Fiona a is h £t Jo Tomlinson

Audio scripts 
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to dim inish the effects of culture shock. What we have observed is that people who dem onstrate positive 
coping strategies such as observing, listening, and questioning end up by understanding the host culture 
better and integrating guicker and more successfully. However, those who choose to be critica l of the 
differences, and therefore react negatively to the host culture, are likely to have increased feelings of 
alienation. This alienation can ta il off and become the beginning of acceptance if a person has some 
positive experiences, but it usually deteriorates quickly into isolation.
Track 09
Lecturer: 
Many people have im m igrated to Britain and become citizens over the last 200 years, and in today's 
lecture I’d like to look at the various laws or acts of parliam ent introduced to deal w ith those people 
who came to live in Britain. In 1793 there was the Aliens Act, which the B ritish government introduced 
to control the num ber of refugees fleeing to Britain to escape the Revolution in France. Compared 
to today, when refugees have to complete a long and complicated application process before arrival, 
in 1793 a ll that was reguired by the authorities was that individuals had to register at the port where 
thev a rrived. The collection of personal inform ation started in 1844 w ith the N aturalisation Act, which 
was updated in 1870. The main difference in the 1870 Act was that applicants who wanted to stay in 
Britain had to have served the Crown or to have lived in the country fo r at least five years before being 
considered. Both these acts allowed the governm ent to control the num ber of people coming into the 
country. These changes were fairly insignificant regarding people’s freedom s and the am ount of state 
intervention involved. However, in the tw entieth century this began to change. The Alien Registration Act 
was introduced in 1914 and when the First World War broke out, a ll aliens over the age of sixteen had to 
register at local police stations, be of good character’ and dem onstrate a w orking knowledge of English. 
The reason fo r this act was to create a feeling of patriotism among m igrant com m unities and also to 
stop spies from Europe infiltratin g the country.
And a fte r the Second World War, the meaning of B ritish n ationality was re-defined again, this tim e 
to encourage residents from B ritish colonies to come to B ritain to help rebuild the country. This was 
the B ritish N ationality Act of 1948. The condition was that potential m ig ran ts had to dem onstrate that 
they wanted to w ork and were fit and healthy. Finally, there was the C om m onwealth Im m igration 
Act of 1962. Legislation was passed to re s tric t the num ber of Com m onwealth im m ig ra n ts to Britain. 
Although many people s till wanted to come to B ritain to obtain good jobs, the Act now meant 
applicants had to get w ork perm its, w hich were given m ostly to skille d im m igrants, such as d octo rs.
In the next session I w ant to look at more contem porary acts, fo r instance ...