Motivating the participants involved in the educational act represents nowadays a real challenge, both on the professors’ side and on the students’ side. The answers that can be provided today, in this way, must use a language as close as possible to the sphere of interest of those they are addressed to. Consequently, in what the students are concerned, concepts related to the digital era can have a real and successful impact. That is why, the implementation of the concept of gamification in the teaching-learning process, especially in a multicultural context, represented an extremely useful and interesting experiment at the Preparatory Year focused on teaching Romanian as a foreign language at the Faculty of Letters of Transilvania University of Brașov, as part of the GIRO national project. Its results confirmed the expectations, as student motivation was boosted to such an extent that it surpassed the few negatives encountered on the way, the combination of game-based activities and the gamified vision being at its best.
Keywords: gamification; GIRO project; motivation; Romanian as a foreign language.
This article examines Differential (Direct) Object (DOM) and Agent Marking (DAM) in (contemporary) Romanian on the basis of written data coming mostly from the internet. It shows that both phenomena are optional (with some exceptions for certain types of Direct Objects) and that they are both triggered by the parameter of animacy which is a necessary one. While DOM may additionally be triggered by specificity and topicality, DAM is not sensitive to specificity and it may be affected by language register (namely the official/administrative register).
Keywords: differential object and agent marking; saliency; humanness; specificity; Romanian.
In the present article the author describes the use of the prepositions la, de, and de la in genitive or dative structures, encountered in the regional varieties of Romanian, emphasizing the frequency of the aforementioned structures and their specific features as shown in the corpus of dialectal texts investigated. The author also illustrates and discusses the different stages of grammaticalization of the preposition la in the expression of the genitive and dative and the connection between the genitive/dative relation and the locative relation.
Keywords: functional preposition; genitive; possessive; dative; locative; nonstandard Romanian.
The paper analyses the way Philippe de Thaon presents his many lexical inventions in the Comput (an astronomical treatise composed in 1113 or 1119). In the peculiar context of the first half century of Norman England, Philippe draws upon the local tradition of translating into the vernacular, but with the purpose of imposing his own vernacular as a prestige language. He invents French words close to Latin, emphasizes the language he is using (en francesche raisun), and deliberately creates confusion between Latin and French forms. Philippe’s Comput thus functions as a handbook of scientific French, and as an instrument for the cultural policy of the first Anglo-Norman rulers.
Keywords: Comput; Philippe de Thaon; innovation; astronomy; Anglo-Norman; Old French.
Starting from the thought of Jean-Luc Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe, this article aims to investigate the “political panic” that arises at the crossroads of identification and narcissism. These redefine the place of the Other in the formation of society, from the intersection between the individual psyche and collective life, where life appears to be committed to defending itself, in an auto-immunizing movement, which (to the extent that it defends itself) tends to reverse itself into its opposite. The radicalization of the self-preservation drives coincides in Freud works with the “death drive”, whose movement appears regressive, aimed at restoring the restlessness of life to its original state of rest. Instead of opening itself to the Other, life closes itself and chooses death. Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe were able to grasp in the “political panic” the fragile relationship between the “withdrawal of the politician” and the beginning of politics, and this particular aspect of life in common also concerns the play of Ionesco, Rhinocéros. The Romanian writer denounces in France the fascist ideological contagion of a whole generation of writers, between the two wars, highlighting the “death drive”, which moves the coryphes of political totalitarianism in Romania towards the spasmodic competition, fanaticism, cynicism, and, in some cases, towards crime. It is imaginatively cloaked in religious idealism understood as an all-encompassing “spiritual” knowledge, free of stretch marks.
Keywords: Romanian literature; psychoanalysis; theatre; comparative literature; political philosophy.
The aim of this paper is to examine the current use of the terms chestiune and chestie, in order to highlight their common and different features. Since the study is qualitative in nature, the descriptive method is employed for analysis and interpretation. The article mainly focuses on the semantic dynamics of the noun chestie, so as to introduce and discuss it as an independent lexeme, and not as a variant. The examples have been taken from web-based sources such as blogs, discussion forums, websites, online media and readers’ comments on journal articles, social media sites and apps, etc. There are two stages in this approach: the first one corresponds to the year 2013 (presentation of partial results) and the second one is based on research for the years 2021-2022.
Keywords: "chestiune”; “chestie”; semantic dynamics; phraseological units; independent lexeme.
The object of my analysis is the fantastic character of the Flying Incubus, known in the Romanian folklore as the Sburător [The Flyer], reinterpreted by three Romantic poets, I. Heliade Rădulescu, Cezar Bolliac, and V. Alecsandri. In their poems that share the same title, Sburătorul, they associate different values to this character, commonly seen as a seducer of young girls, appearing to them at night and consuming them with a strange passion that can lead to the girls’ death: for Heliade Rădulescu, the Flying Incubus is very similar to a vampire, Alecsandri depicts him as a sort of fawn, whereas in Bolliac’s poem he is an erotic demon. This character’s recurrence in Romanian 19th century literature is an influence of the Romanticism from two points of view: the discovery of the folklore as a source of poetic inspiration and the attraction for dark love, as analyzed by Mario Praz.
Keywords: Dark Romanticism; Romanian Romantic poetry; myth criticism; vampire.
In Lubomir Guentchev's Sonnets Interdits [Forbidden Sonnets], the satire is very violent. The poet protests in French, as well as in Bulgarian, against the oppression of the human being that he had witnessed in his country, during the totalitarian period, starting with 1946. He created a first series between 1972 and 1973. These first sonnets were confiscated from him on October 18, 1973, during a political police search. He was refused their restitution. A second part of these poems was created between 1974 and 1980. They were found between 2001 and 2004, when the archives of the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior were opened. The whole series was published in France in 2005. These Sonnets Interdits cry out his revolt against the regime established at that time in Bulgaria. The poet expresses his indignation by resorting to a virulent, vehement satire. What are the specific intentions, the targets and the means of expression?
Keywords: satire; totalitarianism; Bulgaria; francophone; XXth century.
Dans les Sonnets Interdits de Lubomir Guentchev, la satire est très violente. Le poète s’y insurge en français comme en bulgare contre l’oppression de la personne humaine. Il en avait été le témoin dans son pays, au temps du totalitarisme, à partir de 1946. Il a en composé une première série entre 1972 et 1973. Ces premiers sonnets lui furent confisqués le 18 octobre 1973, lors d’une perquisition. Il s’en vit refuser la restitution. Une seconde partie de ces poèmes a été élaborée entre 1974 et 1980. Ils ont été retrouvés entre 2001 et 2004, quand les archives du ministère bulgare de l’Intérieur ont été ouvertes. L’ensemble a été publié en France en 2005. Ces Sonnets Interdits crient sa révolte contre le régime alors établi en Bulgarie. Le poète s’y indigne en recourant à une satire virulente, véhémente. Quelles en sont les intentions, les cibles et les procédés ?
Keywords: satire ; totalitarisme ; Bulgarie ; Francophonie ; XX° siècle.