ENGLISHNESS AS A CULTURAL PHENOMENON

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept of national identity, which appears in scientific literature at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries, primarily in the works of thinkers-philosophers. The concepts of «individual» and «collective identity and their relation to national identity are viewed. National identity is interpreted from the standpoint of multidimensionality as a type of collective identity that determines a person's belonging to a group based on common territorial-geographical, historical, socio-political, legal, linguistic, and ethnic characteristics. It is stated that national identity cannot be replaced by the concept of ethnic identity, given the fact that several ethnic groups can belong to the same nation. «Englishness» is defined as a component of national identity, a combination of common cultural, historical, social aspects that are unique to the English people and act as their unifying factor. The article examines how the combination of these aspects contributed to the formation of the national self-awareness and identity of the English throughout history and in the modern world. It is noted that Englishness can be traced mainly at the level of speech, character traits and behavior, associated with restraint, conservatism, respect for one's own history, an unusual sense of humor, reluctance for the personal boundaries to be intruded. The article aims at studying the essence, prerequisites for the formation of English and its characteristic features. The tasks are solved with the methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization of existing scientific works, the method of analyzing dictionary definitions and the descriptive method. The scientific novelty of the research can be traced in the detailed consideration of the factors that lay the foundation for the formation of the national identity of the English, and in presenting our own definitions of the analyzed phenomenon. The conclusion states the opinion about the multifaceted character of Englishness as a cultural phenomenon that serves as a means of self-reflection and preservation of their identity.