CP – Number 23 (2018)

Issue:

CP, Number 23

Section:

No. 23 (2018)

Abstract:

Generally speaking, we may view language as a cultural product with specific semantic references. Therefore, when dealing with such a complex phenomenon, we need to determine first, the way in which culture and language interact. If, by learning a foreign language, we get into contact with the cultural identity of a specific nation, then culture becomes its reference point and language turns into an indispensable tool which facilitates our understanding of the culture itself. If we assume this idea, then culture becomes a product of the human interaction. This close relationship between language and culture manifests into conventionalized language, especially in idiomatic expressions which beautifully reflect cultural significance. The scope of this study is not only to establish the way in which language and culture blend but also to explore the British cultural background by analysing, from a cognitive linguistic point of view, relevant metaphoric expressions found in idiomatic expressions and proverbs that speak about the identity of a nation.

Keywords:

cultural identity, metaphor, cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, idiomatic expressions, proverbs.

Code [ID]:

CP201823V00S01A0001 [0004784]

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Issue:

CP, Number 23

Section:

No. 23 (2018)

Abstract:

Oscar Wilde’s The Harlot’s House presents the author’s own images of love and lust with the help of puppetry imagery; he refers to prostitutes as “mechanical grotesques”, “automatons”, “skeletons”, “puppet[s]”, “marionette[s]” and ultimately “the dead”. He could hardly find more synonyms for ‘manipulated, lifeless dolls’. Women are misogynistically viewed as objects of desire and subjected to the male glance. All these images represent in fact Wilde’s attempt to create “art for art’s sake” by illustrating decay and depravity through a disrespectful depiction of harlots, dehumanizing them and stealing them the gender identity. The women, described as phantomatic, slim and inert, controlled by a puppeteer, are in fact the representation of the true love’s decay and the lust’s increasing attraction. The female puppets/dolls try to imitate real feelings but cannot do this because of their wires pulled mechanically.

Keywords:

doll, puppet, puppeteer, mechanized culture, transgression of boundaries.

Code [ID]:

CP201823V00S01A0002 [0004785]

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Issue:

CP, Number 23

Section:

No. 23 (2018)

Abstract:

Our paper discusses the use of Facebook as a cultural research tool. In literature, Facebook use has more often been discussed in relation to teaching, learning, advertising, communication etc. and less to cultural research. The literature on using Facebook as a cultural research tool is scarce and non-specific. Our aim is to provide a real example on how Facebook may be used in cultural research based on the practical findings resulted from implementing the PN-III-P2-2.1-BG-2016-0390, Digitization of Cultural Food Heritage. The Bacău Region eCULTFOOD (2016-2018) project and e-FestMemoria. Capitalizing on immaterial heritage. The winter holidays in Bacău County, no. ROCJBC 350 2017 001 12151, both coordinated by lecturer Petronela Savin, PhD (Savin 2014; Savin 2015). Our conclusions highlight the potential of using Facebook in cultural research in terms of: promotion of research and dissemination of research results, cultural education, user-generated content, connection between researchers and target groups.

Keywords:

Facebook, cultural research, cultural education, cultural content development, user-generated content.

Code [ID]:

CP201823V00S01A0003 [0004786]

Note:

* Acknowledgements: This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS/CCCDI–UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P2-2.1-BG-2016-0390, within PNCDI III.

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Issue:

CP, Number 23

Section:

No. 23 (2018)

Abstract:

The literary career of Elizabeth Gaskell is roughly defined by two different areas on which she focused – she was the author of the ‘industrial novels’ such as Mary Barton or North and South on the one hand, while on the other, she was strongly attracted to the countryside and its people which were closest to her heart, and where the changes the society was undergoing had the strongest impact as it was reflected in Cranford or Wives and Daughters. Apart from the social changes, however, in Wives and Daughters Gaskell’s interest focused predominantly on the relationships among the individual characters as they are the main driving force of the plot. The topics she tackled resonate strongly with those we are confronted with even today. Though unfinished, Wives and Daughters is an important novel offering the brilliantly realistic portrayal of life in Victorian England. At the same time it helps us see the differences and similarities between then and now. These were the main points we concentrated on while trying to analyse or compare the characters among which Molly Gibson functions as a unifying element on the one hand while on the other she helps to bridge over the widening gap between the old and outdated and the new and unknown.

Keywords:

Elizabeth Gaskell, society, prejudice, family, class, ambition, friendship.

Code [ID]:

CP201823V00S01A0004 [0004787]

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Issue:

CP, Number 23

Section:

No. 23 (2018)

Abstract:

An important component of cultural identity is represented by the food system observed through the culinary practices specific to a community. We approach the food system as a complex code that participates in the identity definition of a group from both ethnic and cultural perspectives. This paper aims to present food by means of an objective and independent definition which takes into consideration the actions and social aspects of human activity.

Keywords:

cultural identity, food system, culinary practices, ethnicity.

Code [ID]:

CP201823V00S01A0005 [0004788]

Note:

* This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS/CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P2-2.1-BG-2016-0390, within PNCDI III.

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Issue:

CP, Number 23

Section:

No. 23 (2018)

Abstract:

Starting from the idea that names, whether perceived as mere labels or representations, are generally very important in defining identity, this study intends to show how Romanians try to preserve, through the act of commercial naming, their cultural identity in the British context. The analysis tries to be a context-based linguistic categorization of the names, emphasizing the commercial name use in the Romanian community abroad. The study focuses on the linguistic analysis of the names of Romanian stores in England, narrowing the investigation to the London area.

Keywords:

Romanian store names, commercial naming, cultural identity, British context.

Code [ID]:

CP201823V00S01A0006 [0004789]

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Issue:

CP, Number 23

Section:

No. 23 (2018)

Abstract:

Language is a “living organism”, which is subject to change due to borrowed words and structures from different languages. Thus, in the case of Romanian, words and lexical structures enter the vocabulary and then fall out of use or are totally replaced in different circumstances along the process of communication. Some of these words, which are frequently used in speech, belong to the “active vocabulary” of Romanian, whereas other lexical structures, which are not constantly used, belong to what lexicologists call “passive vocabulary” and are (re)activated when used in certain fields. The aim of this paper is to bring into discussion the influence exerted by European languages such as French, English, Italian, German, etc. on Romanian language through language contact and the process of neologisation. The words borrowed from these languages into Romanian reveal the extent to which they contributed to building and reshaping the Romanians’ linguistic identity.

Keywords:

linguistic identity, loanwords, Romanian words, language contact, foreign words, borrowings.

Code [ID]:

CP201823V00S01A0007 [0004790]

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Issue:

CP, Number 23

Section:

No. 23 (2018)

Abstract:

Julian Barnes’ novel England, England, published in 1998 is an invitation to solving a puzzle. This perspective through which we are invited to read the novel is overlapped to the idea of memory and the manner in which the past is reconstructed via a subjective, flawed memory. When this is backgrounded against the context of the millennial consumerism, corporative profit-making and egomaniacal figures, the result is a farcical and satirical account of some aspects connected to one’s personal history and a nation’s history whose main paradigms are completeness and fitting, as this article seeks to uncover.

Keywords:

jigsaw puzzle, national/personal identity, cohesion vs fragmentation, to reconstruct/to reassemble/to reorder, corporate profit-making, theme park, historical regression.

Code [ID]:

CP201823V00S01A0008 [0004791]

Note:

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