Synergy

6

Authors: Irina CHURSINA

Alongside the formation of the English national language in the Middle English period the formation of the anthroponymical system of the English language continued. The information presented below gives an analysis of some morphonological changes in the structure of the Middle English anthroponyms caused by the adaptation of the name stock brought after the Norman Conquest to the Middle English language. Keywords: anthroponyms, morphonological structure, phoneme, elision, reduction,syllable, borrowings, Old English names, Norman - French names,hypocoristics, name stock, compound name

7

Authors: Mariana NICOLAE and James MOULDER

If being ranked below 500 in the international rankings suggests the crisis, then all Romania's universities are in crisis. First, we explain why this situation calls for crisis management rather than for a theory about this crisis. Then we argue for two practical steps. A long term response based on what we know about mentoring and coaching and a short term response based on what we know about creating cultures that encourage creative thinking. Throughout we state and illuminate ideas that can be implemented immediately if an institution or an individual has the will to do so. Keywords: higher education, university rankings, crisis management, leadership, creativity

7

Authors: Monica CONDRUZ-BĂCESCU

Being enterprising involves being prepared to take risks and to 'think out of the box' in order to develop solutions to problems. The term culture refers to the typical way of behaving within an organisation or in society as a whole. An organisation therefore with an enterprise culture is one where people are imaginative and creative, rather than reluctant to take risks. This applies to a range of small and large enterprises. In big companies there is sometimes a danger that the organisation develops a structure that discourages enterprise. However, one way of getting round this has been to organise people into teams where they are encouraged to make decisions for themselves providing they keep in line with the overall objectives and targets of the organisation as a whole. Keywords: enterprise culture, organization, corporate culture, business, values, society

8

Authors: Ruxandra CONSTANTINESCU-ŞTEFĂNEL

This is the last article of a series meant to provide important clues for less experienced instructors engaged in teaching the main oral communication situations in business English. It focuses on teaching negotiation and is divided into three main parts: What to teach? How to teach? How to asses? The article provides information about textbooks where instructors may find materials connected to teaching meetings to foreign students, as well as a scale, devised by the author, to asses students’ oral productions in this specific speech situation. Keywords: assessment scale, business English, negotiation, teaching, textbook

13

Authors: Juan Carlos HENNESSEY and Virginia Mihaela DUMITRESCU2

The present article sets out to identify the weaknesses of the education system of a Latin American country and the means by which that system can be “revolutionized” in such a way as to bring about a much needed paradigm shift for the benefit of society as a whole. In Colombia, a country plagued with poverty, inequality and their consequences (violence,insecurity, etc.), the education system is not preparing the new generation to face the various social, political and economic challenges that will determine the nation’s quality of life in the future, hence the urgent need for an “academic revolution” using leadership and effective communication skills as primary tools, and teachers and their educational environments as agents of change. In a developing country like Colombia, students’ education can no longer be reduced to assimilating tons of information, but should consist in “learning for life”, in preparing to meet the requirements of an increasingly demanding labour market and face the challenges of real life both within the context of globalization,and against the backdrop of Colombia’s specific problems. That is why it is imperative to educate future leaders that understand their context and can fit into the world’s scenario without losing sight of their country’s variables. Keywords: learning for life, leadership skills, communication skills, effective class

16

Authors: Raluca ŞERBAN and Mihai ŞERBAN

The article deals with one of John Barth’s most recent novels, Where Three Roads Meet,which revolves around the symbolism of “Y”, of crossroads, of trivium. Its most interesting connotation is that of indecisiveness leading to impasse – an impasse that the author would like us to read as the deadlock of literature itself, or at least of the novelistic genre. The solution that Barth explores and, its viability proven at the end of the novel, the solution that he proposes is metafiction taken to its ultimate consequences. The reader of this highly self-reflexive book is offered embodiments of the Story, dramatic vehicle, reader and Teller as the main characters of this new Barthian story, who literally keep the ball rolling by chatting about storytelling. Keywords: crossroad, trivium, self-reflexiveness, Story’s story

6

Authors: Anca COLIBABA, Monica VLAD and Cezar VRÎNCEANU

The aim of this article is to offer language teachers a series of tools and practical guidelines for improving their usage of the online environment. We will cover mainly two coordinates. Firstly, we will study the concept of Personal Learning Network (PLN). In this respect, we will present an example of how to create such a network, both from the perspective of the teachers (for their own learning) and also from the perspective of the learners (how a teacher can help the learner build a PLN). Secondly, we will focus on one of the greatest challenges for teachers and learners today: how to make the most of the online language resources available. If in the past the challenge was to find any resources on the internet, the challenge of our day is to select quality resources and to ensure that the learners have access to learning material that is relevant to their needs.

6

Authors: Virginia Mihaela DUMITRESCU

The present article looks at a type of reading which Paul de Man calls “theretical” to distinguish it from the traditional, “aesthetic” approach. The “theoretical” close reading, characterised by increased analytical rigour and focused on a clear-cut distinction between the linguistic and the phenomenal, aims to identify the “literariness” of literary language (a term used by the American critic with reference to “the autonomous potential of language”, to all the non-intuitive linguistic “factors” and “functions” that are not accessible to perceptive knowledge and constitute the incontrollable, “inhuman”,mechanism of language). The “linguistics of literariness” underlying it is used as an instrument for denouncing “ideological aberrations”, or the confusion between the materiality of the signifier and the materiality of the object designated by it. Unlike the traditional, totalising, “aesthetic reading” which starts from the premise of the possibility of knowledge, and the intelligibility of the text, the non-cognitive “theoretical” reading is an extreme example of linguistic and epistemological scepticism. Ironically, the critic himself cannot escape the error he criticises, as shown in the initial stage of his reading of a fragment of Rousseau’s Confessions: he tends to resort to the totalising, defensive strategy he later denounces as pure mystification, in an effort to elude the “blind force” of the linguistic mechanism by attributing meaning to structures created mechanically through the “positing power” of language.

7

Authors: Monica CONDRUZ-BĂCESCU

Business communication is how you communicate in your line of work. It is also a matter of human relationships. Good business communication is a must to meet the demands of the business environment. Most of us spend a lot of time communicating our knowledge, thoughts, and ideas to others. Your communication at the workplace can make all the difference between success and failure. Communication is described by many as the single most important factor in choosing managerial level staff, yet despite this fact many people are unable to convey their thoughts and they are struggling to communicate effectively.

8

Authors: Mădălina ALAMĂ

The following article focuses on virtual space and on identification processes and stages in order to show why the virtual space is endlessly resourceful for the user who finds this particular space to be the ultimate identity enhancer. The article begins by defining some key terms and by putting forth that the mirror stage (as cited in Lacan, 2006) is instrumental in understanding identification processes that the subject is to undergo throughout his/her life. Other identity theories are brought into discussion in order to broaden the theoretical understanding of identification in virtual space.

9

Authors: Lora CONSTANTINESCU

Advertising is commonly viewed upon as a multi-layered process of stimulating attention, acceptance and desire. Disappointingly enough, it is a means to ”reach the consumers’pockets”. Let us look again at this system of interwoven semiotic analysis, mercantile profit planning, psychological implications and ideological considerations. Since advertising still offers post modern society an exhaustively debated topic and interdisciplinary research area, this article discusses advertising as text genre and its use in FLT (here German) as a) a means of building genre awareness as well as of developing communicative competence (the intercultural included), and b) a device of shaping ways of thinking and inducing ways of acting.

14

Authors: Alexandra Anca CODREANU

At borderline of language philosophy, rhetoric and pragmatics topoi as understood by Aristotle, Perelman or Ducrot underlie legal reasoning. This article looks into the use of topoi in non argumentative, normative texts. The claim is that the knowledge representation function performed by topoi validates their use in laws and contracts. Legal provisions on quality assurance in higher education in the British and Romanian systems of law will be used as corpus. A clear identification of the way topics operate and are dealt with in professional communication using such normative texts will contribute to more efficiently teaching English for Legal Purposes.

22

Authors: Raluca ŞERBAN

This article deals with John Barth’s most autobiographic book, Once Upon a Time. A Floating Opera. The genre is subverted, as autobiographic parts are carefully balanced by imagined situations or characters. What results, despite its author’s firm refusal to admit to inserting any autobiographic elements in it, is a “postmodern”, or a “fictional autobiography”, one that could be approached, at least partly, via psychoanalytic criticism, again despite the author’s irony vis-à-vis such possibility.

5

Authors: Virginia Mihaela DUMITRESCU

Like Søren Kierkedaard and Friedrich Schlegel (among many other prominent thinkers), Paul de Man is fascinated by the highly disruptive potential of irony, a trope traditionally defined as “saying one thing and meaning another”. In “The Rhetoric of Temporality”, he looks at irony as a typical example of the disjunction between “sign” and “meaning” that is totally in keeping with his notion of the linguistic “emptiness” of meaning, or the insubstantial character of language. At the same time, and more significantly, irony is reevaluated from an epistemological perspective, as a major figure of disjunction whose temporal structure seems to point to a problem that goes far beyond the area of rhetoric, or literary studies in general, into the much wider field of cognition; an analysis of its “empty” temporality throws light on human existence considered as “a succession of isolated moments lived by a divided self”. The subtle distinctions previously made by Baudelaire between “le sentiment du comique”, “le comique absolu” and “le comique significatif” are used as arguments in favour of the Demanian account of the temporal structure of irony – the key to understanding its epistemological thrust.

8

Authors: Doru ENACHE

This article focuses on Schopenhauer’s masterpiece – Viata, amorul, moartea – analysing the author’s view on some essential aspects of human existence. The center of his approach relies on the famous concept of “will”. The will to live appears as the only motivator of our existence, the only trigger of our actions. Also, while all things have their reasons, existence is the only one lacking motivation. Thus, the only way we can reach serenity is by accepting the absurd of our own life.

9

Authors: Ioana STAMATESCU

This article analyzes identity construction strategies in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel‘Tender Is The Night’, in an attempt to show that the two main characters (Dick Diver and Nicole Diver) use a process of othering in order to achieve a ‘complete self’. Whereas Diver sees completeness as a flawed self and achieves it through eroticizing what is abjected: his union with Nicole and the symbolic adoption of her broken psyche, Nicole achieves a valid self through a vampire-like energy transfer from Diver. The latter turns from the eroticized other into the abjected other, in Nicole’s process of self construction.

11

Authors: Mihaela ARSENE

This article surveys the major models currently available for classroom observation purposes, duly pointing out their basic tenets and limitations. The survey is followed by a practical application to the author’s teaching situation by means of a peer observation session conducted for professional development purposes. The paper finally documents the design, resources, implementation and outcomes of the observation session, attaching due attention to the conclusions emerging from this instance of reflective practice and to the observation refinements required for the next stages of this teacher education project. Keywords: collaborative supervision, non-directive supervision, error correction, reflective practice, post-observation analysis

13

Authors: Roxana MARINESCU

This article examines British colonialism in South-Asia and the violence of this process, as well as the internal post-empire violence, as reflected in a number of novels, among which Midnight’s Children or The Ground Beneath Her Feet,Shalimar the Clown or Shame by Salman Rushdie, The Hungry Tide by Amitav Gosh, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai or Brick Lane by Monica Ali. The discussion revolves around the idea of institutional violence of the Empire or the new merging state(s) over the collective body of a nation (or several nations or ethnic groups) or over individual people. Colonial violence has a different impact on the common bodies of both colonisers and colonised, depending on spatial and temporal location, but more importantly on other factors, such as gender, caste, or religious denomination.

17

Authors: Mariana SĂNDULESCU

The present article focuses on the various modalities of conceiving broadcasting speciality information for the wide public in the view of the latest approaches of the communication theory. At the level of super-textual structure we demonstrate that speciality broadcasting, as explicit rephrasing, tends to provide a text S2 (Speech 2) - a speciality popularizing, openly declared as an outcome of a rephrasing process of S1 (Speech 1) this not only does not hide it, but regularly highlights it, on many levels, rendering the essence of communication into a global declarative structure of reported speech.

4

Authors: Radadiana CALCIU

It is generally agreed that the pedagogical aim of project work is to improve the students’ knowledge of English through true-to-life activities and tasks carried out in and outside the classroom, over a longer period of time. All the major skills can be developed through project work, with perhaps greater focus on reading and speaking and,depending on the end-product, on writing. Students are encouraged to work in teams and share the tasks of research and documentation, drafting and redrafting, editing and presenting.

5

Authors: Gigi MIHĂIŢĂ

Though old or new or wide apart, domains may help understanding, offering fresh points of view. In this essay, taphonomy, an extremely complex science, a union – with a mathematical meaning – of different scientific sets, is put to test against text analysis and the theory of myths proving – like in a painter’s ébauche – its applicability. Both taphonomy and the domains proposed are about embedding, and what we show is that the techniques and principles of traceability can be applied to deconstruct texts as well as myths.

6

Authors: Antonia ENACHE

The purpose of the present article is to provide an analysis of the Romanian political discourse; more precisely, we focus on the televised debate organised with a view to presidential elections. We intend to show how political actors attempt to reverse the attacks directed at them by applying a retaliatory strategy, one of launching an even stronger attack themselves. In order to do that, they always start by using the opponent’s discourse tactic, developing it so as to appear in a good light and undermine the interlocutor’s position.

7

Authors: Virginia Mihaela DUMITRESCU

The article examines Harold Bloom’s essay entitled “The Breaking of Form”, which brings together in a nutshell the main concepts and principles of the theory of literary influence expounded in some of his previous writings, starting with the seminal 1973 volume, The Anxiety of Influence. Bloom’s criticism marks a clear break with earlier concepts of literary “influence” (most notably with T. S. Eliot’s view of the relationship between “tradition” and “the individual talent”, according to which the “ideal order” of existing literary monuments is modified in a peaceful and natural manner by the emergence of each “really new” work of art). The relationship between later and earlier “strong” poets, as described by Bloom, is essentially one marked by pathos and irrepressible agonistic impulses.

8

Authors: Alexandru W. A. POPP

We describe a candid model for learning, why and how learning transpires. We investigate the original as well as the leading conditions of the learning process. We provide an insight into the realm of beliefs and their formation, their interaction and influence with the actor’s environment. In addition, we provide to our terms (and terminology) real definitions, thus differentiating between nominal and real definitions. Having this approach,the same terminology can be employed by other models, theories or frameworks without creating ‘expert language’ barriers. Moreover, we provide an understanding of the influence that learning in general has on human behavior.

9

Authors: Anca Cristina COLIBABA

Research confirms that situation-specific factors contribute significantly to EFL motivation in a classroom context and call for a new approach that would be more pertinent to foreign language teaching. This approach specifically involves increasing the classroom relevance of group cohesion research and demands an awareness of the social and psycholinguistic correlates of pedagogical interventions.

9

Authors: Raluca ŞERBAN

This article focuses on the analysis of Chimera, John Barth’s well-known novels, from the point of view of novel construction. The lack of center is the main fascination for the reader in Barth’s novels, and it is connected with the de-centered identity of either the characters or the author himself. In order to create his novels, Barth has no identifiable purpose, except that of playing with words, with the characters and versions of them, with himself converted into a character, and ultimately, with the reader, with that reader who insists to find the hidden meaning of this text, who insists to organize and interpret it in a coherent way.

9

Authors: Mihaela PARPALEA

Beyond the commonplace of the “overwhelming reality of linguistic (inter)action and communication”, the domain of discourse analysis is indeed considered as a highly interdisciplinary area of research: its ramifications require a systematic analysis, and that is why the present paper aims at presenting the developments from the German point of view, since the 70s in the main three sub-domains i.e. discourse, conversational and dialogue analysis. An interesting issue has been the attempt as well as the real possibility to apply some research tools and relevant results in FLT, for instance, in order to define/describe communication sequences in classroom communication processes.

10

Authors: Valentina ROBU

A discussion of virtues and virtuous life in the writings of the Church Fathers is a very complex enterprise. This article presents several important orientations in patristic thought concerning the perspective on human freedom of action and the role of virtues in man’s life. They are actually as many paths of research since the writers, namely St Basil of Cappadocia, St Gregory of Nyssa, St Augustine and St Maximus the Confessor, initiated a line of cultural investigation on the topic that is as relevant today as it was in their lifetime. Although the authors are presented in chronological order, important ideas are taken up and sometimes placed in a new perspective, which shows on the one hand the originality of the writers and the contexts that prompted their arguments and on the other hand, the consistency and the harmony of patristic thinking in general.

18

Authors: Mariana SĂNDULESCU

The mechanisms of declarative responsibilities contribute to text coherence, explaining - on one side- the various evaluations (judgements, opinions, feelings) expressed upon the aspects of the theme contents and - on the other side, the sources of those evaluations. This article aims at identifying the instances assuming those evaluations i.e. who bears the responsibility for the statement - task usually and classically given to the author but also to other responsible, formal, intrinsic instances (like the narrator and/or the presenter.)

5

Authors: Mădălina ALAMĂ

The following article wants to offer a brief tentative analysis of the impact that the concept of body ideal presented and promoted by different mass media has on the feminine readers from the European cultures. I will not attempt a very clear definition of European cultures here due to the fact that the participants to the surveys I have used come from most European geographical spaces. In this paper European magazines and especially readers can be understood by contrasting them to American readers.

7

Authors: Cristina PRELIPCEANU

As contexts for writing are not always easy to create, especially for students whose future needs in English are difficult to predict,in this article we have chosen to describe simulation as a very efficient and productive method used in business writing activities.

8

Authors: Mariana NICOLAE

The present paper focuses on the use of the concept of leadership in Romania at present claiming that it is a “Western”, possibly American, set of values, attitudes and skills imported in the Romanian situation as a proof of a democratic society and a functional market economy. The present paper explores the role of leadership today, particularly in higher education, looking at the way the American model changed values and attitudes not only in the US, but also in Romania.

8

Authors: Georgeta GHIGA

This article sets out to meet questions about intercultural communication in an increasingly demanding communication environment. It is an account of the evolution of key terms in the field of language training and research and although it does not offer explicit practical input into teaching a language interculturally, it contains information on guidelines and patterns of thought that helped to design the view of language teaching that we share today. The analysis of the evolution of the English language as an international means of communication is meant to raise awareness to the complex problems that teachers of English face when they have to teach intercultural competence and not just language in a restricted sense.

9

Authors: Roxana BÎRSANU

The main drive behind Ezra Pound’s translating efforts was to present the American readership with literary experiences that were remote both in time and in place. The purpose was, on the one hand, to make readers aware of the existence of distinct and distant literatures, and, on the other hand, to revitalize the American literature with the help of the infusion of such foreign and sometimes exotic literary manifestations. An innovator in the field of translation, Pound drew away from the domesticating strategies of the time,which had a tendency to efface and appropriate the difference presented by other literatures, and, acting as a true visible translator, strived to emphasize Otherness with all its mystery and exotic flavour.

9

Authors: Lora CONSTANTINESCU

Fit for Europe – it is the core idea of a unit in a new book for teaching German for Special Purposes (”Mit Deutsch in Europa”/A2-B1). FL-acquisition means linguistic communication patterns and sometimes different cultural perceptions as well as the attribution of (possibly) different meanings. Therefore, the learners should be offered means and opportunities to get insights into what the foreign cultural background holds. It is the aim of this paper to highlight some basic theoretical positions and practical aspects when teaching German to students of Economics on L2-level. The focus lies on the chances/challenges of integrating a “blended choice” of L2-competences, business and intercultural communication skills.

10

Authors: Adriana CHIRIACESCU

In the context of the rapidly changing world order and of globalization, both of them determining subsequent developments, the concept of “national culture” is expected to undergo fundamental changes with spectacular reshaping, but with tensions and contradictions emerging from the nations’ involvement in the new political, administrative and economic bodies, as well. The national identities are expected to be recast,preserving the fundamentals of the individual heritage, but suffering the consequences of new forms of devolution, regionalism and nationalism.

11

Authors: Georgeta GHIGA

This article focuses on a successful attempt of using dialogues produced by students, during various role plays, as a basis for listening activities devised for students with a lower language level. The recorded speaking activity, a simulation of a business meeting, involved well-motivated,upper intermediate students with a good command of spoken English, who produced an interesting dialogue on pollution. This dialogue has later on been used with intermediate level students for practising listening skills and also integrated language skills.

12

Authors: Monica CONDRUZ-BĂCESCU

At present, the world has become a network of social relations and, between its different regions; there is a circulation of directions similar to the circulation of people and goods. In the whole world, this context of integrating in the network cultural practices and experience can be understood to represent a world culture. Certainly, the idea of a global culture was not possible only during global modernity. At the same time with the world development, facilitated by media and contemporary transport means, the circulation of texts (religious, political, literary, scientific ideas) shows a quick acceleration. Political, cultural and religious powers prove to be unable to stay against people circulation and communication development, therefore ideas and opinions. In conclusion, we can state for sure that Romania enters faster and faster in the epoch of culture and civilization mixture, speeches and passions.

15

Authors: Mariana SĂNDULESCU

Managing specialist information represents a central dimension of journalism communication. From a semiotic point of view, the discourse of making this type of information known to the media is laboriously structured in a shuttle process of continuous vacillating from subjective to objective and vice versa. Our study means to identify and analyse these stages through which the written economic and financial information made known to the media is structured in a centripetal way within its internal reference.

15

Authors: Mariana SĂNDULESCU

Managing specialist information represents a central dimension of journalism communication. From a semiotic point of view, the discourse of making this type of information known to the media is laboriously structured in a shuttle process of continuous vacillating from subjective to objective and vice versa. Our study means to identify and analyse these stages through which the written economic and financial information made known to the media is structured in a centripetal way within its internal reference.