UK (798447), страница 6
Текст из файла (страница 6)
Among serious weekly journals are The New Statesman and Society, the Economist, the Spectator and The New Scientist. “The Times” publishes influential weekly magazines, such as the Educational Supplement, the Higher Education Supplement and the Literary Supplement. A very interesting journal for scientists is Scientific American.
The Broadcasting Media
In spite of Englishmen’s love for newspapers and magazines they have to compete first with radio, television and internet. Although some of them have survived, since the 1970s there has been a decline in sales and in the number of national and other newspapers and magazines.
The broadcasting media consist of radio and television. Three authorities oversee these services: the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and the Radio Authority.
The BBC is based mainly in Broadcasting House in London, but has stations throughout the country, which provide regional networks for radio and television. It was created by Royal Charter and has a board of governors who are responsible for supervising its programmes. They are appointed by the Crown on the advice of government ministers and are financed by a grant from Parliament, which comes from the sale of television licensees. These are payable by anyone who owns a television set. The BBC also generates considerable income from selling its programmes abroad and from the sale of a program guide (Radio Times), books, magazines and videos.
The BBC’s external services, the World Service in English and 42 other languages abroad, were founded in 1932 and are funded by the Foreign Office. These have a reputation for objective news reporting and programmes. News reports, documentaries and current-affairs analyses, animal films are generally of a high standard.
The BBC also began commercially funded television programmes in 1991 by cable to Europe and by satellite links to Africa and Asia. BBC World news has now merged with the World Service.
The BBC is not a state organization, but it is not as independent on political pressures as many in Britain and overseas assume. Its charter has to be renewed by Parliament and by its terms government can, and does, intervene in the showing of programs. The BBC governors are in fact government appointees. Governments can also exert pressure upon the BBC when the license fee comes up for renewal by Parliament.
There are 5 national radio channels and 39 local stations serving many districts in England and regional and community services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The national channels specialize in different tastes. Radio 1 caters for pop music; Radio 2 has light music, news, and comedy; Radio 3 provides classical and modern serious music, talks, discussions and plays; Radio 4 concentrates on news reports, analysis, talks and plays; and Radio 5 Live (established in 1990) has sport and news programs.
The BBC was certainly affected by the invention of television and the Internet, which changed British entertainment and news habits. The BBC now has two television channels (BBC1 and BBC2). BBC1 is a mass-appeal channel with an audience share of 28 per cent. Its programmes consist of news, plays and drama series, comedy, quiz shows, variety performances, sport and documentaries. BBC2, with an audience share of 11 per cent, tends to show more serious items such as news analysis and discussion, documentaries, adaptations of novels into plays and series, operas, concerts and some sports. It also provides Open University courses. In 2001 The Labour government approved the expansion of BBC television services by the creation of a BBC4 channel (culture and the arts) and two channels for children.
A large number of the programmes shown on television are made in Britain, although there are also many imported American series. A few programmes come from other English-speaking countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Although British television has a high reputation abroad, lately the bias of some programs is changing. At the moment there is a lot of criticism about sex, violence and bad language on British television. A Broadcasting Standards Complaints Commission monitors programmes, examines complaints, establishes codes of conduct for the broadcasting organizations.
Reuters News Agency is an international news agency headqutered in London. It operates in more than 200 cities and offers quick and easy access to hot news in about 200 languages.
Translate into Russian:
Circulation, Editorials to hinder Censorship
To eliminate Superficial Illiteracy Allegedly
The Foreign Office Government appointees Availability
Revenue To exert pressure
To merge updated news
To oversee Obscenity
Answer the questions:
1. What does the term “media” include?
2. What is the reason why the British continue to buy and read newspapers in our internet age?
3. Which categories are the British newspapers divided into?
4. Do you know any names of the British newspapers or magazines (journals)?
5. What are the main British radio and television channels?
6. What is the BBC service?
7. What is Reuters ?
FOLKLORE AND LITERATURE
The studies of the British culture cannot stand apart from the research of its important product – folklore. The folklore and folk customs of England developed over a long chain of centuries. Some ancient customs were passed from Celtic to Germanic generations and further. Invaders and settlers brought with them their own beliefs, which mixed with older traditions.
The main system of values, beliefs and traditions of British nations is mostly reflected in the ballads and fairy tales.
Although the subjects of ballads vary considerably, some major classes of the ballad can be distinguished— among them the historical and heroic such as Beowulf, King Arthur songs and Robin Hood cycle.
Beowulf is an Old anonymous English heroic epic poem. Its creation dates to between the 8th and the 11th century. It is long, as there are 3183 lines and devoted to brave and strong hero who fought for the good of his people, killing two monsters. Beowulf has been adapted a number of times in cinema, on the stage, and in books.
Another old recorded ballad in the English language is the legend devoted to King Arthur who was a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries. According to medieval histories he led the defense of celts against Saxon invaders. 
There is also the story of Round Table associated with King Arthur. In Arthurian legend King Arthur had a round table so that none of his knights, when seated at it, could claim precedence over the others.
Another ballad printed in the late 15th or early 16th centuries is devoted to “Robyn Hood". Robin Hood is a heroic outlaw in English folklore, and, according to legend, was also a highly skilled archer, assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his “Merry Men”. Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes and lived in Sherwood forest.
Robin Hood became a popular folk figure in the medieval period as the one who was fighting with the unscrupulous sheriff. Robbing the rich he gave everything to the poor He continues to be widely represented in modern literature, films and television.
The old ballads are a very valuable part of poetical literature. Ballads are a rich source of data connected with history, social life, feelings and values of the people living on the British Isle.
Like ballads English Fairy Tales circulated in England in oral form. One of the oldest printed fairy tales in England was Tom Thumb . In this fairytale a childless poor couple asked Magician Merlin to give them a son even if he were no bigger than his father’s thumb. Tom Thumb uncounted many adventures. The last of them was being eaten by a fish which was then caught for King Arthur’s table. Tom became a knight and when he died was mourned by the whole Arthur’s court.
The English fairytales were mostly humorous ones, except for the more magical Three Heads in the Well. Later Victorian collectors found some other oral examples, including Tom Tit Tot and Cap o' Rushes from Suffolk, the Small-Tooth Dog from Derbyshire, and the Rose Tree from Devon.
In the 18th century English fairy tales were published mainly by French Perrault. Selections from these were quickly translated and cheaply printed. Such fairy tales as Cinderella, Bluebeard, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Frog Prince, Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and The Little Mermaid were totally absorbed into English culture.
Literature.
British literature is so rich that it is absolutely impossible to describe its history and its main writers, poets and dramatists in any detail. Like many other world literatures English literature grew up from the rich and diverse folklore of the nations in this country. Rich narrative traditions of ballads, songs and tales come to us through literature, writings of English authors ranging from Chaucer, Shakespeare and Ben Johnson, to William Yeats, Burns and Bernard Shaw and John Milton.
Everyone in the childhood read Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), historical novels of Walter Scott, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield by one of the greatest English writers of the 19th century Charles Dickens (1812-1870).
The Bronte sisters were exceptional writers of poetry as well as fiction. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte are read and enjoyed even now.
Thomas Hardy’s and Jane Austen’s novels reflected different sides of English life of the 19th century. It was not easy for 19 century women writers to sell their books under their real names. Many of them used male pseudonyms: George Eliot (1819-1880) never used her real name which was Mary Ann Evans. Her books show a detailed picture of provincial Victorian society with humour and feeling.
A Scottish writer Robert Stevenson (180-94) wrote famous adventure novels, and an English novelist William Thackeray (1811-63) in his brilliant satire Vanity Fair became the master of great individuality.
Jerome, K. Jerome (1859-1927) wrote two humorous books, one of which Three Men in a Boat is favourite with the Russian students.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) wrote a lot of poems, stories and tales, which children of all the countries still enjoy today. His stories about Mowglii and finest animal stories inspired American Walt Disney to create wonderful cartoon films. Kipling was the first English writer to be awarded with the Nobel Prize in 1907. An Irish-born author Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) created novels, stories and plays, still staged in Russian theatres.
There were many wonderful poets in Britain. Romantic poets Baron and Shelly influenced the poetry of Alezander Pushkin.
Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) whom we know in wonderful translations by Marshak g
rew up on the folklore traditions of his land. R.Burns managed to combine in his simple poems tenderness, rich humour, lyric and love for freedom of the Scottish folklore heroes. His birthday is celebrated in Scotland as the national holiday and his statue and house in Dumfries are the places, visited by his numerous admirers.
The 20th century gave a great number of talented British writers, poets and dramatists: poet Thomas Eliot (1888-1965), novelist and dramatist John Galsworthy (1867-1933), David Lawrence, satirist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), Sean O’Keisi, Richard Oldington, novelist, dramatist and essayist John Priestly (1894-1984), Evelyn Waugh (1903-66), Graham Green (1904-91), Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941) and many others.
Joyce’s novel Ulysses started the development of modernist literature in Britain. In this novel and later in Einnegan’s Wake Joyce revolutionized the techniques of fiction – writing, introducing the “stream of consciousness,” inventing words and experimenting with syntax. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) in her novels also experimented with the stream-of-consciosness narrative technique.
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