Proofs Of The 10th Century Byzantine Mission In Alba Iulia

The article focuses on the first and most clear Christian proofs discovered in Transylvania at the turn of the millennia. The reliquary crosses identified in the necropolis in Alba Iulia, at the site King’s Spring / Izvorul Împăratului(M. 10, M. 24 și M. 81), are in strong connection with the Byzantine mission led by Hierotheus, who came to this area after the year 953, immediately after Gylas’ Christianization in Constantinople. In this site, where we have recently reconstructed the military suite of the mentioned leader, the passage from paganism to Christianity can be most conveniently noticed. Even if certain traditions – like the sepulchral pits dressed with lithic material, the presence of coal remains that make proof of thee purification of the dead, egg, hen, horse and ceramic offerings – are rather of pagan origin, the Christian customs and traditions are also present (the position of the bodies, the position of the arms), or pieces bearing such valences (pentagram rings and rings with vegetal motifs). The uniqueness of this cemetery consists in the fact that it was used both by native and allogenic communities in the area (Romanic, Slavic, and Hungarian population) who embraced Christianism in its Byzantine form. The worship objects from the King’s Spring site can most probably be dated between the second half of the 10th century and at the latest in the first decades of the 11th century.

Keywords: history of Transylvania, Gylas, Alba Iulia necropolis, Christianity, Hierotheus, reliquary, cemetery

The Religious Discourse in Sorin Gruia’s Analysis

Sorin Guia’s research is characterized by the complexity of the analysis, as well as by the stylistic and rhetorical variety of the analyzed speeches (ranging from the post-medieval Metropolitan Varlaam to the contemporary Metropolitan Bartolomeu Valeriu Anania). The author is not only presenting and observing the specific features of the religious speeches, but also supplements them with a subtle interpretation – so that the synchronous perspective can provide reliable data, while the diachronous one can produce pertinent and balanced conclusions.

Keywords: Romanian literature, religious discourse, stylistical analysis, argumentation, rhetorical strategy

Christian Ethos and Dogma in East and West. Some Current Implications

A fundamental premise of this research is the belief that a certain set of doctrines regarding the teaching of faith also determines a certain ethos, a certain way of ecclesial experience of faith. The lex orandi – lex credendi distinction is part of this framework. At the same time, the relationship between dogmatics, liturgy and spirituality is threatened when heresies or schisms become manifest in all confessions. Thus, the present study aims at discussing the specificity and importance of the testimony of the Orthodox Church in the current socio-historical context, with emphasis on the differences in the history of Christianity between the Eastern and Western traditions, showing the current distinctions between the pastoral and the missionary implications.

Keywords: contemporary theology, Christian ethos, conversion, pastoral and missionary values

Critical Discourse Analysis of Classroom Interaction

This paper aims to provide an overview of the pervasive relationship between Critical Discourse Analysis practice and classroom interaction. Three instances of classroom interaction have been considered, namely: critical classroom moments, teacher-parents relations and classroom positive psychology, in order to analyse the impact of the didactic discourse on teachers, students and parents and their interaction, as well as, the transformation the didactic discourse in time.

Keywords: didactic discourse, critical discourse analysis, classroom interaction, classroom, positive psychology, classroom discourse

Linguistic Globalization And The New Romanian Wooden Language

As everywhere, words of English origin, used as such, as linguistic calques or adapted to the native languages, entered Romanian and settled comfortably in people’s vocabulary as a mark of democracy that had to manifest at linguistic level, too, after years of totalitarianism when communication used to be achieved in a rudimentary, inexpressive way through linguistic clichés meant to conceal reality.

Unobtrusive at first, when used just in contexts strictly related to certain fields, Anglicisms were taken by common language, gained ground and are, at present, used without discernment, becoming commonplace in everyday speech.

The paper approaches the impact the excessive use of words of English origin has lately had upon the quality of the Romanian language which takes steps from the old wooden language of communism to a new one that abounds in lexical creations imitated after English words.

Keywords: Anglicisms, globalization, wooden language, linguistic calques, lexical cliché

Brand Name Translation as a Decisive Factor in Positioning Foreign Brands On Chinese Market (II)

Determining the brand name is always a crucial aspect in the development of a brand’s image and its correct positioning in the consumers’ mind. As the ideal name for a brand is always demanding to find, it becomes even harder to translate its original form in order to synchronize it to the culture and personality of the consumers of new, international market. It is even a more labyrinthine process to transfer a brand name from a phonographic language system to a logographic-based language system, such as Chinese, as Chinese writing is fundamentally different from other writing systems, in the way that it allows the interpretation of a word only at the broad level of the grapheme.

The purpose of this study is to examine and discuss the relation between translation approaches, cultural peculiarities and brand personality. In order to do this, 20 international brands from five different categories were chosen through a focus group and analysed in order to show how and why Chinese consumers choose to adopt (or not) different foreign brands.

Keywords: brand image, brand personality, Chinese logographic system, cultural translation, phono-semantic translation

From Rhetorics to Sociology: Authorship Figures in Contemporary Narratology

Theoretically speaking, authorship has (almost always) been excluded from narrative studies, although practical literary criticism never ceased in utsing this category. It is a well-known fact that Wayne C. Booth invented the term “implied authorship” in his 1961 study called “The Rhetoric of Fiction”. Although the concept survived through several heated debates, it is, alas, no longer useful in analyzing literary texts. The present article shows that the only viable solution for narratology to further examine authorship issues is represented by the adoption of a couple of instruments (posture and ethos) from the new French sociology of literary production. Moreover, the study will also explain why the current status of creative subjects could be described through the metaphor of “the ascension of authorship”.

Keywords: authorship, implied author, Wayne C. Booth, Jérôme Meizoz, Bernard Lahire, Nathalie Heinich, posture, ethos, Liesbeth Korthals Altes, Paul Dawson, narratology, the ascension of authorship.

Linguistic Game and Poetics of Nostalgia in Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s Novels

Unanimously considered one of the most important contemporary Cuban writers, Guillermo Cabrera Infante is the author of great genius and intuitive force. His masterpiece, Three Trapped Tigers was compared to all great books of world literature, especially to James Joyce’s Ulysses for the extraordinary capacity of linguistic expression and for the exquisite narrative strategies used by the author. Nevertheless, this novel is also an amazing example of a new kind of poetics implied in Cabrera Infante’s work, identifiable in his last writing, entitled The Inconstant Nymph. Except for the postmodern rhetoric easy to find within these texts, the author fully proves his capacity of permanently rereading the books of his great Spanish predecessors and of re-interpreting famous literary themes, cultural images or symbols in order to elaborate a work that is altogether convincing and seductive.

Keywords: Latin-American literature, postmodern novel, Cuban culture, music, nostalgia

Ezra Pound. A Few Notes about a Translation

The present study originates in the author’s experience of translating Ezra Pound’s work in a projected 4-volume edition (out of which only the first two have been so far translated). It deals with the technical difficulties of the process, with the adaptations and contextual changes required by the transfer from one culture to another, with the invention of intertextual modernity in Pound’s re-circulation of various hetergeneous poetical models and forms (from ancient European and Oriental cultures to medieval and modern ones).

Keywords: contemporary world literature, Ezra Pound, translation, intertextuality, re-circulation of poetic models

The Actuality of Faust’s Message

The present study is a re-reading of Goethe’s Faust from the perspective of the cultural changes undergone by contemporary Europe. The actionism of the Goethean hero, his creed that “the deed” is mostly what matters, his late conversion towards an ethical model regarding works of public utility – all these features represent, in the author’s understanding, valuable lessons for the construction of an inclusive Europe.

Keywords: Goethe, Faust, actionism, utilitarianism, ethics of public space, contemporary Europe and inclusion.

First World War – between diary and novel. (Towards a theory of the memorialistic literary discourse)

The present study focuses on achieving a theoretical construct,while approaching some interesting notions, such as: memory, fact and fiction, testimony, document, all these being a part of the impressive crucible of memoirs. This article has, at least, two main aims: on the one hand, it is a retrospective research and aesthetic recovery of a traumatic time -The First World War- and, on the other hand, the revealing of some critical concepts able to emphasize the need for hermeneutics, for a way of understanding the reporting of contemporary man to a tragic period, trying to reveal undiscovered mysteries and repressed tensions, produced by the collision of different ages and mentalities.

In this regard, the article tries to expose some thorough research in this area, proposed by Maurice Blanchot, Paul Ricoeur, Philippe Lejeune, Eugen Simion, Mircea Iorgulescu, unfolding, also, similarities and differences beetwen three diary novels, inspired by the authors’ experience in The First World War, which belong to different literary spaces: German, Romanian and French.

Keywords: The First World War, memoires, diary novel, diarist discourse, novel

The Subtle Art of Evanescence.Alexandru Vlad’s Poems

This paper aims at depicting how Alexandru Vlad’s posthumously published poetry, a lesser-known part of his works, is grounded on a theory of the evanescent. Revealed through a series of epiphanies often grounded in ordinary facts and bearing at times the conciseness of a haiku, these poems blend a conversational tone with philosophical insights in dealing with their major themes – the memory of a long-lost love, aging and death, as well as the gaps between them. Thus, deeply rooted in capturing life’s subtle transitions, Alexandru Vlad’s poetic discourse lies at the very heart of a poetry of absences.

Keywords: contemporary Romanian literature, Alexandru Vlad, existentialism, haiku, subtleness, absence.

Gherasim Luca. The Uprising of Oedipus. Towards a new language

Before 1945, Gherasim Luca, a member of the Surrealist Group of Bucharest, outlined a framework for his non-oedipal vision of life and published a number of texts (essays, prose poems and theoretical texts) emerged from this theory. In The Inventor of Love, A Wolf Seen Through a Loupe and The Passive Vampire, Luca stands up against the mutilating, oppressive power embodied by Oedipus residing in familial, social and biological structures of the human being.

Keywords: contemporary world literature, Gherasim Luca, Oedipal condition, trauma of birth, fear of death, Non-Oedipus, new language.

A Romanian-French Poet: Miron Kiropol

The present study aims at analyzing the stylistic peculiarities and characteristics of Miron Kiropol’s poetry, comparing his Romanian and his French poems. The author examines into detail the similarities and differences between Kiropol’s first Romanian volume, Jocul lui Adam / Adam’s Play, and his first French volume, Dieu me doit cette perte / God ows me this loss, as well as the poetic personalization of Kiropol’s own translations of other literary texts into French.

Keywords: contemporary world literature, literary bilingualism, M. Kiropol, self-translation, personalized language