International Graduate Diploma in Business and Humanities

English for Academic Purposes
(Graduate Diploma)

INU3102

Redrafted Work
Assignment: Redrafting UKIC

Topic: Choose a UK institution, describe its origin and give a brief history of this institution. To what extent has this institution preserved UK culture and/or changed UK culture (give examples)?

Researchers tried to interpret the relationship between the institution and culture, which is the main purpose of analyzing the social anthropology, but it is not easy to indicate the basic relationship in this area. By analyzing how UK institution preserved UK culture and changed UK culture, firstly should define the institution and culture. Institution could be defined as ‘systems of established and prevalent social rules that structure social interactions.’ It tends to be including the language, money, legal, systems of weights and measures and firms (Hodgson, 2006:2). According to Storry and Childs (2007), institution in Britain can be divided into two categories: ‘official’ institutions, which are prerequisites of a stable society, such as Parliament; Bank of England; the BBC; ‘unofficial’ institutions, which are directly dominant or impact on people’s daily lives, for example, the Glastonbury Festival; the Notting Hill Carnival; the Edinburgh Festival. Culture its broad sense as shared experience; it refers to a dynamic mix of ages, beliefs, regions, behavior, income level and interests (Storry and Childs, 2002:8). In this content, culture could be defined as musical culture, art culture and attitudes. This essay will use the example of Notting Hill Carnival and describe its origin and history. Also, this essay will to measure to what extent Notting Hill Carnival has preserved UK culture in terms of multicultural, art formation and changed UK culture with regards as racial attitudes and music culture.

The Notting Hill Carnival is the largest street festival event in Europe which held in the street of London W11; it has attracted more than 1 million people in the past years (The Notting Hill Carnival, n.d.). It is a yearly carnival, taking place in each August since 1966, over 2-day (the August bank holiday weekend), the outdoor street procession, food stalls and static sound systems are within the carnival route (Ferris, 2010). It is an annual event as a way for Afro-Caribbean communities to celebrate their traditions and culture. The carnival traces its origin back to the culture of the Caribbean and the African slaves who were brought to the Caribbean at the first time and they were prohibited playing music and dancing. However, over several years, there was a carnival with local specialties, the slaves against their oppressed lives with the music, dance and masquerade costumes. With the migration of the workers and their families from the Caribbean to Britain after the Second World War, the carnival tradition came to London as well (Boyle, 2010:138). As Ferris (2010:520) claims: ‘Carnival’s arrival in London as part of the British government’s post-war initiative to rebuild the damaged country with help from its colonies’.

However, in the mid-1970s the carnival was disrupted, mainly because of conflict with young black men and police. It almost caused the Carnival could be canceled; thankfully this did not happen (Notting Hill Carnival, n.d.). Since then the carnival has become a symbol of London’s diversity. In recent year, the Carnival has attracted up to 50,000 performers, 38 sound systems and 2.5 million people over the weekend. There are 5 events in the carnival: the Parade, Calypso-traditional Trinidadian music, Soca-Calypso music, Steel Pan-traditional Trinidadian instruments and the Sound Systems (Notting Hill Carnival, n.d.). The Notting Hill Carnival has not forgotten its origin and preserved its particular Caribbean feel. According to Boyle (2010) the Notting Hill Carnival growing from its Caribbean core to absorbed the tradition from South