Synergy

2

Authors: Rodica STANCIU CAPOTĂ

I must admit that the surprising title of this book made me reflect and raised dilemmas in my mind. One of them regarded the keyword of the title: English … not again … then Dancing or Intercultural Communication? I found the answer by going step by step through this textbook as if following a dance lesson: all the words in the title are keywords. For this book is meant to be a training, a preparation for those using it not only for the correct usage of the English language, but also to clearly define various situations and contexts in which we use it.

12

Authors: Lora CONSTANTINESCU

Whether we think of advertising and the company communication policy as of a so-called “birds’ courtship dance” or a “wonder-box” of the market economy, advertising is a serious multimedia challenge. Since advertising spares nobody and nothing, one can ask oneself: not why, but how advertisers manage to disregard/trespass social (ethical) norms? Especially how de-tabooization and stereotyping (here in the broader context of gender identity) are employed in the “communication” of low-involvement products. Starting from a controversial on hygiene product in Germany, the paper discusses the way advertisers handle words and images, social relevant attitudes and values, and create messages which can reshape thinking and behaviour, thus endorsing possible misrepresentations.

14

Authors: Viorela-Valentina DIMA, Florina MOHANU

The aim of the current paper is to explore the way in which economics students from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (Romania) make use of the opportunity to conduct research in modern languages provided by the Annual Students’ Conference. We resort to a quantitative analysis focused on the panels organised by the Department of Modern Languages and Business Communication during the period 2016-2019. We place our investigation against the background of the 21st century job market demands for multilingual professionals with higher-order thinking skills.

17

Authors: Angelica MARINESCU

This study examines the Romanian media framing of the South Korean, Japan and China investments. Companies like Daewoo, Samsung, Hyundai, Huawei have made investments in Romania after 1989. If we consider the media approach to relevant “topics”, what are the representations in the media of these investments? A content analysis of a sample of Romania online media and newspapers is conducted -the search engines ziare.com and hotnews.com, covering the period from January 2013 to June 2014. Considering the “framing theory”,we are interested in our research in the actors involved, the issues covered in relation to these three Asian countries and the content in each article.

18

Authors: Anca PECICAN

This article presents and discusses a series of data on economics undergraduates’ preferences for reading in English L2 within their subject field. The overall aim of the research was to outline a reader profile with a view to introducing an extensive reading programme for the forthcoming students. The research methodology made use of the university’s Moodle platform where students had to post proposals of texts they considered enticing and give feedback to their peers’ proposals. Both readers’ freedom of choice as to the reading materials and the use of the follow-up interactive task provided valuable data outlining a specific reader profile. The collected data have revealed students’ high interest in halfway specialized texts on up-to-date issues.

26

Authors: Rosana VILLARES

This paper examines the extent of linguistic diversity in modern academia, in opposition to the claims of the Englishisation of academia. A questionnaire was distributed to explore language choice in the research- and teaching-oriented practices of Spanish scholars. Results showed the existence of biliteracy practices for research activities, whereas in the case of teaching, Spanish was reported as the dominant language, followed tentatively by English. Findings are discussed in the light of the nature of the academic practices (production, circulation, and formation), the target audience, and individual traits. The results of the study reflect on the impact of internationalisation and how a feasible language policy can be implemented for the benefit of the university community.

2

Authors: Anca-Teodora ṢERBAN-OPRESCU

Written in the exemplary manner of modern Cultural Studies, or, better yet, American Studies, the book of Florian Andrei Vlad makes for a valuable addition to philological studies looking at four American fiction writers that, “in principle, support a patriarchal, monologic American cultural narrative in a long tradition of white, male voices from John Winthrop, the Founding Fathers, all the way to, and past the War on Terror narrative”, as the author himself summarizes on the back cover of the book.

7

Authors: Irina-Ana DROBOT

The paper starts from the observation that topics of discussion proposed by students for the Culture and Civilization Course I teach at the Engineering in Foreign Languages Faculty centered on myths and mythology of various cultures: Norse, ancient Greek, Chinese, etc. The fact that fantasy novels are very popular nowadays may have influenced them and built their curiosity for these topics. Fantasy novels can be useful for getting the students’ interest in culture and civilization topics starting from what they know. We can use as examples of culture identity manifestations these fabulous worlds, with their traditions, habits, heroes, values, rituals. The research methodology is provided by popular culture and English Language Teaching. The hypothesis of the paper is that students have a tendency to prefer certain topics due to the influence of popular culture and that this interest can be used productively to engage them in course participation.

13

Authors: Ayusman CHAKRABORTY

Thuggee as a distinct class of criminal homicide has generated much interest ever since the British colonizers in India exposed it in the nineteenth century. While the male thugs were certainly more common, female practitioners of thuggee were not entirely unknown. Curiously, both colonial writers and contemporary researchers have conceptualized thuggee as an all-male activity, thereby consigning the female thugs to oblivion. By bringing the focus back on the female thugs, this paper questions the gendering of thuggee. It also shows how the acknowledgement of the existence of the female thugs destabilizes both colonial constructions of thuggee and contemporary understandings of the subject.

15

Authors: Maria GRAJDIAN

After its release in 2003, The Last Samurai became a major success at the Japanese (and international) box-office, simultaneously marking a turning point in the illustration of Japan by Western media, and more specifically, by US-American institutions of mass entertainment, such as Hollywood. The Last Samurai has been mostly discussed on the background of the historical realities it depicts (the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the unconditional import of Western artefacts and values, the clash between old and new in Japan by mid-19th century) or from the perspective of the impact it had on the representation of Asian or other non-European cultures by American mainstream mass-media. Based on a 15-year empiric-phenomenological fieldwork in the slippery domain of Japanese mass-media, as well as in-depth literature research on new media, masculinity studies and entertainment industry with specific focus on Japan, this paper argues that the character embodied by Tom Cruise – the typical white male from Japanese perspective – displayed an unexpectedly refreshing insight into the prevalent masculinity ideal in Japan, as subliminally suggested by the Japanese characters. On the one hand, it challenges the image of the samurai, both in its historical idealization (stoic warriors and social elite) and in their contemporary adaptation (carriers of Japan’s post-war recovery). On the other hand, it questions the values incorporated by classical Japanese masculinity and suggests a credible alternative, with emotional flexibility, human warmth and mental vulnerability as potential core attributes.

19

Authors: Antonia ENACHE

The present article looks into Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid in the US general election, providing an overview of the main factors that led to her surprising defeat by Republican contender Donald Trump, a former businessman and reality TV star with no political experience, who had never before sought public office. The aspects that significantly impacted the final outcome pertain to emotion rather than reason; out of these, our research analyses the flaws in the overall vision of her campaign, her gender, the negative campaigning against Trump and the “likability” factor, along with other oversights. The list is by no means exhaustive, nor is it possible to weigh the exact impact of each lapse; however, we believe that in a campaign where, from the voters’ standpoint, it all came down to choosing the lesser evil, the aspects we have highlighted were the most important in overturning poll results and leading to Hillary Clinton’s loss.