Synergy

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Authors: Anca-Teodora ȘERBAN-OPRESCU

Cultural and linguistic diversity are intrinsic to the civilizations of the contemporary world (except for, maybe, a few areas around the globe); yet, despite their prominence, especially in educational contexts, the latter have not benefited from increased emphasis in this direction.

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Authors: Elena TĂLMĂCIAN

This paper focuses on the importance of raising ESP students’ awareness about the impact of business English terms and expressions upon Romanian online advertising language. This linguistic reality has been signalled during the business English seminars within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (BUES) and the present research tries to capture the behaviour of economic Anglicisms in several advertisements in Romanian online business environments (e.g. sites belonging to banking institutions). The applied part of our paper contains examples of Romanian advertisements containing at least one term in English, a set of questions addressed to our students as well as our findings.

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Authors: Ionela CHIRU

There is a special vocabulary to define the wine and a certain terminology to describe it. This paper presents how the Sommeliers and the Masters of Wine use language to communicate about wine and how effective that communication is. Particular attention is given to the complexity of the relationship between this drink and words. In order to understand the language of wine and the communicative code of those who use it, we analyzed tasting notes of three Italian wines: Barolo, Brunello, Amarone.

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Authors: Maria DĂRĂBANȚ

The present paper focuses on the myth of Oedipus as presented in the Romanian folk tale Lostrița. Although the two narratives run in parallel for the main events, there are some distinctions worth mentioning in the attempt to see how West meets East over a universally acknowledged myth. At closer reading, we are bound to discover that some of the differences present in the Romanian story have a universal aspect as they transcend limits that might be imposed by geographical boundaries or cultural belonging. From this point of view, we can say that the Romanian variant is profoundly rooted in the universal wisdom shared by both the ancient and modern man. By capitalizing on this aspect of universality, the paper attempts to shed light on a Romanian folk creation that might otherwise go unnoticed.

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Authors: Anca-Simina MARTIN

"He was a savage who had some imagination,” Voltaire noted of William Shakespeare in a letter in 1765,foreshadowing his country’s tumultuous relationship not only with his works, but also with what is probably the most infamous aspect of his style—the bawdy puns.By analyzing two of Shakespeare's ribald wordplay as they appear in six renditions of Romeo and Juliet, the article aims to highlight how early French translators too sometimes interfered with them,for reasons ranging from perceived untranslatability,through their purported non-Shakespearean origin, to they allegedly being faults of the playwright’s time or Shakespeare himself.

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Authors: Viorela Valentina DIMA, Lucia-Mihaela GROSU-RĂDULESCU, Raluca Elena HURDUZEU

The paper investigates the educational and professional opportunities that open up for graduates of study programs in foreign languages, by exploring the international and Romanian trends in the field. After reviewing a series of international publications on the topic, we present a case study conducted among the graduates of the Bachelor’s program in Applied Modern Languages organized by the Faculty of International Business and Economics within The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania. The results of the case study confirm the international trends, in that foreign language graduates are shown to be able to continue their studies and/or embark on a professional career in a wide range of fields, not being restricted to the philological domain.

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Authors: Adriana Elena STOICAN

The analysis examines the (dis) empowering valences assigned to nomadic mobility by Jhumpa Lahiri. Relying on a cultural studies approach to literature, the paper builds a comparative perspective on nomadic identities and transcultural transformations as illustrated by The Lowland and In Other Words. The discussion focuses on the interplay between the protagonists’ rhizomatic profiles and their search for rooted configurations. In order to enlarge the scope of the analysis, a few references will be made to Kaushik, a character from Unaccustomed Earth.

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Authors: Aurora BÂGIAG

Considered as a form of autonomous learning, the linguistic tandem is optimized when properly supervised. Our action research, conducted as part of a Franco-Romanian bilingual immersion university project, is organized around the question: What is the role of educational resources in tandem exchanges? We will try to answer it through a three step approach. The first part will focus on the design of activity sheets and its specific methodology, the principles of which we will try to dissect: autonomy, reciprocity, interaction, reflexivity, fair management of languages. We will then analyze how the methodology has been concretely transposed into language activities. Finally, we will study, based on the way tandem couples have used activity sheets, how their work reflects the selected pedagogical criteria.

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Authors: Dana Radler, Maria Dărăbanț

The main questions pursued by the participants in the Panel East and West within Interdisciplinary Frames of the Conference Synergies in Communication (16-17 November 2017), concerned the literary relations between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ literature, as well as the issue of ‘centres’ versus ‘peripheries’.

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Authors: Minouti NAIK

In India there has been a debate about whether the two primary epics of Hindu mythology –Ramayana and Mahabharata - are facts or fiction. In parallel, a body of nonfiction seeking inspiration from mythology has emerged from India and a new trend of drawing management lessons from Indian myths has become very popular. An author, who has resorted to this practice in his writing is Devdutt Pattanaik who has produced works in this genre for the past 20 years. By analysing Pattanaik’s five management related books and varied articles, this paper examines the feasibility of applying mythology to deriving management lessons, thus determining whether this has added value to the texts and the genre, or rather resulted in their devaluation.

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Authors: Naoko HOSOKAWA

The concept of an East-West division has been one of the common tools to describe the world. Yet, the definition of the division is highly context-bound and never fixed. This paper will examine how the notion of the East-West division is understood and expressed from a sociolinguistic perspective. Using the case study of the discussion on ‘Western’ loanwords, the paper will suggest that the notion of ‘West’ is an integral part of Japanese linguistic and national identity, as it plays a key contrapuntal role in Japan’s self-image.

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Authors: Hala KAMAL

In light of the notions of ‘Travelling Theory’ (Edward Said 1982), and ‘Travelling Concepts’ (Mieke Bal 2002; Birgit Neumann & Ansgar Nunning 2012), this article discusses ‘feminism’ as a travelling theory and ‘gender’ as a travelling concept in the Egyptian context, through their equivalents and translations in Arabic language. The article traces the histories of the two terms in Egypt, and problematises feminism and gender as complex transnational ideologies and categories, travelling across histories, geographies, cultures, disciplines, languages and politics. This study uses an interdisciplinary approach, and thus stands at the intersection of feminist theory, cultural studies and translation studies.

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Authors: Dana RADLER

Unpredictable journeys are a dominant feature in Istrati’s fiction, taking the main protagonist (Stavro) from unstable yet familiar settings to exciting experiences if not sorrowful ones. Characters display coarse or delicate features, in accordance with their habitat and identity. In urban or country locations, light and dark mix with visible or hardly perceivable feelings and actions, the result being a narrative focused on or diluting facets of sensuality, power and authenticity. Male and female characters portrayed by Romanian artists in the inter- and post-war decades present similar characteristics. This paper aims to explore the tache as a key plastic sign in text and painting, drawing on Øystein Sjåstad’s theory of connections between perception and reality, the result being a continuum in different artistic media.

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Authors: Monica GOT

Virgil Stanciu’s Dicționar de angliști și americaniști români/ Dictionary of Romanian Anglicists and Americanists is a welcome and valuable effort to gather, catalogue, and systematize the ever-growing number of Anglicists and Americanists in Romania, influential figures in their respective fields, be they past or present, at the beginning or end of their respective careers, who have shaped in one way or another the public’s perception of Anglophone literatures, linguistics, and other various cultural/ field-specific subdivisions.

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Authors: Ana KARLSTEDT

The aim of this paper is to critically analyze the benefits of applying literary texts in foreign language classes and to delineate the conditions that must be fulfilled in order for literature to support and stimulate the process of learning a foreign language. The exercises presented can be applied immediately as they are specially selected for the purpose of teaching and easy to make use of. It is being stated that reading must be considered as a two-way street: It promotes the ability of understanding of different perspectives, of the self and the other. Instead of drilling learners on grammar and vocabulary, the goal of the foreign language class will be to develop a mature understanding of the foreign culture and language and to master various speaking and writing tasks.

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Authors: Mihaela ARSENE

The paper explores teacher and student empowerment and their respective impact on the language learning outcomes, to finally illustrate the benefits of the approach with a Romanian application involving graduate students. The application highlights the challenges and the opportunities inherent in the approach and leads to the pedagogically exciting conclusion that, overall, student empowerment as enhanced student responsibility and engagement with the learning process and teacher empowerment as comprehensive teacher autonomy appear to be conducive to innovative teaching strategies, renewed student motivation and zest for learning.

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Authors: Dana RADLER

Love, power and money determine the characters in this play switch from open to hidden discourse and action. The ability of characters to reveal or conceal their agenda connects communication skills to the success or failure of their negotiation. What is loss and gain in their quest for justice? How are the politically (in) correct elements articulated in public speaking via dramatic techniques? Where does ambiguity start and where does obligation end, entailing both comic and tragic effects on the fate of protagonists? This paper aims to explore the means of negotiation employed by both female and male characters in a complex cultural background, and their adjustable tactics displayed in public contexts.

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Authors: Nina IVANCIU

The paper is focussed on mediation as a contextualized language and at the same time as an action, this double perspective being the result of some questions connected to the domains or situations where it is necessary, as well as to the relation between, on the one hand, its objectives and strategies, and, on the other hand, its outcomes. The question referred to the results waited for the process of cross-cultural mediation is in relation with its efficiency concerning a cognitive level and a practical one. The first targets principally the mutual understanding in the contexts where persons are from various cultures (values, principles, perspectives, significations…), and nourishes the second level which intends finally to create a climate where the speakers could collaborate. The efficiency with which the cross-cultural mediator tries to get agreement between people having divergent points of view depends first of all on a kind of synergy between his inner resources, cultural and communicative skills developed by education.

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Authors: Mihaela PARPALEA

Communication is now increasingly in the focus of public attention. Thanks to the spread of technologies, personal and media communication as a form of social action is determined by the influences of the environment, the characteristics of the communication partners and media, the abilities, attitudes, interests, knowledge and cultural background. In this background it must be pointed out that in a particular cultural circle, a professional frame offers a sociocultural pattern which is common to the communication partners. The communication techniques, however, must be based on specific relationships. The framework of a linguistic grammatical analysis is enriched by aspects related to communication partners, content or conventions of communication.

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Authors: Joanna NIEMIEC

The aim of this paper is to present (1) a theoretical background on needs and needs analysis (2) and an account of an analysis of a questionnaire survey carried out among medical students. Data analysis revealed information on the students’ current skills and language use; deficiencies in the area of language skills; effective and productive ways of learning, preferred teaching styles and methods. The authentic data show that course designers are advised to consider students’ opinions and ideas when constructing ESP syllabus in order to design a realistic and practical course and thus enhance learning processes.

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Authors: Lucia-Mihaela GROSU-RĂDULESCU

“A book is not shut in by its contours, is not walled-up as in a fortress. It asks nothing better than to exist outside itself, or to let you exist in it. In short, the extraordinary fact in the case of a book is the falling away of the barriers between you and it. You are inside it; it is inside you; there is no longer either outside or inside”. (Poulet, 1969: 54)

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Authors: Preeti SHIRODKAR

The notion of borders and their unstated others – ‘home’ and ‘identity’ – find a central place in diasporic discourse and serve as a strand that unifies it, a theme that is explored by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in ‘Before We Visit The Goddess’. My paper would engage with the novel-in-stories as an attempt at questioning and crossing these borders, in order to seek a home that may be transitory, in its physical manifestation, but is nevertheless one that seeks to anchor the mind and thereby liberate the individual from the shackles that have ironically moved beyond societal constrictions to becoming personal ones.

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Authors: Clelia CLINI

The Last Word (2014) is the first novel written by Hanif Kureishi not being set in London but in the English countryside. While the main focus of the novel is the antagonistic relationship between the famous Indian writer Mamoon and his biographer Harry, the context of deprivation within which Mamoon’s mansion is located speaks of what Kureishi himself called a “big break in Britain, between London and the rest of the country” (2014). This paper will precisely focus on the novel’s description of this “break” within the country and relate it to the outcome of the recent “Brexit” referendum. In particular, through references to earlier novels by the same author and an interview I conducted with him in 2014, the analysis will focus on Kureishi’s take on multiculturalism and the contemporary social and political situation of Britain. What dynamics of power regulate social relationships? Who is included and who is excluded? In addressing these questions, the paper will also address the emergence of “post-multiculturalism” discourses and the backlash against multiculturalism in Europe (Vertovec and Wessendorf, 2010).

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Authors: Paul L. LANDRY

There has been heated public and political discourse in the United States concerning immigrants, with generalized fear of terrorist attacks, xenophobia and calls for restriction on immigration. A major proposal by one candidate in the Presidential election has been to “build a wall” to keep out Mexican immigrants. Yet in a “nation of immigrants,” with millions of immigrant families and descendants already within, people from other countries will continue to enter. Major concerns for educators, and for teacher educators, are the effects and implications of such anti-immigrant discourse upon schooling and educational opportunities for immigrant language minority children in public schools. Structurally, the US Constitution guarantees education to children within the United States, and prohibits discriminatory denial of education services based upon race, ethnicity, language or immigration status. The focus of discussion will be on implications of such public rhetoric and related policies upon relationships between immigrant language minority families and schools, and the academic progress of immigrant children. A wealth of research demonstrates the beneficial effects of positive and receptive school environments for immigrant language minority children, and strong collaboration between schools and immigrant families. Research regarding such relationships also suggests adverse effects of symbolic interactionism in anti-immigrant discursive environments which impede salutary and productive collaboration between immigrant language minority families and schools. As rhetorical sparring continues, the children fall further behind academically due to marginalization, ineffective instruction and dropping out of the education system. This dysfunctional interaction exacts a far deeper and more persistent cost burden, in terms of human capital and lost opportunity, than generally recognized in superficial political debate over who would pay for a putative anti-immigrant wall.

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Authors: Dan H. POPESCU

In light of the recent migration phenomenon and of the so-called fear for the Islamization of our old continent, my paper is an attempt to deal with the art of travel writing and the image of the Turks as the "Perennial Other" in Central Europe, due to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, starting with the 14th century. The text I have chosen for my analysis is a travelogue produced by a British writer and traveller through Hungary and Romania in the 1930s: Between the Woods and the Water by Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor (published in Romanian translation in the spring of 2016).

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Authors: Ildikó HORTOBÁGYI

With the exponential growth of digital technology, multimodality has become a normal state of communication (Kress, 2010). The emergence of Web 2.0 environments and the shift of Internet to accommodate highly interactive contents have generated new attitudes towards language and text. Drawing on recent related literature (Hesmondhalgh 2013, Danesi 2016, Tannen and Trester 2015), and relying on research carried out in the field of media literacy, the paper aims to prove that the internet has encouraged a dramatic expansion in the variety and creativity of language. Building on a comparative approach, online and offline communication instances exemplify how meaning is created and negotiated. Bi- and multilingualism, biliteracy, code-switching and language loyalty on digital platforms are also analysed. The relevant findings of the research may assist instructors while designing relevant teaching material to illustrate the importance of decoding medialects to construct meaning.

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Authors: Roxana Marinescu

This issue of Synergy includes a diversity of articles which reflect a variety of preoccupations of our contributors, as well as their profound attachment to academic research. Publishing them in Synergy shows our contributors’commitment towards offering their findings to the scrutiny of the specialist and wider public. It is our strong belief that it is only through public debates that scientific results are known and that academic research moves forward.

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Authors: Roxana MARINESCU, Mariana NICOLAE

This article is based on two speeches held at the seminar Ambedkar and Social Change, to celebrate 125th birth anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, organized by the Embassy of India and the Department of Modern Languages and Business Communication, ASE, on 14 April 2016 at The Bucharest University of Economic Studies. It presents Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s groundbreaking work in laying the foundation of the new Indian state at the dawn of Independence. The article emphasizes the postcolonial perspective of bringing peripheral groups in central position in a shift of power relations triggered by a new social, economic and political reality. The principle of intersectionality is privileged in this analysis of caste and gender, as constituents of Dr. Ambedkar’s servant leadership style.

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Authors: Lora Constantinescu

Since today’s advertising is often viewed upon as a component of intercultural communication, the present paper aims at mapping potential conflict areas in this vast domain of perceiving and interpreting public messages. Two study cases briefly discuss stereotype-based representations and messages. The text-image-setting addresses “the inner person” of the receiver/advertising consumer via racial stereotypes (otherness,wildness) and biases: Africa and its people are basically wild, African people’s lifestyle and communication are basically primitive. Thus, arousing attention and awakening interest within advertising communication can sometimes lead to reaching “borders of decency.

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Authors: Кateryna MURASHEVYCH

The usage of different literary techniques in Chinese Misty poetry expresses the poets’ reflection on human nature, self-value and their longing for spiritual freedom. Such artistically stylistic device as contrast is often used in Chinese contemporary poetry, it is mostly implemented by means of antonymic and reverse images, colors, feelings and actions. The contrast as a semantic and contextual device helps to influence the reader’s perception and imagination, and as a stylistic device it gives more expressiveness to verses. Misty poets often used semantic contrast as well as stylistic techniques and figures built with the help of contraposition and antonymy.

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Authors: Olga CALINA

This article highlights the importance of using warm up activities in English classes and especially when teaching English for Business and Economics (EBE). It mentions principles of preparing a good warmer and the reasons for making this teaching technique essential in planning a lesson. As there is a scarcity of sources on warmers for ESP classes, this paper offers some practical suggestions of warm-up activities in EBE classes that can be used by the teachers in order to have more interesting and meaningful lessons with the maximum implication of the students.

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Authors: Carolyn GASCOIGNE

With decreases in both funding to and enrollments in the humanities at many institutions, coupled with growing concern about student employability and job-readiness after college, many programs are looking to experiential learning for answers. While service-learning has been one option for those seeking to develop authentic and meaningful learning experiences that reach beyond the walls of the tower, internships within the foreign language curriculum are less common. The present article shares one program’s efforts to offer a modified post-secondary internship experience to students of French. A description of the experience, renamed an externship, as well as student feedback, are shared as a model for others looking to start small-scale experiential learning opportunities in postsecondary foreign language study.

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Authors: Alina-Maria MARDARI

The present article offers a brief overview on the main reasons of the use of aglicisms in German and Romanian youth language. The foreign influences upon historical languages as German and Romanian are totally natural. Therefore the motives are many and varied, but aspects concerning urban youth culture where English is to a great extent dominant or the fact that this language is for the adolescents and not only for them the modern lingua franca are only some to be taken into consideration.

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Authors: Sorina Andra CONEA

The article aims at drawing a portrait of the actual Romanian negotiator starting from the cultural characteristics of Romanian as they appear in the anthropological models of Hall,Hofstede and Trompenaars. The author examines two types of Romanian negotiators: the one to be found in the vegetable market and the one representing a well-established company. Both these negotiators are then compared to the portrait determined based on cultural models so as to answer the article’s questions: which of these negotiators is closer to the theoretical portrait based on cultural models, is national culture more important than organizational and professional cultures and how the Romanian negotiator adapted to context.