Курсова робота ” Traditions and customs of the United States “

CONTENT

 

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. THE NALIONAL COMPOSITION, HOLIDAYS AND SYMBOLS OF THE UNITED STATES

CHAPTER II. NATIONAL HOLIDAYS IN THE USA

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Relevance of research. American culture encompasses the customs and traditions of the United States. “Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at the table, how we greet visitors, how we behave with loved ones, and a million other things,” said Cristina De Rossi, an anthropologist at Barnet and Southgate College in London.

The United States is the third largest country in the world with a population of more than 325 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A child is born every 8 seconds, and a person dies every 12 seconds.

In addition to Native Americans who were already living on the continent, the population of the United States was built on immigration from other countries. Despite recent moves to close the U.S. borders to new immigrants and refugees, a new immigrant moves to the United States every 33 seconds, according to the Census Bureau.

Because of this, the United States is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. Nearly every region of the world has influenced American culture, most notably the English who colonized the country beginning in the early 1600s. U.S. culture has also been shaped by the cultures of Native Americans, Latin Americans, Africans and Asians.

The United States is sometimes described as a “melting pot” in which different cultures have contributed their own distinct “flavors” to American culture. Just as cultures from around the world have influenced American culture, today American culture influences the world. The term Western culture often refers broadly to the cultures of the United States and Europe.

The way people “melt” in the United States differs. “Different groups of immigrants integrate in different ways,” De Rossi told Live Science. “For example, in the United States, Catholic Spanish-speaking communities might keep their language and other cultural family traditions, but are integrated in the urban community and have embraced the American way of life in many other ways.”

The Northeast, South, Midwest, Southeast and Western regions of the United States all have distinct traditions and customs. Here is a brief overview of the culture of the United States.

Subject of study are traditions and customs of the United States.

Object of study are analysis traditions and customs of the United States.

Research methods are traditions and customs of the United States.

Objectives of the study:

• Understand the features of national traditions and holidays of the United States;
• To study the state symbols of the USA and its history.

 

CHAPTER I. THE NALIONAL COMPOSITION, HOLIDAYS AND SYMBOLS OF THE UNITED STATES

 

The United States of America is a relatively young country. Until the 16th century, the territory of the present-day United States was inhabited by various Indian tribes, which lasted until the discovery of America by the Europeans. By the 18th century, they had colonized all of North America, forming a total of three zones of influence: the British (on the Atlantic coast), the French (Louisiana and the Great Lakes), and the Spanish (Pacific Coast, present-day Florida and Florida).

America is a large multinational and multi-confessional country that appeared much later than most of Europe. Therefore, it is rather difficult to identify any traditions of the United States that are common to all of its inhabitants. Numerous emigrants, merging into the culture of the United States, do not assimilate in it, but continue to maintain independence, celebrate their own holidays and observe their rituals. However, there are US traditions that can be considered widespread. Thus, many traditions of the United States are closely related to the history of the country, family and home. It is customary here to come home at Christmas, give gifts for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, remember your own anthem and the names of all the presidents of the country. The traditions of the United States prescribe to know their neighbors and maintain friendly relations with them, which, however, do not cross a certain line. National and ethnic groups living in the United States bring something of their own to the culture of this country. And this is yet another unshakable American tradition – tolerance for other people’s views and openness to new customs without prejudice to our own.

Traditions and customs of the United States provide for the engagement ceremony six months before the wedding. Of course, the rite is too loud a word. As a rule, it consists in the fact that the future groom invites his beloved to a restaurant and in a festive atmosphere gives her a ring. According to the traditions and customs of the United States, the engagement is advertised in the local newspaper. The wedding itself is of two types: civil and religious. The first is official, and the second is held in a festive atmosphere with many guests. Wedding traditions and customs in the United States also prescribe a mandatory rehearsal before the wedding, during which the bride and groom get acquainted with the details of the upcoming ceremony. Religious weddings are often held in the church, young people take marriage vows and exchange rings. The wedding customs and traditions of America prescribe to spend the first wedding night out of the house: on a honeymoon trip or at least in a hotel room.

Funny and unexpected US customs

Some customs in the United States may seem unusual to our compatriots, or even bring a smile. For example, it is not customary here to give up seats on public transport, pay for women in a restaurant, and take off your shoes when entering a house. Many customs in the United States are not widespread, but only in certain states. So according to the law in Cleveland (Ohio) there is a ban on women wearing patent leather shoes. Cause? Oddly enough, it is believed that in their mirrored surface, men will be able to see the reflection of their underwear. In Nogales, Arizona, American laws and customs prohibit men from wearing suspenders, and in Carmel, New York, trousers and jackets of different colors. Some superstitions and customs in the United States are associated with numbers. For example, many airlines offer tickets for the lucky flights with numbers 777 and 711.

Speaking about the national traditions of the country, one cannot fail to mention the traditions that would take place in the cultural life of the nation.

The first literary works were created in the English colonies in North America from the beginning of the 17th century. The features of the national originality of the emerging American literature appeared in the works of the educators of the era of the Revolutionary War of 1775-1783. The process of the formation of national literature ends in the first half of the 19th century. The most important role in it was played by romantic writers. Indeed, for the American romantic writer there was nothing fixed, nothing definite. Literary and social traditions did not help at all; moreover, they were dangerous. The writers strove to create a new literary form, fill it with new content and find the right sound. And they tried to do it all at the same time.

The rise of democratic sentiment on the eve and during the Civil War of 1861-1865. contributed to the strengthening of realistic trends in US literature. The pinnacle of 19th century realism. was the work of Mark Twain (real name S. Clemens), who reflected the reality of his time in all its diversity.

The 1910s saw the birth of modernism. The poets E. Pound, T.S. Eliot, and the prose writer H. Stein proclaimed a break with America, considering it a country where bourgeois utilitarianism prevails and there is no ground for true culture. The newest poetry is imbued with a protest against the mechanization of human feelings, turning into a “unit of statistics.”

In the years between the two world wars, many worthy American poets with “true imaginations” emerged, including West Coast poets, women and African Americans.

The 1950s saw the impact of the process of modernization and technological development on everyday life. This process began in the twenties, but was interrupted by the Great Depression, and continued when the Second World War brought the United States out of it. In the 1950s, the time of long-awaited material prosperity came for most Americans. Working in companies seemed to provide a good life (usually for suburbanites) with its inherent real and symbolic attributes of success – a house, a car, a TV, and appliances. However, the predominant theme in literature has become the loneliness of the upper classes of society;

At the same time, the so-called “new journalism” appeared – whole volumes of non-fiction that combined journalistic techniques with the technique of fiction or often played on facts, remaking them in order to make the narrative more dramatic and spontaneous. “In the sixties, literature kept pace with With the rapid development of the era, alienation and stress that characterized the United States of the fifties found their visible expression in the sixties in the civil rights movement, feminism, anti-war protests, the active struggle of national minorities for their rights and the emergence of a counterculture, the consequences of which are still felt in American society.

In the prose of the 70s and 80s, the theme of spiritual emptiness and the dominance of pseudo-culture, prompting the hero to revolt, often of a destructive nature, prevails. During the last generation, all forms of art in America were decentralized. It seems that the performing arts, music and dance in the cities of the South, Southwest and Northwest of the United States are flourishing as well as in the largest cities of the country, such as New York and Chicago. Film companies shoot films throughout the United States. Film groups travel to thousands of different places in the country. A similar situation is observed in the literature.

In the minds of modern writers in many countries of the world, including the United States, there has been a departure from the idea that traditional forms, ideas and understanding of history can fill human life with meaning and a sense of the connection between times.

The development of events after the Second World War led to the fact that history began to be perceived as a disruption of continuity: every action, experience and moment was thought of as something unique. Style and form were henceforth viewed as something conditional, a kind of improvisation, reflecting the creative process and self-consciousness of the author.

The usual categories of expression of thought began to arouse suspicion: originality was elevated to the rank of a new tradition. It is not difficult to find the historical reasons for this disintegration of perception in the United States: the Second World War as such, the growth of depersonalization and consumerism in a mass urbanized society, the protest movement of the 60s. , the ten-year Vietnam conflict, the Cold War, the environmental threat — the list of shocks experienced by American culture is extensive and varied. Of all the changes, however, the emergence of the media and popular culture is most responsible for the transformation of American society.

First radio, then cinema, and now the omnipotent, ubiquitous presence of television has changed the very foundations of American life. From a country of a private, literary, elite culture based on books, gaze and reading, the United States has become a country of media culture associated with voice on the radio, music played from CD or cassette, films and images on TV.

The media and electronic technology have had a direct impact on American poetry. Films, videotapes and tape recordings of poetry, and interviews of poets have become available to all, and the recent cheap photographic methods of printing have prompted young poets to publish themselves, and young editors to publish their own literary magazines – the number of the latter today exceeds 2000  passed from the end of the fifties to the present day, led to the fact that Americans have become increasingly aware that technology, in itself so useful, carries a danger, opening up the mind to a total invasion of images that it is better not to let into it.

And those Americans who are preoccupied with looking for alternatives are willing to accept poetry much more readily than before: it offers ways to express the subjective experience of life and allows you to express the influence of technology and mass society on cash.

Noteworthy is the coexistence of many poetic styles, some of which are inherent in the regions as a whole, others are associated with well-known poetry schools or the names of famous poets; modern American poetry is decentralized, rich in variety, and not reducible to a few overarching formulas.

American literature has come a long and tortuous path from the pre-colonial period to the present day. Socio-historical development and technical progress had a significant impact on it. However, it invariably contains one component – people with all their advantages and disadvantages, traditions and aspiration for the future.

The musical culture of the United States is distinguished by a wealth of traditions, genres and styles, a developed network of special institutions that organize and direct the musical life of the country.

Harlem revival

During the unbridled activity of the 1920s, the Negro neighborhood of Harlem, located on the outskirts of New York, was seething with passion and creativity. The sounds of Negro jazz have flooded the United States, and jazz musicians and composers such as Duke Ellington have become darlings throughout the country and abroad. Bessie Smith and other blues singers performed frank, sensual, and mocking poetry with genuine feeling. Negro spiritual music has achieved widespread recognition as amazingly beautiful sacred music. The Negro actress Ethel Waters shone triumphantly on stage, and with the music and theater, Negro ballet and art flourished.

The second quarter of the 20th century is the era of the highest flowering of jazz culture. The USA has become the cradle of this musical genre, and New Orleans jazz is rightfully considered a golden classic. Initially, jazz emerged as a synthesis of blues and ragtime, and its main distinguishing feature has always been the improvisation of performance. But in the 1920s, an important event for jazz culture happened – swing was born.

However, the classics of the 20s, such great performers as Benny Carter, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, have always said that it is pointless to separate swing from jazz, since without the first the second simply cannot exist. Like any other epoch-making trend in music, jazz could not but reflect the processes taking place in American society. In particular, the Great Depression negatively affected the development of this genre.

Many music theorists and critics believe that with the onset of the 30s the era of the classical jazz school has ended forever, they accuse swing of an exclusively commercial orientation.

The Second World War was coming to an end, and the era of jazz was also ending. Of course, all the time, up to the present day, exceptionally talented jazz performers have appeared, but so far no one has managed to achieve that transcendental level of performance of the classics of the first half of the 20th century.

50s: musical boom

With the end of World War II, the US musical world literally explodes with a variety of genres, of which, first of all, it is necessary to single out rock and roll. Blues, country, folk, swing and other directions are called among its progenitors. When we talk about 50s rock and roll, we automatically speak of at least two icons of this culture: Chuck Berry and the king of rock and roll Elvis Presley.

These two musicians are real music icons. It is difficult to overestimate their influence on the musical culture of the United States, let alone rock and roll. Presley generally became a symbol of the whole of America in the first post-war decades, along with Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy.

When we talk about 50s rock and roll, we automatically speak of at least two icons of this culture: Chuck Berry and the king of rock and roll Elvis Presley. These two musicians are real music icons. It is difficult to overestimate their influence on the musical culture of the United States, let alone rock and roll. Presley generally became a symbol of the whole of America in the first post-war decades, along with Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy.

60s – 70s: the time of rock and rhythm and blues.

The social turbulence characteristic of the United States of those years could not but influence the development of music in America. New genres continue to emerge, although not as actively as in the 50s. Moreover, the synthesis of already existing genres was often the “new word in music”. An example is funk, which became the brainchild of rhythm and blues and disco.

The 60s passed under the banner of R&B and soul. These genres have given the world some really brilliant performers: Chubby Checker, Sam Cooke, Bill Black, Teddy Pendergrass, Al Green, BB King and others. Well, in the mid-60s, Marvin Gay’s career began to flourish. According to many critics, Gay is the greatest rhythm and blues performer in history.

As for rock, it was in the 60s and 70s that rock began to divide into many subgenres. Glam rock, punk rock, psychedelic rock appear. It must be admitted that, despite Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, the United States lost the crown of rock to Britain, all thanks of course to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Nevertheless, rock ‘n’ roll, already in all its diversity, played a big role for the American society, going hand in hand with the hippie movement.

Another really important genre in the music of those years was disco. Sociologists and culturologists rank it lower than the same rock or rhythm and blues, but it is necessary to point out the fact that in the 70s disco was the music of racial minorities in the United States, being, as it were, opposed to rock and its audience.

80s: booty time

The 80s became the era, by and large, of only two people: the king of pop Michael Jackson and the pop queen Madonna. It is difficult to imagine the musical culture of the States without these people. Of course, such artists as Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Jon Bon Jovi, Prince took their places of honor in the hearts of listeners, but they could not reach the level of Jackson and Madonna. It is impossible to fit the life of both into the framework of the article, and enough has been written about them, so let’s turn to other outstanding personalities from the world of American music.

The 80s are definitely the time of hard rock. It is impossible not to notice that rock, even if it is mainstream, has succumbed to the influence of the flourishing of pop culture less than other genres. On the contrary, many critics noted that rock turned face to the past, face to the times of Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen.

In the 80s, rhythm and blues also changed. In the works of the same Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Teddy Pendergas, the influence of funk and even disco is easily traced. The 80s marked a departure from classical R&B with its juicy or, as the Americans say, smooth beats, and since then modern rhythm and blues have received the official prefix in the name – contemporary.

It is impossible not to mention three more genres, two of which were new to the American public – hip-hop and electronic music, and the third experienced almost a new birth – country. Hip-hop was as simple as a multiplication table. It was the birth of a new “black” genre, which jazz once became. Music of the streets, ghetto neighborhoods, poor African Americans and people from Latin America, music of a narrow social orientation suddenly began to rapidly gain momentum and popularity.

The roots of hip-hop go back to the late 60s, when gangs of Negro neighborhoods met in battles, but without the use of weapons. The best were determined in breakdancing and beatboxing competitions. And so, by the mid-80s, a completely independent genre appeared in front of American listeners, in which the brightest events, I repeat, were ahead.

Electronic music was then represented by house and techno. The first absorbed the features of funk and disco, put on a four-bar beat, the second became a breakthrough in club music and differed from house in the heavier bass and ragged tempo.

Country music then, like most genres, was influenced by pop culture, but at the same time it managed not to lose its exclusivity. Country music has always been the music of farmers from the hinterland, but the 80s brought it to the public level, and such performers as Kenny Rogers, Ronnie Millsap, Eddie Rabby entered the stage.

Among the most important trends that characterize the musical culture of the United States today, there is an increase in the signs of regional identity along with a multiplying number of national phenomena. Today we can talk about the specificity of the musical culture of a number of regions of the country, among which the West, especially California, stands out.

 

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