Lorena Mihaes
University of Bucharest, Modern Languages, Faculty Member
Research Interests:
The main aim of the present book is to raise awareness of some important aspects of translation applied to the specific context of Romanian culture, literature and language. Translation is approached here as one of the most important and... more
The main aim of the present book is to raise awareness of some important aspects of translation applied to the specific context of Romanian culture, literature and language. Translation is approached here as one of the most important and effective instruments that mediate cultural and linguistic knowledge and, thus, help us better understand the other’s culture and values. Consequently, translation is looked at not only as a transfer from one cultural environment to another, but also as an agent of change. The book comprises a wide range of articles, written in Romanian and English, that approach the concept of translation and its cultural and linguistic implications.
Research Interests:
Today’s world is completely engaged in a new type of revolution: the digital one. Higher education is one important field which can benefit from the advent of digital technologies. Blended learning has emerged as a groundbreaking concept,... more
Today’s world is completely engaged in a new type of revolution: the digital one. Higher education is one important field which can benefit from the advent of digital technologies. Blended learning has emerged as a groundbreaking concept, which combines the student’s traditional learning experience with the support offered by the computer, the teacher guiding him all the way. The mission of Adapt2jobs, a project developed with the help of the European Union’s structural funds, is to create a learning platform, where seven traditional courses from three distinct fields of study, developed by experienced academics according to the labour-market requirements, have been transferred to the digital medium by ICT (Information and Communication Technology) specialists. The project is intended to implement a piloting programme, which involves 210 students enrolled at the seven courses, and, eventually, to measure learning effectiveness by means of the tools developed as part of the learning platform. A research methodology has been designed in order to assess the overall learning experience of the students involved in the project, and, thus, to provide valuable insights to teachers, who are given the opportunity to enrich their teaching methods and teaching philosophy, and to make them able to adapt to new ICT technologies in education. The feedback from students is collected with the help of two online evaluative surveys: a general one applied prior to Adapt2jobs learning experience, and a specific one, tailored for each course, applied at the end of the piloting stage. This allows us to make a comparative analysis between the students’ expectations and their previous learning experience, which is mainly traditional, and the new type of learning experienced during the piloting months. Data collection is made via LimeSurvey, a digital open source which will assist us in interpreting students’ responses. The survey variables have been selected to describe the students’ past experience in using computer and online learning materials, to explore their perception of learning effectiveness on a personal level, and, on a more general level, to compare traditional learning with blended learning. The paper’s aim is to analyse the preliminary results available for the two surveys and, thus, to evaluate the implementation scheme proposed by the project and, therefore, the effectiveness of technology-mediated instruction.
Higher education has always been a conservative environment, where education providers have seen their institutions as nuclear, the curricula being decided single-handedly, without much interference from the outside. The past decade,... more
Higher education has always been a conservative environment, where education providers have seen their institutions as nuclear, the curricula being decided single-handedly, without much interference from the outside. The past decade, however, saw unprecedented changes in at least two directions. The first one is the outcome of the economic crisis, which has risen the necessity of the collaboration between business and academia in order to provide young graduates able to adapt quickly to the labour-market requirements. The other direction is related to the advent of new technologies. This obviously challenges the traditional learning space and asks for a dynamic, flexible and collaborative environment, where students are given the choice and can make decisions. Adapt2jobs is a European-funded project, with a view to adapting teaching methods and academic curricula to the labour-market demands. Its aim is to follow the above-mentioned directions in higher education, by making use of the digital technologies, and by actively involving students in the decisionmaking process so as to assure relevance and quality of instruction. The commitment of the university is twofold: one to quality and the second to the job-market. While accountable to society to provide qualified, innovative and creative workforce, the challenge of the university is to maintain the balance between quality of instruction and market demands. To what extent are we teaching for the future? This is a question that only the students can answer; their assessment of our educational proposals is essential for a successful program. The benefit of the project is that the student is supposed to assess, make a decision and pass on his conclusions, becoming aware of his/her responsibility not only for his own career, but also for his peers’. The project outcomes should be seen as benchmarks for developing and implementing improvements in the existing curricula. Students and employers become partners with teachers in the process of adapting teaching/learning methods to present-day labour-market requirements. Students involved in our project are encouraged to explore computer-based learning and, at the same time, to self-assess their progress by taking continuous-assessment tests and to measure their learning effectiveness by taking a final test. University-Business Cooperation concept has gained a lot of attention today because both parties are interested in providing highly trained graduates. In this sense, the project sustainability is firstly meant to establish a well-articulated framework, which can make this cooperation work. Secondly, teachers will contribute to the development of the project sustainability through their constant involvement in adapting the digitized content of the courses to the latest developments in the field and also, in promoting the blendend teaching method among their peers. Thirdly, students are encouraged to share their learning experience with their colleagues, a new one to this ecosystem of education.
The aim of this paper is to present narrative unreliability from the vantage point of pragmatics, namely Brown and Levinson's Politeness Principle. My claim is that narrative unreliability always encodes a face-threatening act to the... more
The aim of this paper is to present narrative unreliability from the vantage point of pragmatics, namely Brown and Levinson's Politeness Principle. My claim is that narrative unreliability always encodes a face-threatening act to the narrator's face, one he would evade no matter what. Politeness strategies allow the narrator to perform such an act while saving face at the same time in front of his narratee – his interlocutor in the fictional world. While Stevens' politeness strategies in The Remains of the Day are mainly directed at maintaining his negative face, Ono in An Artist of the Floating World is especially concerned with saving his positive face. To put it differently, Stevens makes claims to his territory, personal preserves and rights to non-distraction, while Ono is interested in creating a positive consistent self-image in the eyes of his fictional interlocutor. Both strategies result in a less conspicuous, more natural unreliability of two narrators who seem to be partly conscious of the difficult position they are in when narrating their guilt-ridden past.
Research Interests:
Nowadays, the labour market has become a highly competitive environment, especially for young graduates. More than 20% of the EU (European Union) young graduates are unemployed and, despite their educational background and performances,... more
Nowadays, the labour market has become a highly competitive environment, especially for young graduates. More than 20% of the EU (European Union) young graduates are unemployed and, despite their educational background and performances, it is ever more difficult for them to prove that the competences and skills acquired during higher education years are those needed by the employers. This disturbing percentage comes as no surprise since the last years' financial crisis has brought about an increase in the overall unemployment rate. Recent OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) studies shed light on a crucial question which arises now: will a skill upgrade in the European labour force help to increase the employment rate, especially among the young? In the digital age we have been living for some time already, possessing digital skills is, undoubtedly, highly regarded by potential employers. Nevertheless, according to a newly developed Digital Skills Indicator , based on the Digital Competence Framework , 23% of the EU population has no digital skills (2012), and 47% of the EU population has insufficient digital skills. In this context, the idea of adapting teaching and learning to the labour market requirements was materialized in an 18-month European-funded project, which is aimed at developing new teaching tools (computer-based instruction) in order to upgrade not only basic competencies and skills corresponding to the higher education study field, but also to develop ICT (Information and Communication Technology) skills, by innovatively delivering knowledge content. The partnership between a university and an ICT company has been materialized in seven digitized courses, available on an online platform especially designed for a group of 210 students. These students have been selected in order to test and assess the teaching tools developed during the implementation months of the project. Blended learning gives our students the opportunity to acquire knowledge and to experience computer-assisted learning. During the testing period, students will complete an online survey which focuses on their learning performances. Learning effectiveness indicators will be equally designed, tested and measured. Once the results of the project available, they will be analyzed and charted and will lay the foundation of the next generation of higher education programmes offered by the university, in line with the labour market changes and requirements. This will mean teaching what our graduates will need in their future professional career, and, at the same time, it will mean boosting innovation and creativity in teaching methods.
Research Interests:
This paper looks at the evolution of the narratological concept of unreliability since Booth coined it in 1961. The interest of this paper resides solely in the rhetorical essentialist approach and leaves out the cognitive constructivist... more
This paper looks at the evolution of the narratological concept of unreliability since Booth coined it in 1961. The interest of this paper resides solely in the rhetorical essentialist approach and leaves out the cognitive constructivist stance taken by a number of narratologists. The rhetorical approach to narrative unreliability is based on the anthropomorphic agent called the implied author, responsible for intentionally marking the text as such. If the implied author endorses the narrator's account and the evaluation he attaches to it, then the narration is reliable; if not, it is unreliable.
Research Interests:
Adapt2jobs is a project financially supported by the Romanian Government and the European Social Cohesion Funds, with a view to investing in human resources. It simultaneously aims at developing a package of labour market-oriented... more
Adapt2jobs is a project financially supported by the Romanian Government and the European Social Cohesion Funds, with a view to investing in human resources. It simultaneously aims at developing a package of labour market-oriented courses, and at transferring them into the virtual space offered by e-learning technologies. To do that, brainstorming sessions with important recruitment representatives were organized, which resulted in a Mind Map describing the employers' requirements. The course package proposed by the experts is especially tailored to meet these requirements. It is structured on three domains: social sciences, economics, and art and architecture. Its digital form is meant to construct a new learning ecosystem, as the students who are part of it will not only improve their knowledge of the particular domain where they are enrolled, but their learning skills, creativity and effectiveness will be enhanced. The proposed courses are approached by the 'flipped class...