Synergy

2

Authors: Roxana Marinescu

Synergy 2/2018 contains a selection of articles presented at the two conferences organised in November 2017 by the Faculty of International Business and Economics: Future of Europe and Synergies in Communication.

8

Authors: Alina-Maria MARDARI

This article aims to give a sociolinguistic perspective on the presence of anglicisms and the semantic aspects of their usage and assessment in the German youth language. Youth language tends to adopt nowadays more directly imported Anglo-American loanwords through extensive language contacts and due to the cosmopolitization and Americanization of youth culture. The pervasive influence of social media determines a rapid spread of newest anglicisms among teenagers with similar interests, which facilitates a considerable semantic enrichment of vocabulary. The specific youth language anglicisms serve especially as means for constructing identity and communality.

9

Authors: Preeti SHIRODKAR

M.G. Vassanji’s latest novel – Nostalgia (2016) explores the dilemmas of identity and(be)longing - expressed or suppressed, realised or hidden, imposed or experienced - that have constituted the heart of diasporic writing. This paper explores the novel as a narrative that seems to move away from the genre, only to, before its close, arrive unexpectedly, at its centre, to focus attention on the unresolved and nagging concerns that serve for the diasporic as an albatross, that s/he is bound eternally to carry, whether at the physical or the psychological level.

11

Authors: Carmen ARDELEAN

One of the key terms in the last decades, multiculturalism is perceived as a critical approach to the peaceful coexistence of different cultures within the same geographical areas. Multiculturalism, as a concept, has proved its validity in certain cases (19th and 20th century America) but failed in others (modern Eastern Europe). Now, a new wave of migration requires a change of perception and a transition from traditional, nationalist preferences to a transcultural approach. The current study aims to tackle this trend from a socio-cultural point of view.

14

Authors: Iulia RĂȘCANU

Tradition and modernity are generally viewed as two opposite poles that do not meet.Society has been changing in contemporary India and women’s status along with it. India is one of the countries that has met the challenges of globalisation becoming a significant economic power. Under such circumstances, the status of women could not remain unaffected despite traditional patriarchal norms that still demarcate women’s movement and space of activity. The public and private spheres have been altered as well, with more women being able and willing to perform in the public sphere. Where does ‘tradition’ then dwell? How is it still linked to the concept of ‘woman’ - its (imposed) bearer and perpetuator for centuries? How does patriarchal society negotiate the new change brought upon the status of women? These questions are asked in the context outlined by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in Oleander Girl, along with a few issues that need to be analysed: the limits or crossings over the limits of the public and the private spheres in contemporary (West) Bengal; taboo breaking realities such as inter-racial relationships and babies born out of wedlock; border-crossing a necessity for (re)definition of identity associated with the uncertainty of return.

14

Authors: Lora CONSTANTINESCU

For a long time the public and the representatives of social sciences have tried to understand how advertising as a persuasive communication genre functions. The dimensions of advertising communication have been analyzed in various interpretative frameworks to provide reasons for and insight into the “construction of meaning” as well as today’s broadly accepted “consumption of advertising”. That’s why the present paper deals with two ad messages built upon religious imagery. The paper discusses the way the ad resonance in both economy (the German ad) and political marketing (the Romanian ad) relies on the (mis)use of the same religious motif borrowed from a famous Renaissance painting. In this way, the paper aims at making a contribution to the analysis of media literacy and of persuasive argumentation.

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Authors: Anca PECICAN

The present study focuses on identifying levels of competence in languages for specific purposes (LSP) in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Although the European Council’s document does not explicitly address the LSP topic, certain recurrent clues indicating different degrees of competence in LSP are to be found in the description of the common reference levels of language proficiency. Such parameters are mainly related to learner’s degree of familiarization with the topic, to text types and to learner’s ability to linguistically express cognitive operations. In the last section, the findings of the research are applied to practical uses of CEFR in LSP classes.

15

Authors: Mihaela PARPALEA

The area of sociolinguistics plays an important part in the extensive framework of relationships between speaker and language, since references to rule-driven action patterns are recognisable therein. Linguistic formulations vary depending on particular speakers, listeners, languages, conversational topics, intentions, and culturally conditioned situations. The topic of the present paper is language analysis, with a focus on structures illustrated by specialised language, and on the description of the functions of language use from psychological perspectives, relying on poetry as an example. The paper deals with language varieties: on the one hand, the clear, factual, precise linguistic perception of reality by means of specialised language; on the other hand, the veiled, symbolic representation, which is filtered through one’s own experience and in some circumstances can come close to an artificial language. Both these facets can be grouped under the concept of language varieties, and can be seen as distinguishable forms of language, reaching beyond social, cultural and other types of parameters such as age, education or gender.

16

Authors: Antonia ENACHE, Marina MILITARU

The present research looks into Donald Trump’s inaugural speech, aiming to identify the nationalistic elements that surface throughout, as well as the President-elect’s attempt to combine these elements with a more conciliatory discourse, advocating for cooperation and international alliances. In the present global context, where the rise of nationalism appears to be the main challenge the world is facing, for political actors, it has become a matter of great rhetorical prowess to capitalize on this trend while also making sure that their discourse does not border on extremism or isolationism. In other words, nationalism is perceived as a good, positive force as long as it is interpreted as patriotism rather than radicalism. In our paper, we will analyse Donald Trump’s approach to this delicate issue, an approach we find to be of utmost importance, since he won the elections against all odds, precisely due to his nationalistic views.

4

Authors: Dana RADLER

Zamfir Bălan’s recently published volume adds to the corpus of contributions devoted to Panait Istrati’s biography and works. This bilingual edition in Romanian and French brings an exciting insight into Istrati’s childhood and early formative years, his interest for egalitarian, socialist politics, and lifetime friendships such as those with the Russian refugee Mikhail Kazanski, the illuminating encounter and literary guidance received from the French writer, Romain Rolland. Throughout his life, Istrati has followed a committed type of writing meant to support intellectual growth among those with less fortunate prospects than the upper classes of the Romanian society. Bălan’s latest book adds to a publication about Istrati’s experience as a photographer, “Panait Istrati – fotograf și în fotografii”, marking the centenary of his birth over three decades ago (1984).

11

Authors: Aurora BĂGIAG

This research aims to explore the novel Oncle Anghel (first published in 1924) by Panait Istrati, Romanian writer of French expression, from a double perspective: religious and aesthetic. The analysis of the numerous biblical references in the novel allows us to highlight a religious metaphor anchored in a rustic Orthodoxy and packed with preChristian remains. A reading approach from the perspective of early 20th century modernism, which proclaims the absence of God, helps identify the movement towards creative atheism suggested by this work of art, which anticipates the rise of a new dogma. By alternating between the temptation of the Western world and the calling of the East, Istrati’s novel sacralises the artistic act and allows the storyteller to take the place of the divine figure.

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Authors: Vladlena A. FEDIANINA

All over the world, people profess many religions and beliefs. Nevertheless, the religious life of Japan and its traditional practices remain a mystery to the West. This study analyses the history of one branch of the sophisticated religious system of Japan, namely the Tenjin cult, or Tenjin worship (from its appearance in the 10th century to the present days) and the modern implications of this cult. We demonstrate how, moulded by indigenous beliefs, an “earthly” man became a “Heavenly Deity”, who, in turn, under the influence of Buddhism, was transformed into a bodhisattva, and, in parallel, shaped by Confucian ideas, he turned into the “deity of learning”. We also reveal the syncretism of the archaic attributes and the borrowings throughout the history of the cult and use different examples to illustrate the main features of the religious life of Japan during various historical periods.

13

Authors: Jillian CURR

In Hanan al-Shaykh’s 2001 novel Only in London, four characters from very different national, social, sexual and cultural backgrounds are thrown together on a flight from Dubai to London where their stories of migration, exile, loss and escape intersect and intertwine. In this city scape, the characters negotiate new ‘selves’ breaking out of the stereotypical roles their cultures had required of them. In this fluid and multi-layered world, their dreams of reinvention are played out highlighting new images of the heterogeneity of Arab cultures. This paper will investigate how the city and the characters interact allowing spaces for new identities to develop in, on one level a bordered and defined area of streets and buildings but on another level, a dynamic and fluid environment.

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Authors: Roswitha BADRY

This paper provides an overview of a sample of novels by contemporary Saudi women authors published in the first decade of the 2000s in order to demonstrate to what extent this kind of fiction addresses taboo subjects and thereby not only challenges prevailing gender discourses maintained by the religious-political establishment with the aim of pushing for reform in the absence of independent civil society organizations, but also counters Western and Eastern distorted, stereotyped images of “the Arab woman”.

22

Authors: Maria GRĂJDIAN

This paper focuses on Takarazuka Revue’s strategies to re-invent the concept of “justice” specifically in the context of the French Revolution of 1789 by means of re-contextualizing history in the performance 1789 – The Lovers of Bastille (originally a French rock-opera, premiered in 2012). Founded in 1913 by Kobayashi Ichizō, one of the most significant entrepreneurs in pre-war Japan, the all-female popular musical theatre Takarazuka Revue proved itself along its centennial existence both a faithful mirror of Japanese reality and an influential model for society. This new theatrical performance reconstructs in a specific way asymmetric interactions between identity and alterity, model and copy, history and geography, obtrusively displayed in sparkling tunes, fairy-tale-like sceneries and gorgeous costumes. The last 40 years – since the world premiere of the blockbuster The Rose of Versailles in 1974 – marked an unexpected tendency in Takarazuka Revue’s public appearance, visible both in the lavishness of its performances and in the intensified commercialization of the increasingly androgynous otokoyaku figures (female impersonators of male roles). This presentation takes into account the multiple layers in Takarazuka Revue’s administration and self-orchestration: performance politics, the economic supervision of brand-related consumption, as well as the performances themselves. The transition from ethics to aesthetics and from imagination to ideology in Takarazuka Revue’s marketing of historical-geographical spaces reflects and condenses its metamorphose from an insignificant socio-cultural medium to a powerful political and economic message in post-war Japan, highlighting Japan’s shifting awareness from an “outsider” to the Western world to gradually becoming an “insider”, within the Asian community.