Сборник материалов международной научной конференции студентов, магистрантов, аспирантов

О.А. Максимюк

Республика Беларусь, Минск, БГПУ имени М. Танка

Научный руководитель – В.М. Шелег

THE FAIRYTALE AS AN INTEGRATED PART OF NATIONAL CULTURE

Without knowledge of the past we cannot fully observe the present: it is the emotional shock which prints in the memory the first sight of some tool or custom which prints in the memory an earlier culture layer.

People read fairytales to their children, sing songs and lullabies, share some fable and great stories of their history. All these tales and other different kind of folklore bring up the whole nation and form their vision of life. That is why it is so important to explore such a field as folklore and especially fairytales which influence people from their early childhood.

The British Isles and Ireland have a rich diversity of folklore, arising from the mix of cultural identity from region to region. Their history is full of events. There were invaders and settlers who brought with them their own beliefs and lore, which were combined into older traditions. Some stories seem to be well-known, such as the tradition of sleeping warriors under hollow hills and the wild hunt, often uniting local heroes.

The fairytale as authorized is a relatively late genre of literature. It stems from the Middle Ages’ folklore heritage. However, at the Enlightenment period the fairy tale was replaced be so-called moral tales for children which in fact were the feeble imitation of the literature genre.

The end of the 18th century is acknowledged as a cradle of the authentic fairy tale in England.

The further development of the fairytale goes in line with experimenting in the field of fantasy making. The leading writers of the 19-th century picked up the habit of mingle satire and exaggeration in order to show ridiculous foibles of the society.

By the end of the 19th century the English authorized fairytale had got a new pessimistic sounding due to the tragically ending tales. Here the traditional English humour and mystery give way to human suffering and misery experience between the good and evil isn’t so evident as it was before, which makes the fairy tale closer to the real world with its contradictions and puzzles.

There are a lot of genres in folklore such as orations, anecdotes, fables, riddles, songs, folk stories and certainly tales. Gertrude Nelson noticed: “Fairytales speak the colorful language of the soul of a people. They teach us about our culture and they return to us essential psychic facts about ourselves.”

Fairytales taught us courage and perseverance, the importance of honesty and caring for others. They entertained us and made us laugh long before the digital delights of today. Fairytales lead us beyond the confines of limited, habitual and dull world into a world of full of fantasy and colour, the world which develops our ability to dream. This is the most spread genre but at the same time it is the most mysterious one.

Fairytale include all kinds of folk prose; the most accurate definition is based on its identify fiction. Fairytale include a special vision of the world, certain types of plot, characters, definite and accurate composition, particular stylistic form of narration in other worlds well developed poetics.

Fairytale is the genre where reality interweaves with fiction and this interweaving is a distinctive feature of fairytale. There are some features of real life in fairytales as an antagonism between rich and poor, an unequal marriage between the king and the daughter of a shepherd, some family conflicts between a stepmother and her stepdaughter, some unreal situations when a noble person interacts with a poor one.

Reading British fairytales we can find some intriguing issues concerning animals. For example in the Lincolnshire fairytale “A Pottle o’ Brains” the main character in search of brains comes into the house of an old and wise woman. A black cat is sleeping near the door and the fool thinks that it is a good omen. Perhaps we can begin to understand why the black cat is an omen of good luck in some countries once we know that the Egyptians idolized the goddess Bast, symbolically portrayed as a black female cat.

Folklore gives all a sense of belonging to a specific culture and allows people to learn their rots of heritage in a very unique special way. Today’s fairytale is a mixture of various tendencies and its themes range from social to psychological ones.

1. 
   Народные сказки Британских островов / cост. Дж. Риордан. – М. : Радуга, 1987. – 368 с.
   
2. 
   The World of Fairy Tales : учеб. пособие. – Минск : БГПУ им. М. Танка, 2001. – 92 с.
   

В статье рассматривается английская народная сказка как основная часть фольклора Великобритании. Народная сказка всегда вызывала живой интерес у читателей всех возрастных групп и социальных слоёв общества, так как данный вид народного творчества является ключом к более глубокому восприятию и пониманию национальной культуры.

А.В. Мальчук, E.М. Мурай

Республика Беларусь, Брест, БрГУ имени А.С. Пушкина

Научный руководитель – Н.В. Иванюк

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LONDON’S SERVICE INDUSTRY

London has always been a commercial city and today enjoys the status of having one of the largest city economies in the world. The city thrives in trade and commerce and has a vibrant culture seeped in commerce. It has a GDP of over £565 billion, which is about 17 percent of the UK’s total GDP. The size of its economy is larger than that of several European nations.

The nature of London’s economy has undergone change over the years. While manufacturing industries held the dominant position during the nineteenth century and the early parts of the twentieth century, service industries, especially financial and business services are now the dominant sector. Of the total £37 billion annual export of goods and services, financial and business services account for about £15.5 billion.

London shifted to a mostly service-based economy earlier than other European cities, particularly following the Second World War. A number of factors contribute to London’s success as a service industry and business centre:

English being the native language and the dominant international language of business; its position as the capital of the former British Empire; its location within the European Union, since the EU has a population and GDP larger than the US; the special relationship between the United Kingdom and United States, the United Kingdom’s close relationships with many countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, particularly those in the Commonwealth of Nations.

Currently, over 85% (3.2 million) of the employed population of greater London works in the service industries.

London has five major business districts: the City, Westminster, Canary Wharf, Camden & Islington and Lambeth & Southwark. One way to get an idea of their relative importance is to look at relative amounts of office space: Greater London had 26,721,000 m² of office space in 2001.

A useful guide to the distribution of wealth across London is the cost of renting office space. Mayfair and St. James’s are historically and currently the most expensive areas – approximately £80.00 per sq ft per annum. The least expensive commercial districts are Waterloo&Southwark and East London Tech City, a new, but growing hub of startup technology companies, also known as Silicon Roundabout – approximately £33.00 per sq ft per annum.

More than half of the London Stock Exchange top 100 listed companies (the FTSE 100) and over 100 of Europe’s 500 largest companies are headquartered in central London. Over 70% of the FTSE 100 are located within London's metropolitan area, and 75% of Fortune 500 companies have offices in London.

London’s largest industry remains finance, and its financial exports make it a large contributor to the UK's balance of payments. The City of London is home to exchanges, banks, brokers, asset managers, pension funds, hedge funds, private equity firms, insurance companies and reinsurance markets. London is notable as a centre of international finance where foreign participants in financial markets come to deal with one another. It is also home to the Bank of England and the European Banking Authority.

A second financial district has developed at Canary Wharf to the east of the City, which includes the global headquarters of two of the world’s largest banks, HSBC and Barclays, the rest-of-the-world headquarters of Citigroup and the headquarters of the global news service Reuters. London handled 36.7% of global currency transactions in 2009 – an average daily turnover of US$1.85 trillion – with more US dollars traded in London than New York, and more Euros traded than in every other city in Europe combined. London is the leading centre for international bank lending, derivatives markets and money markets.

Many professional services firms are located in London including the big four accountants and major management consulting firms. London is the headquarters for four of the world’s six largest law firms.

Media companies are concentrated in London and the media distribution industry is London’s second most competitive sector. The BBC is a key employer, other broadcasters also have headquarters around the city. Many national newspapers are edited in London, having traditionally been associated with Fleet Street in the City, they are now dispersed across the capital. Soho is the centre of London’s post-production industry. Hollywood’s links with the United Kingdom are centred on London, which contributes billions to the economy.

Tourism is one of London’s prime industries. It is the most visited city in the world by international tourists with 18.7 million international visitors forecast in 2018, ahead of Bangkok (16.4 million) and Paris (15.5 million). Tourism employed the equivalent of 350,000 full-time workers in London in 2003, whilst annual expenditure by tourists is around £15bn.

A growing number of technology companies are based in London, notably in East London Tech City also known as Silicon Roundabout.

London is a major retail centre and in 2010 had the highest non-food retail sales of any city in the world, with a total spend of around £64.2 billion. The UK’s fashion industry, centred on London, contributes tens of billions to the economy.

The London Plan encapsulates the blueprint for the development of London's economy. This plan aims to position London as the best city in the world and focuses on specific strategies and plans towards this end. The plan identifies growth sectors such as e-commerce, tourism and environmental industries and lays down sustainable and inclusive plans for the overall development of the economy.

The London plan recognises e-industry or Internet based businesses as one of the fastest growing sector and with potential to offer much growth. The Plan envisages an effective Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure and measures to support innovation, to promote creative and environmental industries.

Specific plans towards such a strategy include: providing affordable broadband access for everyone in London; providing support measures to mitigate the social, economic, transport and environmental costs of e-infrastructure works such as ducting and installing wireless computing equipment; E-enabling new residential and commercial developments; providing high quality yet affordable business premises and incubator units that promote business and increase synergy between business and research.

The London plan recognises tourism as a growth sector and aims to enhance London's image as an attractive tourism destination. The plan aims to maximise the opportunity provided by the 2012 Olympic Games through creating integrated and sustainable new products and destinations. The plan also pays attention to developing key infrastructure projects and supporting bids for other major international events.

1. 
   Economic Development [Electronic resource] // London’s Economic Plan. – Mode of access: www.uncsbrp.org/economicdevelopment.htm. – Date of access: 12.03.2015.
   
2. 
   London in the European services industry [Electronic resource]. – Mode of access: oeg.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/4/433. – Date of access: 17.03.2015.
   

В статье анализируется современное состояние и перспективное планирование развития сферы услуг Лондона, который долгие годы является ведущим финансовым центром международного бизнеса и торговли. Авторы отмечают, что экономика Лондона в целом и сфера услуг в частности вышли на лидирующие позиции в Европе раньше остальных европейских городов и претерпели бурное развитие после окончания Второй мировой войны, а также характеризуют основные факторы, повлиявшие на формирование Лондона в качестве глобального бизнес-центра.