Synergy

2

Authors: Roxana Marinescu

We are inviting your to reflect upon the varied topics included in this issue of Synergy, and hope to stimulate a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas in a highly challenging academic context.

5

Authors: Mihaela ARSENE

The textbook series that National Geographic Learning has built around TED Talks caters to language levels from A1 to C2, and emphasizes American English or British English in separate publications. What all the Keynote textbooks have in common is a brilliant idea and a passion for enhancing English language education. The brilliant idea is to bring the TED Talks into the English class, thereby introducing the language learners to inspirational talks around exciting ideas, presented with passion, expertise, and enthusiasm.

11

Authors: Ioana STAMATESCU

The essay looks at the various ways in which the erotic dimension is played out in Toni Morrison’s Jazz by making reference to the interplay of two major aspects: identity construction and the city, which are set against the background of jazz and blues that underscores the Roaring Twenties in New York City. The city is an environment filled with erotic potential, as it represents a space of the encounter with the other based on exchange and play. This triggers another element closely linked to eroticism: violence. The analysis focuses on these two (the erotic and the violent) in an attempt to show that while putting forth the illusion of freedom and joy, the eroticism only highlights a deeper history of trauma and violence. I also discuss “jazz” as a cultural theme on the one hand, and a compositional device of the novel on the other

12

Authors: Monica CONDRUZ-BĂCESCU

The paper deals with the issue of open educational resources (OER). The first part focuses on the concept of OER, its use in education and benefits for students, educational institutions, employers, public and private organizations. Open educational resources refer to unhindered access to instructive materials, facilitated by information and communication technologies, for user consultation, use and adaptation for non-commercial purposes. The use of OER means a change in educational practices and requires changes at institutional level and innovations in teaching and learning. The role of OER in building, disseminating and sharing knowledge is presented, focusing in particular on using open and collaborative tools to build new virtual learning environments for higher education. The second part presents some examples of OER sites such as: Curriki, CK-12, CNX, Smarthistory, Opencourseware. Many OER sites are sustained by non-profit organizations, universities or different companies. Their mission is to offer high quality education for free to students, educators, self-learners. Despite OER's benefits, including the ability to exchange information with other students, according to personal learning goals, students are still striving to find relevant content and receive little or no recognition of their informal studies. Both teachers and students lack the skills for self-directed learning. The OER dialogue needs to move away from the discussion on access to materials and address the way in which co-creation, adaptation and shared management can be promoted. Open educational resources are a place of excellence in social inclusion and inclusion policies and have the support of many decision-makers. This is because the main objective of OER at present is to allow broad access to digital content, without reflecting whether this will support educational practices and promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning.

14

Authors: Carmen ARDELEAN

Due to the specificity of their activity at the crossroads of cultures, translators have become today important pillars of “cultural communication” (Malone, 1998), as well as of the “soft power” described by Nye (1990; 2004). Ever more often the place of conflicts is taken by debates and negotiations in which translators hold an important role. However, state propaganda sometimes makes it more difficult to distinguish truth from lie, in written documents as well as in the official political discourse. Translator trainees should be prepared for this role and be offered the opportunity to study such texts, in order to learn how to act as real cultural mediators. The question is: should they go beyond the surface meaning of words, in search of a hidden truth, or should they remain “invisible” and provide the linguistic transfer without any personal involvement?

15

Authors: Roxana CIOLĂNEANU, Alina VILLALVA

The present paper looks at instances of possible incipient morphological borrowing in Romanian and Portuguese from English within the context of “societal multilingualism” (Romaine 2006). We suspect that the ever-increasing number of right-headed compounds in Romanian and Portuguese might be a consequence of the English influence; consequently, we will bring linguistic and extra-linguistic factors to support the hypothesis that rightheaded compounding in Romanian and Portuguese places itself at the crossroads of language internal evolution and external influence. Some of these compounds are already registered in dictionaries, some others are not, but they are frequently met in specialised texts and newspaper articles.

18

Authors: Roxana OLTEAN

This article looks at fictional and non-fictional renderings of Cold War Eastern Europe from Anglo-American perspectives, with a focus on Romania, and proposes gender as a focus of reading that illuminates particular aspects of the relationship between traveller (frequently associated with a male gaze) and foreign country (feminised, and/or represented through an array of female figures). Cognisant of critiques from post-colonial perspectives, from East-European standpoints and from gender studies directions to this type of stereotyped interaction, this approach ponders the degree to which the texts selected here engage in a fruitful dialogue with the space of representation. Reading these narratives as Cold War romances, the article also suggests the emergence of the selfdoubting Western narrator invited to question his own positions of power and knowledge, pointing to multiple routes of remembrance to a post-Cold War present.