Synergy

3

Authors: Alina BUZARNA-TIHENEA (GĂLBEAZĂ)

Florian Andrei Vlad’s work, published two decades after the horrifying 9/11 events that shook not only America but the entire world, triggering countless emotional upheavals and changes in people’s perspectives from the social, geopolitical and economic viewpoints, sets off on a critical journey where the glimpsed lights and the shadows lurking in the post 9/11 era coalescence, highlighting the various ways in which the traumas of these events have been dealt with in memorable fictional forms.

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Authors: Monica Alina TOMA

The article seeks to explore the meanings associated with food in the film “The Hundred- Foot Journey” (2014), directed by Lasse Hallström. This paper aims to demonstrate that food represents not only a platform for asserting personal, social, national and cultural differences, but also a means of establishing bonds between people in spite of these differences. The hundred feet in the title represent not only the physical distance between two restaurants, but also the gap between the Indian and the French culture that the protagonist Hassan Kadam needs to cross in order to find his rightful place in the world.

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Authors: Ileana CHERSAN

The surge of developing Sectoral Qualifications Frameworks and their use in vocational training for the past few years can be illustrated by a Frontex2 initiative in the extensive area of border and coast guarding. The EU authorities have tried to promote and model a harmonised approach to course design and training based on the European Qualifications Framework and Bologna and Copenhagen processes, matching the developments in general education across Europe. The aim of this paper is to examine the particular case of Sectoral Qualifications Framework for Border and Coast Guarding, focusing on vocational specificities, recent developments and practical applications at the level of course design. The corpus of the analysis consists of a specific training program in course design developed by Frontex in the past 5 years. The content analysis focuses on two main tiers: recent developments in SQF course design and applications of SQF in border and coast guarding course design. Each of these levels has structural and functional features with direct and critical implications onto national law enforcement curricula and training programs design, such as consistent revision of job competences, recognition of non-formal and informal learning and national accreditation and validation processes of qualifications and border police training programmes.

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Authors: Levente NAGY,Ildikó HORTOBÁGYI

The challenges faced by minority languages in the contemporary linguistic landscape have been a relevant topic for several years. With global languages claiming an increasing share of speakers, smaller, community-based languages have been neglected in favour of the lingua franca. The paper aims to present several possible ways in which this linguistic exposure can be transformed into a potential boon for language education and maintenance in smaller languages, rather than being a hinderance. These new methods are based on using commonly consumed media as a medium to achieve increased language usage and recognition.

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Authors: Valentina ROBU

This article analyses aspects of character design in Saul Bellow’s novel Henderson the Rain King. It focuses on the association of space and specific moments in time and highlights the use of landscape structures in important moments of the book, aiming to explore the evolution of the central character. The overall discussion of the relationship between character development and landscape patterns uses Bakhtin’s idea of chronotope and identifies several significant moments in the economy of the book that are relevant to the construction of the main character. On the whole, this article was inspired by Saul Bellow’s recurrent and energetic attempts to rescue, throughout his writing activity, that part of the traditional novel which is centered around a problematic hero.

3

Authors: Anișoara POP

This is a review of the book "ASSESSMENT IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. A PSYCHOPEDAGOGICAL APPROACH TO TESTING BUSINESS AND MEDICAL ENGLISH" by Ovidiu Ursa, published by Casa Cărții de Știință, in 2019. Among many significant personal contributions of Ovidiu Ursa’s book to the study of ESP testing and evaluation, one that addresses the practitioners rather than the researchers refers to the contrastive analysis of different materials used for testing Business English according to different criteria. This part includes a practical model of designing and administering a Business English test, with all it entails in terms of objectives, competences, content, etc. (p. 81), a model that can be safely applied and customised to other ESPs.

11

Authors: Irina DAVID, Anca-Teodora ȘERBAN-OPRESCU

This article aims to tackle the significant shifts in academic and administrative communication in higher education in view of the necessity to adapt to changes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will, additionally, suggest a list of benefits and drawbacks as seen from the perspective of language trainers caught in the overbearing landslide brought upon by the unprecedented conditions. While being fully aware that this paper will join an already extensive plethora of international academic studies on the subject, we, the authors, consider it is relevant nevertheless, since it is only by sharing common experiences and successful and not so successful stories that we can find solutions, learn from each other and at the same time reconquer the feeling of community that the pandemic has affected to a large extent.

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Authors: Blaženka ABRAMOVIĆ

This empirical essay shows how to bring, as a teacher, authentic and linguistically difficult texts closer to learners through playful forms of work. By presenting tested forms of work that have evolved over time through their use in classrooms, this article shows how cognitive learning, practical and creative activity as well as social and personal learning can be interconnected.

12

Authors: Doris SAVA

The competitive financing of research and the increased competition caused research practice to focus on citation indices and the scientific community on rankings, the demand for an improved response from research and for more visibility are developments that have often been criticized by the public. The change in the scientific landscape and the culture of quantification due to the competition for funds, grants and positions, the establishment of reputation through long lists of publications and third-party funding, decisive criteria for professions and recruitment, reveal grievances in the scientific community. The article therefore shows the consequences of these developments and names some challenges that the humanities, and in particular the philological disciplines, encounter in meeting scientific standards.

13

Authors: Maria PARASCA

The paper aims at an analysis based on the practical experience of the way in which the new online context of courses in German as a foreign language as changed rules and rituals. The analysis shows an increase in the importance of rituals in the courses as well as the need to adopt new rules to ensure a good teaching quality. During the online courses, rituals become very important to ensure a sense of belonging to the group, resulting in a better focus of attention and an increase in "time on task."

14

Authors: Mihaela PARPALEA

This paper presents some arguments based on research into multimedia opportunities in foreign language learning. It provides critical comments on different and sometimes controversial views of learners and teachers on how new media have been promoted in language teaching. The new media comprise combination of texts, sounds, computer-based exercises - like cloze passages exercises, jumble sentences rearrangements, or text reconstruction dialogues - and grammar tables and structures with supporting software tools enclosed in spelling programs, audio dictionaries and search engines, allowing the user to browse the entire range for specific topics of activities. All these are significantly beneficial to the language learning process. Notwithstanding all these benefits, it is doubtful whether these new computer-based methods live up to the claim to surpass the effectiveness of existing, traditional methods in language teaching and learning. Most of the traditional exercises, as well as those based on PC applications, largely rely on a substantial amount of authentic language contained in most of the reference works. All in all, we can say that neither of the two ways, the new or traditional media, is to be offered an absolute status.

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Authors: Veronica CÂMPIAN, Sonia MALOȘ

The debates around the COVID-19 pandemic have been a sensitive issue for the citizens in the last two years and the authorities have tried to promote the vaccination campaign through different means. The aim of this paper is to examine the communication strategies used in approaching the COVID-19 vaccination campaign to the population, focusing on the Romanian cultural mindset, specificities, values and beliefs that have been addressed. The corpus of the analysis consists of the informative short films broadcast on TVR in early 2021, which carry the messages of well-known doctors. The content analysis focuses on three main levels: sensitising, informing and motivating. Each of these levels has been assigned structural and functional features to analyse key examples and have a critical approach.