MEET BY CLOTHES, SEE YOU OFF BY MIND

ВСТРЕЧАЮТ ПО ОДЕЖКЕ, ПРОВОЖАЮТ ПО УМУ

Утина Елена Михайловна

учитель английского языка, МАОУ СОШ № 73,

РФ, г. Новосибирск

Мащенко Евгения Юрьевна

учитель английского языка, МАОУ СОШ № 73,

РФ, г. Новосибирск

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the use of inscriptions, logos and brands in English on clothing. In this paper, an excellent theoretical study has been conducted, the topic of the work is exhaustively disclosed. The work is logically constructed; the authors of the work consistently answer all the questions posed, which indicates a great interest in this topic and a careful approach to the study of theoretical material. As a result, we conducted our own brilliant study of the use of inscriptions in English on clothes, in the process of which both scientific generalizations and our own conclusions were obtained. As a result, the independent and interesting work was made. The authors of the work trace the formation of research skills, as well as skills of proving heuristic and logical thinking.

АННОТАЦИЯ

в данной статье рассматривается использование надписей, логотипов и брендов на английском языке на одежде. В данной работе проведено прекрасное теоретическое исследование, исчерпывающе раскрыта тема работы. Работа построена логично, авторы работы последовательно отвечают на все поставленные вопросы, что свидетельствует о большом интересе к данной теме и тщательном подходе к изучению теоретического материала. Как итог - проведено собственное блестящее исследование употребления надписей на английском языке на одежде, в процессе которого были сделаны как научные обобщения, так и собственные выводы, полученные в результате самостоятельной работы. У авторов работы прослеживается формирование исследовательских навыков, а также навыков доказательства эвристического и логического мышления.

Keywords: Inscription; semantic characteristics; classification; history of the appearance; historical development; a sense in solidarity; to emphasize; linguistic research; linguistic peculiarities; appeals; celebrities; grammatical or spelling mistakes; conclusion; incomprehensible.

Ключевые слова: Надпись; семантические характеристики; классификация; история появления; историческое развитие; чувство солидарности; подчеркнуть; лингвистическое исследование; лингвистические особенности; обращения; знаменитости; грамматические или орфографические ошибки; заключение; непонятный.

The relevance of the chosen theme is due to the fact that an irreplaceable attribute of modern youth is clothing with various logos of brands, emblems, drawings, decorations, inscriptions in foreign languages. The common language on these inscriptions is English, due to its internationality.

Modern young people try to stand out from the crowd by buying and wearing clothes that attract a lot of attention.

Our question was: do the owners understand the meaning of inscriptions in a foreign language, namely English? In our research, we will find the answer to this question.

The aim is to establish the dependence of the semantic load on the level of language proficiency of the owners of these clothes.

Tasks:

-To study the history of the appearance of such inscriptions;

- To study the meaning of such inscriptions;

- To study the inscriptions on the clothes of famous people and to find out why they wore these clothes.

-Select a number of inscriptions on clothes;

-Translate these inscriptions into Russian;

-Identify the age of the wearer;

-Identify the reason for buying these clothes;

-analyse and summarise the data;

The object of the study are inscriptions on clothes.

The subject is the information carried by the inscriptions.

Hypothesis Modern young people who wear such clothes do not fully understand or do not understand the meaning of these inscriptions.

The research was carried out in stages. We have distinguished the following stages:

Stages:

-Preliminary stage: gathering information.

-Second stage: interviewing children and young people, analysing meanings and comparing inscriptions.

-Third stage: drawing conclusions and presenting the results.

Methods: exploratory and analytical.

The thesis consists of: introduction, theoretical chapter, practical chapter, conclusion.

Effectiveness: graphs of the social survey have been compiled; a comparative table of inscriptions has been compiled.

Актуальность выбранной темы обусловлена тем, что незаменимым атрибутом современной молодежи является одежда с различными логотипами брендов, эмблемами, рисунками, украшениями, надписями на иностранных языках. Общим языком этих надписей является английский из-за его интернациональности.

Современные молодые люди стараются выделиться из толпы, покупая и нося одежду, привлекающую много внимания.

Наш вопрос был: понимают ли владельцы значение надписей на иностранном языке, а именно английском? В нашем исследовании мы найдем ответ на этот вопрос.

Цель – установить зависимость смысловой нагрузки от уровня владения языком владельцев данной одежды.

Задачи:

-Изучить историю появления таких надписей;

- Изучить значение таких надписей;

- Изучить надписи на одежде известных людей и выяснить, почему они носили эту одежду.

-Выбрать количество надписей на одежде;

-Перевести эти надписи на русский язык;

-Определить возраст владельца;

-Определить причину покупки этой одежды;

-Проанализировать и обобщить данные;

Объектом исследования являются надписи на одежде.

Предметом является информация, которую несут надписи.

Гипотеза

Современные молодые люди, носящие такую одежду, не до конца понимают или не понимают смысла этих надписей.

Исследование проводилось поэтапно. Мы выделили следующие этапы:

Исследование:

-Предварительный этап: сбор информации.

-Второй этап: опрос детей и молодежи, анализ значений и сравнение надписей.

-Третий этап: подведение итогов и представление результатов.

Методы: поисково-аналитические.

Работа состоит из: введения, теоретической главы, практической главы, заключения.

Результативность: составлены графики социального опроса, составлена сравнительная таблица надписей.

Chapter 1: Historical and semantic characteristics of inscriptions on clothing.

1.1 The history of inscriptions on T-shirts

Inscriptions on clothing have existed for many centuries.  The earliest are from ancient Greece. Already there we find embroidery on belts telling us the name of the wearer, or we find names on jewellery. In many Italian and German portraits of the late 15th and 16th centuries, we find inscriptions woven into the decoration of men's shirts or the corsages of women's dresses, usually in Latin or the motto of a noble family, or the names of the owners of these portraits or clothes. The pelerines of King Otto, now in a museum in Germany, are very famous. There, in the vault of the Cathedral Antiquities, there are some amazing pieces with Gothic or Romanesque letters - part of the decoration of these ancient embroideries. They date from the tenth or eleventh century. We find a lot of ornamentation in jewellery, where letters and phrases are woven into the design. We can find them in Celtic jewellery, where letters play an important role, and in ancient Slavic jewellery, where words are also part of the jewellery.

It all began quite simply: at first, inscriptions simply adorned workers' uniforms, indicating their status in the workplace, then they began to indicate what designer or company the thing belonged to, and then inscriptions with real meaning began to appear.  It is not known who was the first to come up with the idea of writing inscriptions on clothes.

The history of the appearance of modern inscriptions on T-shirts is more complicated and confusing. There are still debates about who was the first to suggest putting funny inscriptions on such a practical and widely available item of clothing.

Supporters of the ancient art of painting on fabric are foaming at the mouth, defending their right to be called the discoverers of any drawing or inscription on any piece of clothing. They are opposed by PR and advertising people, who say that inscriptions on T-shirts are just a publicity stunt invented by clever advertisers. They say that inscriptions on T-shirts were invented by hippies. Flowers, doves, "peace in the world", "only when there is no war" .... Then pictures of rock bands appeared on T-shirts.

1.2 The semantic classification of inscriptions on clothes.

The inscription on clothes is not just a decorative element, it is a communicative tool with a variety of semantic contents. We have tried to divide all the inscriptions on clothes (T-shirts) into several semantic groups.

Inscriptions that have in their composition 

1.The name of the brand, company-manufacturer: Adidas, Nike, Reebok, D&G Puma, Bikk. By wearing branded clothes, people want to emphasise their wealth,

2. Names of musical groups or just directions in music, names of sports teams: Rock, Britney Spars, Beatles, Log - Dog, Lady Gaga, this is a gangsta rap, I love electro. If you see a person with such inscriptions, you can draw conclusions about what kind of music they like, and also learn about their tastes and preferences.

3. Joking words or phrases: I'm fine, I'm God, 51% angel, 49% devil, bad girl, pirate, twitty. Such inscriptions are worn by people with a sense of humour, who want to show their mood to others and charge them with positive emotions.

4. Negative, offensive, obscene words and expressions: ass man, devilish girl.

This is another proof that writing on clothes is a way of expressing one's opinion and attitude towards others, in this case negative, an opportunity to express one's dissatisfaction, contempt, dissatisfaction without saying the words aloud.

 People who want to express their opinion about the reality around them prefer T-shirts with appeals: 

5. Appeal, expression of personal attitude to politics, the world, ecology: help save me, don't stop, television rules the nation.

6. Appeal to make contact with the opposite sex, to make acquaintance: Kiss me, take me, love me, all you need is love, don't hate me because I'm beautiful, trust me.

7. neutral meaning of the inscription, which does not carry any specific information and therefore does not fully fulfil its communicative task: Summer time, butterfly

8. Characteristic of a person: advanced, undefeated, crazy

9. Quotations. These are mostly lines from popular songs: "Diamonds are best girls' friends", "All you need is rock-n-roll".

10. Challenge to society: No more fashion victims, don't judge a girl by her clothes.

As can be seen from the above classification, the semantic load of inscriptions on clothes is very diverse. In addition, inscriptions have a very strong communicative potential, so they should be treated with caution. They are often perceived by the environment as words spoken aloud by the owner of the T-shirt, which is natural, otherwise the question is legitimate - if you do not support the written words, why put on this thing? It is extremely relevant and important that we are responsible for the information that we carry on our clothes, because in a way we solidify with it, we become its carriers to the masses, and it is extremely imprudent to hope that everyone around you does not speak English and does not understand what is written on your clothes.

In the course of our research, we came to the following conclusions: that inscriptions appeared in the distant past and have made their way from a uniform to a means of communication, being a powerful way of expressing an attitude towards the world around us. Every inscription has a certain meaning, and by wearing certain clothes a person reflects his or her character, preferences and hobbies. Therefore, the inscription on clothes obliges its owner not only to know the translation, but also to be responsible for the main idea of the statement.

Chapter 2: The sociolinguistic aspect of inscriptions on clothes

2.1 The language of inscriptions on clothing.

The inscription on clothes, as a verbal carrier of information, has its own linguistic peculiarities. It can be assumed that the language of inscriptions is similar in style and choice of words to colloquial speech, since the content of the inscription is often determined by the wearer, regardless of his or her education.

Using internet resources, we studied inscriptions on the clothes of foreign celebrities. We found that foreign celebrities wear clothes that have a certain meaning. Celebrities' T-shirts can tell you about their mood, the music they listen to, their sense of humour and sometimes even their character. Here are some examples: among the many fans of Mick Jagger's band, there are many celebrities who have worn T-shirts with the Rolling Stones image (Jessica Simpson, Jessica Alba). Many stars wear T-shirts with messages of encouragement, calling on people to stop wars. (Natalie Portman, who starred in Star Wars, only calls for war in the movies, not in real life, Rihanna, like Natalie, wants love, not war. Many stars wear funny inscriptions to emphasise their sense of humour and good mood (Britney Spears, with a sense of humour about her own person, Sienna Miller wears T-shirts with Mickey Mouse. It is very common to find inscriptions with appeals on the T-shirts of celebrities. The message on Jennifer Love Hewitt's T-shirt urges us to save our future. The inscription on Mischa Barton's T-shirt urges us to throw knowledge, not bombs, and is anti-war in nature.

As an object of linguistic research, we chose T-shirts with inscriptions made by students of grades 5-11 of the Secondary Comprehensive School No. 73. We recorded and analysed the answers of about 50 students. The study of the inscriptions on the students' clothes was organised as follows

1. Finding students in the school wearing T-shirts with inscriptions in English, or asking students to find clothes with inscriptions in their wardrobes.

2. Transcribing or photographing the most interesting inscriptions and asking questions such as

- the age of the wearer

- whether or not the wearer knows the meaning of what is written on the clothes

- Translation of the inscriptions

- the reason for buying the item

- Any grammatical or spelling mistakes in the inscriptions.

In the course of our research we came to the following conclusions: Out of 50 respondents, 20 students know the translation of the inscription they have on their clothes. They also said that they looked at the label when they bought things. The other 30 found it difficult to translate their inscriptions and never thought about the meaning of what was written on them. When asked whether children pay attention to grammatical and spelling mistakes in inscriptions, 15 responded "yes" - 15 people answered "yes", "no" - 35 people answered "no". The survey revealed inscriptions with grammatical and spelling mistakes that the owners had not pointed out. Very often there are inscriptions that simply consist of an arbitrary set of letters. Such inscriptions have no meaning.  Our research was able to bring this issue to the surface and suggest that young people should think before they buy another fashion item with incomprehensible text. When asked why they bought it, most people said they liked it, while others said it was cool, fashionable and attracted attention. In the course of our research, we have discovered such a tendency that students in grades 5-6 prefer clothes with inscriptions from various cartoons, students in grades 7-8 prefer various brands, musical groups, students in grades 9-11 wear clothes with various phrases that carry some meaning. Our research shows that it is extremely relevant and important to remember that we are responsible for the information we carry, we are in a sense in solidarity with it, we become its carriers to the masses, and it is extremely imprudent to hope that everyone around you does not speak a foreign language and does not understand what is written on your clothes.  We should not forget that "do not judge people and things at first sight", "meet people by their clothes and see them off by their minds".

Conclusion

In the course of our research we have tried to examine the inscription on clothes in the course of its historical development. We found out that inscriptions on clothes existed many centuries ago. In ancient times inscriptions were decoration, in the 20th century inscriptions only decorated workers' uniforms, indicating their status in the workplace, then they began to show what designer or what company this thing was made by, and then inscriptions began to appear that actually carried a meaning. Each inscription has a certain meaning, and by wearing this or that piece of clothing, a person reflects his or her character, preferences and hobbies. Answering the question posed in the introduction: whether the owners understand the meaning of inscriptions in a foreign language, namely in English, it turned out that only 40% of the students surveyed paid attention to the translation of English phrases when buying something.  60% of the students did not pay attention to the translation of the inscriptions and considered them as a decoration of the clothes. The analysis of the collected material showed that the level of English, which was determined by the age of the pupils interviewed, allows them to orient themselves in the inscriptions and to use the written information correctly.

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Annex 1

We analysed the responses of approximately 50 students, the findings of which are graphically presented in the subsequent table. The outcomes of the survey conducted among school students have been categorised based on specific themes.

Annex 2

Results of the survey