review systematically examined the effects of sleep duration in increasing childhood obesity risk. A systematic literature review was conducted from December 2023 to February 2024. Study selection and data extraction procedures were performed in accordance with Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Guidelines and Statement, and risk of publication bias was assessed by the Effective Public Health Practice Project Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies. Original works in English were eligible for review and eleven studies that met the inclusion criteria were included. Studies collected were heterogeneous in terms of duration, sample characteristics, hours of sleep manipulation, anthropometric and hematological parameters collected, therefore it was not possible to perform a meta-analysis. A narrative synthesis of the reported evidence highlighted the impact of sleep duration above all on food intake, eating habits and hormone levels and consequently on the risk of childhood obesity development. This finding suggests the need to consider sleep hygiene as a modifiable lifestyle habit like diet and physical activity, in order to early prevent childhood obesity. Poor sleep hygiene can significantly contribute to weight gain and exacerbation of metabolic disorders linked to childhood obesity. Although more rigorous studies are needed, clinicians need to be aware of the role of sleep hygiene in reducing childhood obesity risk.

Effectiveness of Escape Room in Medical Education: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

The primary goal of this meta-analysis is to explore the five factors of knowledge, teamwork, learning satisfaction, anxiety, and interprofessional ability to determine the value of escape rooms in medical education. Up to January 2023, we searched ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CNKI, and the Cochrane Library for pertinent works in either English or Chinese. The Risk of Bias 2 (RoB 2) tool and Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) were used to assess the quality of studies. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were used to assess statistical heterogeneity, and I2 was used to measure it. Overall, escape rooms had a more significant positive effect than traditional learning on knowledge (standardized mean difference [SMD]: 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.36-1.33), teamwork (SMD: 4.91; 95% CI: 4.58-5.24), learning satisfaction (MD: 0.36; 95% CI: 0.08-0.64), and interprofessional ability (SMD: 1.04, 95% CI: 0.81-1.27). Moreover, the impact of escape rooms on anxiety also had significant effects (SMD: -8.23, 95% CI: -11.64 to -4.82). Escape rooms affect medical students' knowledge, teamwork, learning satisfaction, interprofessional ability, and anxiety. The findings of this study can be used as evidence that escape rooms is a more effective method than traditional teaching for improving active learning.

Aesthetic Tradition and Cultural Temperament

British and American literature is one of the bright gems in the history of world literature, which has formed a unique literature after many times of historical evolution and integration of national culture. This paper makes an in-depth study of the historical development of Britain and the United States, starting from the three dimensions of "aesthetic tradition", "cultural temperament" and "translation of British and American literature", and discussing from two aspects of literary criticism and aesthetic perception. It is helpful to understand the unique cultural connotation and temperament of British and American culture, so as to better understand the cultural connotation of British and American classics and improve the translation quality of British and America literary works.

Correlation of Maternal Vitamin D Status in Early Pregnancy and Vitamin D Supplementation during Pregnancy with Atopic Dermatitis in Infants: A Prospective Birth Cohort Study.

This study aimed to investigate the association of maternal first-trimester vitamin D levels and vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy with infant atopic dermatitis (AD) and to determine the effect of variables such as mode of conception on the association. This study was based on the Shanghai sub-cohort of the International Birth Cohort of China. A total of 4051 woman-infant pairs with singleton pregnancies were recruited. Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency were defined as serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations of 25 and 50 nmol/L, respectively. AD in infants was assessed during the first six months using a standardized questionnaire based on the British Working Party criteria. Modified Poisson regression estimated the association between maternal vitamin D status and infant AD. The risk of AD in infants was higher in women with deficient 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in the first trimester (RR: 1.77, 95% CI: 1.41-2.23). This increased risk was seen in naturally conceived pregnancies, but not in those conceived using assisted reproductive technology (ART). The incidence of AD decreased in infants of mothers who took multi-vitamin (RR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.67-1.98) and vitamin D supplements (RR: 0.51, 95% CI: 0.37-0.71) compared to those whose mothers did not take any supplements. Maternal vitamin D deficiency had varying effects on AD risk based on passive smoking exposure and breastfeeding patterns. Our findings highlight the importance of monitoring and supplementing vitamin D during pregnancy, especially in specific maternal populations, to reduce the risk of AD in offspring.

Real Historical Imagination: the Depths of Memory under the Spatial Transformation -- Comment on the Realistic Theme Dance Drama Deep in Memory

This article focuses on the dance drama Deep in Memory, which is adapted from the real historical event of the Nanjing Massacre. The author pays attention to three layers, one is the real historical events of the Nanjing Massacre, the English works of the Nanjing Massacre, the Nanjing Massacre: the forgotten catastrophe in the Second World War, and the director of the historical events of the Nanjing Massacre and the Nanjing Massacre: the forgotten catastrophe in the Second World War. Through these three levels of transformation, real memory discusses the contradiction between history and art, which involves the realistic technique of realistic dance drama; narrative memory focuses more in the internal research of art, and discusses the space, structure and form analysis of the two dance dramas; Warm memory shows the attitude of the author s through the works, showing the humanistic care and compassion.

Research hotspots and frontiers of Realgar based on CiteSpace knowledge graph analysis

This study employed knowledge graph technology to analyze the research status and hot spots of Realgar and provide guidance for clinical application and further research of this drug. The research articles both in English and Chinese involving Realgar were retrieved from five databases including CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, SinoMed, and Web of Science. And NoteExpress, a literature management software was used to screen literature. CiteSpace was utilized for visualized analysis and presentations of the authors, institutions, and keywords. 2 879 articles in Chinese and 194 articles in English were included. China Journal of Chinese Materia Medica and Journal of Ethnopharmacology were the top Chinese and English journals in terms of publication volume. Realgar is widely used in the treatment of skin diseases, blood diseases, and cancer. JIANG Hong was the author who have published more articles in Chinese and English working with teams. School of Public Health of China Medical University and China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences published the most articles in Chinese and English. The research on Realgar mainly focuses on clinical application, mechanism of action, reduction of toxicity, and enhancement of efficacy. The authors and institutions of Realgar research are mainly concentrated in China. The study on the mechanism of treating hematological diseases and cancer with Realgar, as well as the research on its effects of reducing toxicity and enhancing efficacy, are the current research hotspots. The mechanism of "same treatment for different diseases" in Realgar needs to be further explored. It is urgent to carry out interdisciplinary research on Realgar. This study can provide a refe-rence for the clinical application of Realgar and provide ideas for further research on Realgar.

Aspects of Innovative Language Use in Femi Adedina’s <i>Highway to Nowhere</i>

Code switching and mixing, lexical transfer, loan blend and semantic extension are innovations in the novel of Femi Adedina’s, Highway to Nowhere (HTN), the text used in this paper. Barbaresi’s Morphopragmatics, which integrates morphology and pragmatics, is the theoretical perspective. Our analysis focused on the aspects of code switching/ mixing, lexical transfer and loan blend used in HTN. Yoruba codes that cannot be pragmatically translated into English language codes but switched and mixed were analysed. Meaning of terms that contain semantic extension, figurative/proverbial and deep traditional Yoruba meanings were explicated. Lexical transfer of items like mágùn, Ìkòkò, Àkosèjáyé, etc., were done to locate the novel in Yoruba traditional and cultural contexts. The study concluded that writers of literary works in English as a second language should preserve the sacred codes/names that things are called in their cultures in the process of translating their experiences to other languages.

British Working Class Whiteness: Focusing on the New Labour in Power (1997-2010)

British Working Class Whiteness: Focusing on the New Labour in Power (1997-2010)

The usage of instrumental syntaxames with the prepositions

The analysis of the examples collected from the literary works of English and American writers testifies that the instrumental syntax is expressed explicitly using the models with+S, by+S, through+S, in+S, on+S, for+S. Among these models, the most productive in expressing instrumental syntax is with+S. In the sentences the combination with+S can appear in different syntactic positions

Analyzing the Multimodal Discourse of the Tenth Grade English Work in Progress Textbook

The most widely utilized educational tool across all grade levels is the textbook. Visual images are just one of the many crucial elements in a textbook. Textbook images serve a crucial purpose to improve students' learning and comprehension as they aid in the implementation and visualization of abstract or difficult ideas. Understanding multimodality is necessary in order to understand the meaning of an image. Thus, multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) is the most suitable approach for this research because it will evaluate parts of visual image elements in full detail. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of certain English textbooks are most dominant and how visual pictures might be represented using multimodal discourse. The framework for this qualitative study is multimodal discourse analysis. visual data was taken from the question sheets from chapters 1 through 6 of the English Work In Progress textbook for the tenth grade Merdeka curriculum. Kress and Van Leeuwen used visual grammar analysis to analyze visual data. The analysis conducted by the research found that every image on the question sheet matched the text provided, either as an instruction or a question. The images were made in a style that is typically used by high school students and were highly detailed. and provide information to help students develop critical and creative thinking. To help students in understanding the questions, the majority of the images are placed below the informative text. According to Kress and Van Leeuwen's theory of visual grammar analysis, in the representational mode the most dominant is the male subject or human image which accounts for 50% of the images in the textbook. In the interactive mode, the most dominant is medium shot and full color saturation with 19% and the last most dominant compositional mode is informative with 39%.

Reminiscence of the existentialism philosophy in Hindi literature

This article is focused on the peculiarities of the perception of existential philosophy in modern Indian literature of the late 20th–21st centuries. The research is based on the stories of Hindi writers – Kunwar Narain (1927–2017) and Nirmal Varma (1929–2005). Their works is the brightest example of existential literature. The research is also based on two English novels by Indian-born writers Anita Desai (born 1937) “Where Shall We Go This Summer?” and Upamanyu Chatterjee (born 1959) “English August”. Despite the renewed interest in existentialism in modern literature, known as neuro-existentialism , the study of which takes place with the participation of the latest achievements of neuroscience, there are still few analyses in Russian Indology that are aimed at studying the influence of this philosophical trend on Hindi works and postcolonial literature. The aesthetics of existentialism is quite pronounced, moreover, they, creating a new theme of literary works, remain within the framework of traditional poetics, referring to Indian images, plots, religious foundations of Hinduism, as well as to their own self-awareness. However, the philosophical implications of works in Hindi and English are different. Writers interpret the foundations of existentialism in different ways, and the characters choose different ways to solve their internal contradictions.In the light of the stated topic, the problem of why the psychological life of the characters of these writers is depicted differently is considered. If the heroes of K. Narain and N. Varma, accepting the absurdity of existence, do not see the infinity of suffering and death of meaning, building their lives around the belief in rebirth, then the hero of the works in English fatally accepts the frailty of existence, believing in his helplessness before fate.

Translation’s Pale, Life-Giving Fire: Observations on Navigating the Complexities of Literary Translation

This reflective essay aims to explore the intricacies, pitfalls and limitations of literary translation, specifically concerning the rendering of great English works of literature into Mandarin Chinese. For this purpose, extracts from Nabokov’s Pale Fire, Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost and Hamlet, as well as Joyce’s Ulysses, will be compared alongside their respective published Mandarin translations, to demonstrate just what an unforgiving task fictional rendering can be.

Constructing the 'New Worker-Self': Discursive Strategies in 'English Works!' Program brochures within the Pakistani Education System

In the context of globalization, the emergence of the "new worker-self" archetype has gained attention, with English proficiency playing a crucial role in Pakistan's socio-economic landscape. This study examines the 'English Works!' program brochures using Foucauldian theory to understand the construction of the "new worker-self" narrative and its alignment with global discourses. Through discursive strategies like student testimonials and skills emphasis, the brochures promote individual agency and market-oriented skills. However, this focus on skills may overlook structural inequalities and broader educational goals, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to education. The study contributes to understanding the interplay of neoliberal ideologies, skills acquisition, and subjectivities in the global labor market.

CLASS AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS ACCORDING TO E. P. THOMPSON

ABSTRACTIn this article, I extract a theory of class from E. P. Thompson's historical works of the 1960s and 1970s, focusing especially on his 1963 magnum opus The Making of the English Working Class, the articles later collected in the 1991 volume Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture, and the essays “The Peculiarities of the English” and “Eighteenth‐Century English Society: Class Struggle without Class?” In the first section, I argue, following Ellen Meiksins Wood, that Thompson developed a genuinely historical materialist theory of class formation as a “structured process” that moves from class struggle to class consciousness, a theory that complicates the frequent description of Thompson as a “voluntarist.” In the second section, I take a more critical position toward Thompson's understanding of class, discussing a tension between this notion of class as structured process and his numerous invocations of class as a form of “lived experience” whose diversity and unpredictability exceed theorization. This tension aside, Thompson claims that, in the case of the nineteenth‐century English working class, to which he dedicated so much research, lived experience coincided with the more general structured process he posits. In the third section, therefore, I more fully elaborate on this specific process of class formation as Thompson portrays it, identifying and discussing three intertwined threads: (1) a movement from a past‐oriented defense of traditional institutions to a future‐oriented demand for reforms, (2) the development of oppositional, class‐specific pedagogical institutions and practices, and (3) the creation of a distinct class culture (which Thompson closely aligns with the achievement of class consciousness) that is aware both of itself and of its antagonism with other classes.