Britain as perceived by italian students of English, a study in cross-cultural perception

All individuals compose a distinct mental image of the environment in which they live. This unique impression is formed and altered through time by many factors (age, sex, personality attributes and cultural features, nationality, the cultural milieu, access to information, for example). During several years of teaching Italian university students about British life and culture, the author has understood that there are a wide number of misconceptions concerning various aspects of the United Kingdom. Her interest was thus aroused and she decided to conduct a survey in order to attempt to determine these misapprehensions and contrive some form of measurement of the true mental perception of the country. The purpose of this study is to attempt to unravel the 'invisible environment image' of the British Isles as viewed by Italian students thus touching on an overlooked aspect of percepition at macro scale, following an indipendent methodology.