英语国家社会与文化入门名词解释
武汉城市职业技术学院-北京科技大学国际学院
The Easter Rising
In order to gain
independence, different Irish groups had been
fighting against the British
institutions and
the British military forces. One such activity was
the Easter Rising which took
place in 1916.
the rebels occupied Dublin’s Post Office and
forced the British to take it back by
military
force. The leaders of the rebellion were executed
by the British authorities.
Sinn Fein
Sinn
Fein is a legal political party in Northern
Ireland which supports the IRA to fight for the
union of Ireland. The leaders of Sinn Fein
prefer union with Ireland by a twin campaign, both
military and political which they call the
policy of “the Bullet and the Ballot Box”. It
believes that
without the participation of
Sinn Fein the political problem of Northern
Ireland cannot be
thoroughly solved.
The
Good Friday Agreement
As a result of multi-
party negotiations, the Good Friday Agreement was
approved on 10 April
1998. This agreement
assures the loyalist community that Northern
Ireland remains part of the
United Kingdom and
it won’t change its political status unless the
majority of the people of
Northern Ireland
agree. Under the terms of the agreement, Northern
Ireland should be governed by
three separate
jurisdictions: that of the Republic of Ireland ,
that of Great Britain and that of its
own
elected executive government of ten ministers.
The Bill of Rights of 1689
In 1688, King
James II’s daughter Mary and her husband William
were invited by the politicians
and church
authorities to take the throne, on condition that
they would respect the right of
Parliament.
The Bill of Rights was passed in 1689 to ensure
that the King would never be able to
ignore
Parliament.
The House of Lords
The House
of Lords consists of the Lords Spiritual, who are
the Archbishops and most prominent
bishops of
the Church of England; and the Lords Temporal,
which refers to those lords who either
have
inherited the seat from their forefathers or they
have been appointed. The lords mainly
represent themselves instead of the interests
of the public.
The House of Commons
The
House of Commons is the real center of British
political life because it is the place where
about 650 elected representatives make and
debate policy. These MPs are elected in the
General
Elections and should represent the
interests of the people who vote for them.
The
electoral campaigns
Before a general election,
the political parties would start their electoral
campaigns in order to
make their ideologies
and polities known to the public. The campaign
involves advertisements in
newspapers, door-
to-door campaigning, postal deliveries of leaflets
and “party electoral broadcast
”on the
television. The parties also try to attack and
criticize the opponents’ policies. Therefore,
these campaigns sometimes can be quite
aggressive and critical.
Class system in
British society
The class system does exist in
British society. Most of the British population
would claim
themselves to be either of middle-
class or working-class, though some people would
actually
belong to the upper middle-class or
lower middle-class. Class divisions are not simply
economic,
they are cultural as well. People of
different classes may differ in the kind of
newspapers they read,
in the way they speak
and in the kind of education they receive. One of
the distinctive features
about the
British class system is that aristocratic titles
can still be inherited.
Ethnic relations in
the UK
The coming of immigrants groups from
other parts of the world has greatly enriched
British
culture. But ethnic relations are also
sometimes tense: the local people view the
newcomers as a
threat to their way of living;
and despite much official actions to minimize
racism, both subtle and
overt oppression
remains. The immigrant population is not well-off
economically. They face
problems of
unemployment, under-representation in politics and
unfair treatment by police and by
the justice
system.
Relative decline of the UK
The UK
has experienced an economic decline since 1945.
But this is a relative decline rather than
an
absolute one. Britain is wealthier and more
productive than it was in 1945, but since other
countries developed more rapidly, it has slid
from being the second largest economy to being the
sixth.
Privatisation in the 1980s
The
British economy went through a particularly bad
period in the 1970s, with high rates of
inflation and devaluation of the Pound.
Therefore, in the 1980s, when the Conservative
party
under Margaret Thatcher was in power, an
extensive programme of privatization was carried
out.
Many state-owned businesses(such as
steel, telecom, gas, aerospace) were turned into
private
companies. Privatisation was
successful in controlling inflation but at the
same time
unemployment rate increased rapidly.
“The City”
“The City” refers to the
historic area at the centre of London. It is one
of the biggest financial
centres in the world
with the greatest concentration of banks,
insurance companies and businesses
dealing in
commodities. At the heart of the city is the
London Stock Exchange.
Elizabethan Drama
The general flowering of cultural and
intellectual life in Europe during the 15th and
16th centuries
is know ad the Renaissance. In
British culture, one of the most successful and
long－lasting
expressions of this development
lay in drama. That was the period of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth.
The first professional
theatre in London opened in 1576,and others
followed, performing the plays
of many notable
playwrights, including Christopher Marlowe ,Ben
Jonson and William
Shakespeare.
Romanticism
Roughly the first third of the
19
th
makes up English literature’s
romantic period .Writers of
romantic
literature are more concerned with imagination and
feeling than with the power of
reason.. A
volume of poems called Lyrical Ballads written by
William Wordsworth and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge
is regarded as the romantic poetry’s’’ Declaration
of Independence’’. Keats,
Byron and Shelley,
the three great poets, brought the Romantic
Movement to its height. The spirit
of
Romanticism also occurred in the novel
Modernism
Modernism refers to a form of
literature mainly written before World War is
characterized by a
high degree of
experimentation. It can be seen as a reaction
against the 19
th
century of forms of
Realism. Modernist writers express the
difficulty they see in understanding and
communicating
how the world works .Often,
Modernist writing seems disorganized, hard to
understand. It often
portrays the action from
the viewpoint of a single confused individual,
rather than from the
viewpoint of an
all－knowing impersonal narrator outside the
action. One of the most famous
English
Modernist writers is Virginia Woolf.
Comprehensive schools
Comprehensive
schools are the most popular secondary schools in
Britain today. Such schools
admit children
without reference to their academic abilities and
provide a general education.
Pupils can study
everything from academic subjects like literature
to more practical subjects like
cooking.
Independent schools
Independent schools
are commonly called public schools which are
actually private schools that
receive their
funding through the private sector and tuition
rates, with some government assistance.
Independent schools are not part of national
education system, but the quality of instruction
and
standards are maintained through visits
from Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools. These
schools
are restricted to the students whose
parents are comparatively rich.
The Open
University
The Open University was founded in
Britain in the 1960s for people who might not get
the
opportunity for higher education for
economic and social reasons. It’s open to
everybody and does
not demand the same formal
educational qualifications as the other
universities. University
courses are followed
through TV, radio, correspondence, videos and a
net work of study centres.
At the end of their
studies at the Open University, successful
students are awarded a university
degree,
The foundations of British foreign policy
The contemporary foreign policy of the UK is
greatly influenced by its imperial history and
also
by its geopolitical traits. As Britain
lost its empire so recently, British policy-makers
frequently
forget that Britain is not as
influential as it used to be in world affairs.
Another decisive influence
upon the way
Britain handles its external affairs is
geopolitical attitude to Europe.
The
Commonwealth
In the author’s opinion, the
Commonwealth is a voluntary association of states
which is made up
of Britain and mostly of
former British colonies. There are 54 members of
the Commonwealth
including one currently
suspended member: many of these are developing
countries like India and
Cyprus; other are
developed nations like Australia, Canada and New
Zealand. The Commonwealth
was set up as a
forum for continued cooperation and as a sort of
support network.
Quality papers
They
belong to one of the categories of the national
dailies. The quality papers carry more serious
and in-depth articles of particular political
and social importance. They also carry reviews,
such as
book reviews, and feature articles
about high culture. These papers are also referred
to as “the
broadsheets” because they are
printed on large-size paper. The readers of such
newspapers are
generally a well-educate middle
class audience.
Tabloids
A tabloid is a
small format newspaper with color photos and
catchy headlines. Tabloids are
interested in
scandals and gossip usually about famous people.
They also carry lots of crime,
sports and
sensational human interest stories so as to
attract readers. Stories are short, easy to read
and often rely more on opinions than fact.
They belong to a category of national papers
different
from quality papers.
The three
traditions of Christmas in Britain
There are three Christmas traditions
which are particularly British: one is the
Christmas
Pantomime, a comical musical play.
The main male character is played by a young woman
while
the main female character, often an ugly
woman called “the Dame,” is played by a man.
Another
British Christmas tradition is to hear
the Queen give her Christmas massage to her realm
over the
television and radio. A third British
tradition is Boxing Day, which falls on the day
after Christmas.
Traditionally, it was on
Boxing Day that people gave Christmas gifts or
money to their staff or
servants. Now that
most British people do not have servants, this
custom is no longer observed.
However, a new
Boxing Day custom has emerged, in the cities:
shopping. Shops open up to sell
off al their
Christmas stock decorations, food, cards and gift
items at low prices.
The Great Famine
The
Great Famine took place from 1845-1848 when
successive potato crops failed and many
people
of Ireland starved to death, or died of the
diseases which preyed on malnutrition. Many left
the country for the New World. The Great
Famine became a watershed in Irish history, not
merely
because there was mass starvation and
emigration, but also because the British
government
appeared to be indifferent to the
fate of the poorest people in its nearest colony.
Naturally this
period is characterized by
campaigns for national independence and land
reform.
The Irish parliament
The
Parliament of Ireland is comprised of two houses:
the Parliament and the Senate. Government
policy and administration may be examined and
criticized in both Houses but under the
Constitution the Government is responsible to
the Parliament alone.
Women’s Liberation
Movement
Inaugurated in the early 1970s, the
women’s movement concentrated first on gaining
control of
their own fertility, demanding
birth control, divorce, and the right to have an
abortion if necessary.
The first two goals
have been achieved over a span of about twenty
years, but abortion is still
legally forbidden
in the Republic or Ireland and is still regarded
as a highly emotional topic. The
second
objective was to secure the right of women, and
that of particularly married women, to
work.
Today, about half of the women of Ireland of
working age hold down full-time jobs.
The
Irish diaspora
The Irish diaspora, as it has
been called, is a scattering of Irish people
across the world, usually as
the result of
dire conditions at home----famine, foreign
domination, and poverty. As a result, Irish
people can today be found in significant
concentrations in many countries. In fact, it is
hard to go
anywhere and not find Irish people.
The Dreaming
The Dreaming is the belief
system from ancient times that has bound
indigenous groups together.
The central
principle of the Dreaming is that the people who
live on the continent have special
responsibilities to the land. The people don’t
own the land, instead the land owns the people.
The
stories of the Dreaming provide principles
of how people should live and interact with each
other.
They also provide knowledge of the land
so that the indigenous people can survive in the
life-threatening environment.
Terra
Nullius
Terra Nullius is from Latin. It means
a land that owned by no one. The British declared
the
Australian continent Terra Nullius to
justify their invasion of the indigenous people’s
land. It
served to legitimize their taking
possession of the land and devalue the indigenous
people as
uncivilized and not fully human.
The policy of assimilation
The
policy of assimilation was implemented at the
beginning of the 20th century. It was founded
on the belief that the white culture was
progressive and superior while the indigenous
culture was
inferior. To implement the policy,
indigenous children were taken away from their
parents to be
put into protected reserves,
whose purpose was to destroy the culture of the
Dreaming and replace
it with Christianity. The
impact grew up losing both their families and
culture. In nature, it is the
extension of the
policy of segregation.
The “Washminister” form
of policy
The “Washminister” form of policy is
adopted by the Australian government. It is a
mixture of the
US Washington system of
government and the British Westminster system.
This means that the
political structure of the
government is based on a Federation of States with
a three-tier system of
government. However,
the chief executive is a Prime Minister, instead
of a President as in the US
system.
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism was
adopted in 1973. It was comprised of 3 areas of
policy: Cultural Identity,
which means the
right to express and share one’s cultural
heritage; Social Justice, to right to equal
treatment and opportunity; and Economic
Efficiency, the need to maintain and develop the
skills
of all Australians regardless of their
backgrounds.
The White Australia Policy
The White Australia Policy was officially
adopted by the Commonwealth of Australian in 1901,
in
the Immigration Restriction Act. It was
made to stop Chinese and other non-British
migrants from
entering and settling down in
Australia. This was mainly achieved through a
diction test in a
European language. The White
Australia Policy was officially abolished in 1973.