Generational Values in the XX Century British Short Story

The implementation of generational theories for the analysis of value characteristics typical of different generational cohorts has become a subject of a great interest for scholars over the recent decades. While the results of previously conducted surveys are actively applied nowadays in the field of business, corporate culture, and entrepreneurship, the study of generational values in other spheres of human life has long eluded investigation. The research carried out in the frames of this thesis continues the survey performed as part of the course paper written in 2020 and entitled "The Influence of Value Orientations of Representatives of Generation X, Y, Z on Cross-cultural Communication" (Smirnova, 2020). However, the present work focuses on the observation of values typical of older generational cohorts, namely the Greatest Generation and the Silent Generation, through the prism of three British short stories written and published in the XXth century in the period from 1945 to 1965 including "Bella Fleace Gave a Party" (1946) by Evelyn Waugh (1903 – 1966), "Uncle Ernest" (1959) by Alan Sillitoe (1928 – 2010) and "England versus England" (1963) by Doris Lessing (1919 – 2013). The current investigation sheds new light on the practical approach to the analysis of generational values and their interrelation with cultural, social, and personal value traits. Aimed at revealing the type of values prevailing in British society, this study involves both discourse and linguistic conceptual analyses implying the identification and representation of concepts associated with certain value characteristics in the form of concept spheres. Striving to confirm or refute the hypothesis that personal and cultural values prevail over social and generational value traits, the present research utilizes various linguistic techniques in order to compare and contrast previously revealed values conventionally and commonly attributed to the Greatest and the Silent Generations with value traits detected in the course of the empirical research.