Inscriptions on clothes Made by: Darya Kurkova Class 10 a School № 3 Supervisor: M. A. Frolkina

Topicality Clothes speaks without words. Fine dress helps us to express ourselves. Estimating a person, we mark how well his clothes are appropriate to the age, social status, fashion. Some people have a desire to look like celebrities wearing fashionable clothes, others want to stand out in a crowd. My attention is attracted to English inscriptions on clothes. The idea of studying sociolinguistic problems using English inscriptions has appeared because of my personal experience, communication with peers, observations in the streets and at my school. However, do the owners understand the meaning of inscriptions on their clothes, especially if they are written in a foreign language, mostly in English? Or do they wear clothes because they are fashionable, beautiful, or for any other reason? Our research has an aim to find answers to these questions.

The novelty The novelty of my work consists in an attempt to examine English inscriptions on clothes as an express way that helps to enrich the students’ vocabulary.

The hypothesis There is a direct connection between the language level and person’s culture.

The object of  the study  The object of  the study is English inscriptions on the clothes of students of our school.

The subject of the study The subject of  the study is determination of the information given by inscriptions on clothes.

The aim of my work  The aim of my work is to find out how the semantic load of inscriptions on clothes depends on the language level of their owners

The tasks of the study The tasks of the study are: 1) to collect some inscriptions on clothes; 2) to translate the inscriptions into Russian; 3) to identify the age of students and the main reasons of buying clothes with inscriptions; 4) to summarize the data.

The practical value   The practical value of the research is the possibility to use its materials in the process of learning English. 

History of inscriptions Inscriptions on clothes appeared many centuries ago. The earliest ones came to us from ancient Greece. There were embroideries on the belts that told about the names of their ancient owners, there were some names on jewelry. At the beginning of the second millennium Gothic prints were used in embroidery. The pelerines of King Otto are very famous, they are in the museum of Bolbergue in Germany. There are amazing things with Gothic or Roman letters as a part of the ornament of ancient embroideries in the store of the old cathedral.  They date back to 10 -11 centuries AD.  We can find a lot of ornaments on jewelry where the letters and phrases are in intertwined into the pattern.

Functions of the inscriptions Clothes are connected with their labels. Almost everywhere on T-shirts, jeans, shirts, sweaters, there are inscriptions and labels. These letters, formulas, abbreviations attract attention. This is a real invasion of all kinds of images and typographic signs. Is it an advertisement trick?  Is it a desire to put an end with the faceless, to show a belonging to any group, cultural or regional origin? 

Functions of the inscriptions The way letters and numbers are written is called the print. Letters of a word are usually written in the same print. Most prints are characterized by different ways of tracing. For example, the print can be: A) direct B) italics C) bold D) bold italic E) underlined The color has important influence on perception of inscriptions. Red is a color of leadership and power. It is a strong eye stopper. Saturated colors (crimson, brown, burgundy) convince the client in a success of a company. Pink generates an aura of refinement around the product.

News and scandals connected with inscriptions on clothes.

Methodology of the study We have made our study by the next way: 1) we have found at our school students, dressed in T-shirts, jeans, sweaters, caps, with English inscriptions 2) we have photographed the most interesting inscriptions and asked some questions: - How old are you? - Do you know the sense of the inscription on your clothes or not - Why have you bought this thing? - What marks have you got? 3) we have translated the inscriptions into Russian and entered the data into the table

The results of the students’ survey № Inscriptions in origin Translation Age of the owner Does he/she know about the meaning of the inscription? Marks 1  Experience опыт 14 - satisfactory 2 Wanted разыскивается 16 + good 3 Star звезда 11 4 Follow me следуй за мной 12 5 Red hot chili peppers (название группы) красные горячие перцы чили 15 excellent 6  Dare to do different посмей сделать по-другому 13

The results of the students’ survey № Inscriptions in origin Translation Age of the owner Does he/she know about the meaning of the inscription? Marks 1  I can to fly я могу летать (гр.ошибка) 12 - satisfactory 2 Sence opposites attract sunkids Ощущение противоположного привлекает (гр. ошибка) 11 3 Of wold The same of wold  набор слов с ошибками в слове WORLD (гр. ошибка) 15

Analysis of the collected material According to our research, the majority of students have clothes containing inscriptions.  There are at least seven things with English inscriptions in every young person’s wardrobe. Only 43% of students know the translation of the inscription, which is on their clothes, and 57% of students have found difficulty in translation of their inscriptions. 49% say they pay attention to the inscription buying clothes, 51% of students never think about the meaning of what is written on their clothes, but now they are interested in translation of the inscriptions. 100 % of students having good and excellent marks know the meaning of the inscriptions on the clothes they wear and there are no silly inscriptions or inscriptions with mistakes on their clothes. The study has revealed three inscriptions containing grammatical or spelling mistakes, the owners of these clothes haven’t known about these ones . Most of the respondents as the main reasons of buying clothes with inscriptions call "this dress is comfortable." 10% say that the clothes with inscriptions are "fashionable" and “cool”. The study also has shown that the older the students are, the more attention they pay to the meaning of the inscriptions. The younger students don’t often know what is written on their clothes. However, our study made some students think before buying a fashionable thing with an unknown inscription .

conclusion Undoubtedly, each person has a right to wear what he or she likes. However, it seems abnormal that the majority of people who prefer inscriptions on the clothes, do not know the meaning of the words they have on clothes. Nowadays English is everywhere: on goods and signboards of shops, on the electrical goods, clothes, on the Internet. It is taught at schools, universities, specialized courses. But how is it easier and faster to learn English? English inscriptions can be an express way that helps to enrich the students’ vocabulary. Most teens do not pay much attention to the inscriptions on their clothes, but some of them can contain indecent and offensive meaning, grammatical and spelling mistakes. Sometimes they can contain a set of meaningless words and phrases, sometimes indecent words, but sometimes a phrase filled with good humor. It is important to be responsible for the information that we have on our clothes, we become the carrier of it to the masses, and it is stupid to expect that others do not know a foreign language and do not understand what is written on your clothes. The analysis of the collected material has shown that the level of English proficiency of only half of the students in our school allows to navigate in the inscriptions and correctly use written information. However, our survey encouraged my schoolmates to find out the meaning of the inscriptions on their clothes, thus motivating students to learn English better. There is an inextricable link between language level and culture of the individual. According to our survey we have come to the conclusion that students having good marks pay much attention to the meaning of the inscriptions, they do not wear clothes with grammatical and spelling mistakes and stupid and offensive inscriptions. So our hypothesis has been proved. There is a direct connection between the language level and person’s culture.

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