Методические указания по работе с темой "Clothes and Fashions". Дедова С.А - 24 стр.

2. Read the article and make notes on what the author says about the above          of fleeting initial visual encounters. It is a cliché that 'Appearances Matter'.
expressions. Discuss your answers with the rest of the class. Decide whether        But it is none the less true. At a party, on the street, in the office, at a disco,
or not you think he would have agreed with the quotation “Clothes are a             when visiting a bank manager, verbal communication is only one aspect of
billboard of the self. They express dreams and disguises, rank and status,          our interaction -and frequently (perhaps surprisingly) it is often the least
pride and dismay. Without them we are vulnerable, and largely anonymous:            important source of information. How many important relationships in all our
with them we are clad in an armour of cloth” (Harris Dienstfrey). Note              lives would have never developed to the verbal level if we had not
anything he says which supports your opinion.                                       surmounted the initial hurdle of visual compatibility?
                               Dressing the Truth                                           The other side of the coin is our ability to interpret the appearances of
        Most people say they wear what they do for practical reasons such as        others in order to avoid unpleasant or even dangerous encounters. On a dark,
comfort or warmth. But the truth is more complex. Like it or not, our clothes       sparsely populated street the distant glimpse of a 'dodgy looking character'
are personal statements – and we might not always mean what they say.               may make us cross to the other side or even retreat in the opposite direction –
        Those of us who live surrounded by strangers – which in Britain in the      often without justification. Our prejudices about appearances frequently
20th century is increasingly the norm – have to develop our skills of non-          interfere with our logic. Muggers, pick-pockets, rapists and con-men rarely, in
verbal communication in what the sociologist Irving Goffman has called The          real life, look like the stereotypes we expect. Usually it is only very subtle
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Just as people have differing abilities in   inconsistencies of style and manner that are the clues we should look out for.
most things, there are obviously experts in this art - the geniuses of the street           And if the interpretation of appearances is a complex game, the task of
who can spot a genuine Rolex or a pair of original Levi 501s at 100 yards. But      projecting to the world our own personal self-advertisement is no less so.
it is also true that all of us require basic skills to enable us to read the        Buying a new wardrobe – or even a pair of socks – is no easy matter, but the
messages of the walking billboards around us and, just as importantly, to           choices we make (yes, even in socks) are among our most important
select appropriate items for use in our own personal image management.              decisions. Many people who have abundant skills at anything from computer
These personal advertisements are not necessarily 'legal, decent, honest and        programming to writing pop songs are held back in life because they have
truthful'. If asked to check out the claims made by our walking billboards, the     never taken the time to develop their skills of image management. Yet it is not
Advertising Standards Authority would probably take most of us to court. We         difficult to do so.
dress to impress, to confuse and to deceive (if only ourselves). Whether we                 The first point to grasp is that items of clothing, make-up, hairstyles,
utilize the skills of an undercover cop to blend into our surroundings or those     etc. are symbols. Just as in learning the vocabulary of a foreign language, one
of a pop star to stand out, there is generally a considerable gap between what      has to learn the meanings of these everyday style symbols. Unfortunately
we project in our appearance and the reality of our situation in life. It may be    there are no dictionaries of these things (their meanings are too ephemeral for
only when dressing for, say, a job interview or a first date that we are aware of   that) but simply by taking note of what other people are 'saying' with what
our capacity for visual deceit but we are, in fact, at it all the time.             garments, you can become fluent enough to begin to evaluate what you are
        Dressing for effect is a game we all play. It is also a very serious        communicating through your own appearance.
business – not just in the sense that the clothing and make-up industries are               To make this process a little easier, we present here in graphic form
big business (clothing manufacture is Britain's fourth biggest employer) but        some of the things which people frequently attempt to communicate through
also because our own personal, economic, social and romantic relationships so       the medium of their appearance, and invite you to consider how you and
often derive from effective image management. Except for the minority of            people you know fit into this scheme of things. Remember: What we illustrate
people who live out their lives in small, rural communities where everyone          here are the extremes – most of us fall somewhere in between them on a
knows everyone else, we inevitably build our relationships upon a foundation        graduated scale.
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