Культурные ценности Австралии

РОССИЙСКАЯ ФЕДЕРАЦИЯ

ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ ГОСУДАРЧТВЕННОЕ  БЮДЖЕТНОЕ

ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ

ВЫСШЕГО ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО  ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ

«ОРЛОВСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ  УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»

 

Кафедра иностранных  языков

 

 

 

РЕФЕРАТ

Культурные ценности Австралии

За 1 семестр 2012-2013 учебного года

(английский язык)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Выполнил

Студент 1 курса

факультета ПиП

 

Проверила:

старший преподаватель

 

 

 

 

2012год.

Contents.

Information about the country……………………………………………………2

Demographics…………………………………………………………………….2

Language ...………………………………………………………………………5

Religion…………………………………………………………………………..6

Education…………………………………………………………………………9

Health…………………………………………………………………………….10

Culture……………………………………………………………………………11

Arts……………………………………………………………………………….11

Media……………………………………………………………………………..13

Cuisine…………………………………………………………………………....14

Sport………………………………………………………………………………15

Customs of Australia……………………………………………………………...17

Vocabulary………………………………………………………………………..18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Information about the country.

     Australia is the only country in the world that also a continent. It is

sixth large country and the smallest continent. Australia lies between the

South Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It is situated about 11000 km

southwest of  North America and about 3200 km southeast of mainland Asia.

The name of the country comes from Latin word “australis” which mean

southern. The country’s official name is Commonwealth of Australia.

     The capital of Australia is Canberra, which became the capital only in 1927.                                    Australia is one of the most unusual and exotic countries of the world. A significant feature of modern Australian society is the representation of a lot of cultures drawn from many lands by its people.

 

Demographics

 

 

     Nearly three quarters of Australians live in metropolitan cities and coastal areas. The beach is an integral part of the Australian identity.

 

     For almost two centuries the majority of settlers, and later immigrants, came from the British Isles. As a result the people of Australia are primarily of British and/or Irish ethnic origin. The 2011 Census asked respondents to provide a maximum of two ancestries with which they most closely identify. The most commonly nominated ancestry was English (36.1 per cent), followed by Australian (35.4 per cent), Irish (10.4 per cent), Scottish (8.9 per cent), Italian (4.6 per cent), German (4.5 per cent), Chinese (4.3 per cent), Indian (2.0 per cent), Greek (1.9 per cent), and Dutch (1.7 per cent). Asian Australians make up 12% of the population.

     Australia's population has quadrupled since the end of World War I. Nevertheless, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometers, remains among the lowest in the world. Much of the population increase came from immigration. Following World War II and through to 2000, almost 5.9 million of the total population settled in the country as new immigrants, meaning that nearly two out of every seven Australians were born in another country. Most immigrants are skilled, but the immigration quota includes categories for family members and refugees. By 2050, Australia's population is currently projected to reach around 42 million.

     In 2011, 24.6% of Australians were born elsewhere and 43.1% of people had at least one overseas-born parent; the largest immigrant groups were those from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, China, India, Italy, Vietnam, and Philippines.

Over 80 percent of Australia's population is of European ancestry, and most of the rest are of Asian heritage, with a smaller minority of indigenous (Aboriginal) background. Following the abolition of the White Australia policy in 1973, numerous government initiatives have been established to encourage and promote racial harmony based on a policy of multiculturalism. In 2005–06, more than 131,000 people emigrated to Australia, mainly from Asia and Oceania. The migration target for 2012–13 is 190,000, compared to 67,900 in 1998–99.

 

     The Barossa Valley is a wine-producing region in South Australia. Fewer than 15 per cent of Australians live in rural areas.

     The Indigenous population—mainland Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders—was counted at 548,370 (2.5 per cent of the total population) in 2011, a significant increase from 115,953 in the 1976 census. The increase is partly due to the fact that previously, many people with Indigenous heritage were overlooked by the census due to undercount and cases where their Indigenous status had not been recorded on the form.

     Indigenous Australians experience higher than average rates of imprisonment and unemployment, lower levels of education, and life expectancies for males and females that are 11–17 years lower than those of non-indigenous Australians. Some remote Indigenous communities have been described as having "failed state"-like conditions.

     In common with many other developed countries, Australia is experiencing a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In 2004, the average age of the civilian population was 38.8 years. A large number of Australians (759,849 for the period 2002–03; 1 million or 5% of the total population in 2005live outside their home country.

Language.

 

     Although Australia has no official language, English has always been entrenched as the de facto national language. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling. General Australian serves as the standard dialect. According to the 2011 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 81% of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are Mandarin (1.7%),Italian (1.5%), Arabic (1.4%), Cantonese (1.3%), Greek (1.3%), and Vietnamese (1.2%);a considerable proportion of first- and second-generation migrants are bilingual. A 2010–2011 study by the Australia Early Development Index found the most common language spoken by children after English was Arabic, followed by Vietnamese, Greek, Chinese, and Hindi.

Between 200 and 300 Indigenous Australian languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact, of which only about 70 have survived. Many of these are exclusively spoken by older people; only 18 Indigenous languages are still spoken by all age groups. At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous Australians, representing 12 per cent of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home. Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of about 5,500 deaf people.

 

 

 

Religion.

 

 

WR Thomas, A South Australian Corroboree, 1864, Art Gallery of South Australia. Aboriginal Australians developed the animist religion of the Dreamtime.

     

     Australia has no state religion, and section 116 of the Australian Constitution prohibits the federal government from making any law to establish any religion, impose any religious observance, or prohibit the free exercise of any religion.[251] In the 2011 census, 61.1 per cent of Australians were counted as Christian, including 25.3 per cent as Roman Catholic and 17.1 per cent as Anglican. 22.3 per cent of the population reported having "no religion" (which includes humanism, atheism, agnosticism and rationalism). 7.2 per cent identify with non-Christian religions, the largest of these being Buddhism (2.5 per cent), followed by Islam (2.2 per cent), Hinduism (1.3 per cent) andJudaism (0.5 per cent). The remaining 9.4 per cent of the population did not provide an answer.

St Mary's Catholic Cathedral, Sydney, built to a design by William Wardell. About a quarter of Australians are Roman Catholic.

 

     Prior to European settlement in Australia, the animist beliefs of Australia's indigenous people had been practiced for millennia. In the case of mainland Aboriginal Australians, their spirituality is known as the Dreamtime and it places a heavy emphasis on belonging to the land. The collection of stories that it contains shaped Aboriginal law and customs. Aboriginal art, story and dance continue to draw on these spiritual traditions. In the case of the Torres Strait Islanders who inhabit the islands between Australia and New Guinea, spirituality and customs reflected their Melanesian origins and dependence on the sea. The 1996 Australian census counted more than 7000 respondents as followers of a traditional Aboriginal religion.

Since the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships in 1788, Christianity has grown to be the major religion. Consequently, the Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter are public holidays, the skylines of Australian cities and towns are marked by church and cathedral spires, and the Christian churches have played an integral role in the development of education, health and welfare services in Australia. The Catholic education system operates as the largest non-government educator, accounting for about 21 per cent of all secondary enrolments at the close of the 2000s (decade), with Catholic Health Australia similarly being the largest non-government provider. Christian welfare organizations also play a prominent role within national life, with organizations like the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul Society and Anglicare enjoying widespread support. Such contributions are recognized on Australia's currency, with the presence of Christian pastors like Aboriginal writer David Unaipon ($50); founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, John Flynn ($20); and Catherine Helen Spence ($5) who was Australia's first female candidate for political office. Other significant Australian religious figures have included St. Mary MacKillop, who became the first Australian to be recognised as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 2010 andChurch of Christ pastor Sir Douglas Nicholls, who, like Martin Luther King in the United States, led a movement against racial inequality in Australia and was also the first indigenous Australian to be appointed as a State Governor.

For much of Australian history the Church of England (now known as the Anglican Church of Australia) was the largest religious affiliation, however multicultural immigration has contributed to a decline in its relative position, with the Roman Catholic Church benefiting from the opening of post-war Australia to multicultural immigration and becoming the largest group. Similarly, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism have all been expanding in the post war decades. To a lesser extent, smaller affiliations including the Bahá'í Faith, Sikhism, Wicca and Paganism have also seen a significant increase in numbers. In the 2001 census there were, 17,381 Sikhs, 11,037 Bahá'ís, 10,632 Pagans and 8,755 Wiccans in Australia.

An international survey, made by the private, not-for profit German think-tank, the Bertelsmann Foundation, found that "Australia is one of the least religious nations in the western world, coming in 17th out of 21 [countries] surveyed" and that "Nearly three out of four Australians say they are either not at all religious or that religion does not play a central role in their lives." While weekly attendance at church services in 2001 was about 1.5 million (about 7.8 per cent of the population), a survey of 1,718 Australians by the Christian Research Association at the end of 2009 suggested that the number of people attending religious services per month in Australia has dropped from 23 per cent in 1993 to 16 per cent in 2009, and while 60 per cent of 15 to 29-year-old respondents in 1993 identified with Christian denominations, 33 per cent did in 2009.

Education

 

     School attendance is compulsory throughout Australia. Education is the responsibility of the individual states and territories so the rules vary between states, but in general children are required to attend school from the age of about 5 up until about 16. In at least some states (e.g., WA) children aged 16–17 are required to either attend school or participate in vocational training, such as an apprenticeship.

     Australia has an adult literacy rate that is assumed to be 99 per cent. In the Programme for International Student Assessment, Australia regularly scores among the top five of thirty major developed countries (member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Catholic education accounts for the largest non-government sector.

     Australia has 37 government-funded universities and two private universities, as well as a number of other specialist institutions that provide approved courses at the higher education level. The University of Sydney is Australia's oldest university, having been founded in 1850, followed by the University of Melbourne three years later. Other notable universities include those of the Group of Eight leading tertiary institutions, including the University of Adelaide (which boasts an association with five Nobel Laureates), theAustralian National University located in the national capital of Canberra, Monash University and the University of New South Wales.

     The OECD places Australia among the most expensive nations to attend university. There is a state-based system of vocational training, known as TAFE, and many trades conduct apprenticeships for training new tradespeople. Approximately 58 per cent of Australians aged from 25 to 64 have vocational or tertiary qualifications, and the tertiary graduation rate of 49 per cent is the highest among OECD countries. The ratio of international to local students in tertiary education in Australia is the highest in the OECD countries.

 

Health

 

     Australia has the fourth highest life expectancy in the world after Iceland, Japan and Hong Kong. Life expectancy in Australia in 2010 was 79.5 years for males and 84.0 years for females. Australia has the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, while cigarette smoking is the largest preventable cause of death and disease, responsible for 7.8 per cent of the total mortality and disease. Ranked second in preventable causes is hypertension at 7.6 per cent, with obesity third at 7.5 per cent. Australia ranks 35th in the world and near the top of developed nations for its proportion of obese adults.

     Total expenditure on health (including private sector spending) is around 9.8 per cent of GDP. Australia introduced universal health care in 1975. Known as Medicare, it is now nominally funded by an income tax surcharge known as the Medicare levy, currently set at 1.5 per cent. The states manage hospitals and attached outpatient services, while the Commonwealth funds the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (subsidizing the costs of medicines) and general practice.

 

Culture

 

The Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne was the first building in Australia to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.

 

     Since 1788, the basis of Australian culture has been strongly influenced by Anglo-Celtic Western culture. Distinctive cultural features have also arisen from Australia's natural environment and Indigenous cultures. Since the mid-20th century, American popular culture has strongly influenced Australia, particularly through television and cinema. Other cultural influences come from neighbouring Asian countries, and through large-scale immigration from non-English-speaking nations.

 

 

 

 

 

Arts

 

 

Bailed up by Tom Roberts depicts the robbing of a coach from the gold fields bybushrangers.

 

     Australian visual arts are thought to have begun with the cave paintings, rock engravings and body painting of its Indigenous peoples. The traditions of Indigenous Australians are largely transmitted orally, through ceremony and the telling of Dreamtime stories. From the time of European settlement, a theme in Australian art has been the natural landscape, seen for example in the works of Albert Namatjira, Arthur Streeton and others associated with the Heidelberg School, and Arthur Boyd.

     The country's landscape remains a source of inspiration for Australian modernist artists; it has been depicted in acclaimed works by the likes of Sidney Nolan, Fred Williams, Sydney Long, and Clifton Pugh. Australian artists influenced by modern American and European art include cubist Grace Crowley, surrealist James Gleeson, and pop artist Martin Sharp. Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the only art movement of international significance to emerge from Australia and "the last great art movement of the 20th century"; its exponents have included Emily Kngwarreye. Art critic Robert Hughes has written several influential books about Australian history and art, and was described as the "world's most famous art critic" by The New York Times. The National Gallery of Australia and state galleries maintain Australian and overseas collections. Australia has one of the world's highest attendances of art galleries and museums per head of population—far more than Britain or America.

Many of Australia's performing arts companies receive funding through the federal government's Australia Council. There is a symphony orchestra in each state, and a national opera company, Opera Australia, well-known for its famous soprano Joan Sutherland. At the turn of the 19th to 20th century, Nellie Melba was one of the world's leading opera singers. Ballet and dance are represented by The Australian Ballet and various state companies. Each state has a publicly funded theatre company.

 

Performance of Aboriginal song and dance in the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney

 

     Australian literature has also been influenced by the landscape; the works of writers such as Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, and Dorothea Mackellar captured the experience of the Australian bush. The character of the nation's colonial past, as represented in early literature, is popular with modern Australians. In 1973, Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Australian to have achieved this. Australian winners of the Man Booker Prize have included Peter Carey and Thomas Keneally; David Williamson, David Malouf, and J. M. Coetzee, who recently became an Australian citizen, are also renowned writers, and Les Murray is regarded as "one of the leading poets of his generation".

Media

 

The Australian cinema industry began with the 1906 release of The Story of the Kelly Gang, which is regarded as being the world's first feature-length film; but both Australian feature film production and the distribution of British-made features declined dramatically after World War I as American studios and distributors monopolised the industry, and by the 1930s around 95 per cent of the feature films screened in Australia were produced in Hollywood. By the late 1950s feature film production in Australia had effectively ceased and there were no all-Australian feature films made in the decade between 1959 and 1969.

Thanks to initiatives by the Gorton and Whitlam federal governments, the New Wave of Australian cinema of the 1970s brought provocative and successful films, some exploring the nation's colonial past, such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and Breaker Morant, while the so-called "Ocker" genre produced several highly successful urban-based comedy features including The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and Alvin Purple. Later hits included Mad Max and Gallipoli. More recent successes included Shine and Rabbit-Proof Fence. Notable Australian actors include Judith Anderson, Errol Flynn, Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger, Geoffrey Rush, and Cate Blanchett—current joint director of the Sydney Theatre Company.

Australia has two public broadcasters (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the multicultural Special Broadcasting Service), three commercial television networks, several pay-TV services, and numerous public, non-profit television and radio stations. Each major city has at least one daily newspaper, and there are two national daily newspapers, The Australian and The Australian Financial Review. In 2010, Reporters Without Borders placed Australia 18th on a list of 178 countries ranked by press freedom, behind New Zealand (8th) but ahead of the United Kingdom (19th) and United States (20th). This relatively low ranking is primarily because of the limited diversity of commercial media ownership in Australia; most print media are under the control of News Corporation and Fairfax Media.

 

 

 

 

Cuisine

 

 

The Pavlova has been consumed in Australia since the 20th century.

 

     The food of Indigenous Australians was largely influenced by the area in which they lived. Most tribal groups subsisted on a simplehunter-gatherer diet, hunting native game and fish and collecting native plants and fruit. The general term for native Australian flora and fauna used as a source of food is bush tucker. The first settlers introduced British food to the continent which much of what is now considered typical Australian food is based on the Sunday roast has become an enduring tradition for many Australians. Since the beginning of the 20th century, food in Australia has increasingly been influenced by immigrants to the nation, particularly from Southern European and Asian cultures. Australian wine is produced in 60 distinct production areas totalling approximately 160,000 hectares, mainly in the southern, cooler parts of the country. The wine regions in each of these states produce different wine varieties and styles that take advantage of local climates and soil types. The predominant varieties are Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Sémillon, Pinot noir, Riesling, and Sauvignon blanc. In 1995, an Australian red wine, Penfolds Grange, won the Wine Spectator award for Wine of the Year, the first time a wine from outside France or California achieved this distinction.