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DIRECTIONS AND TRENDS FOR THE ADJUSTMENT OF FISCAL- BUDGET SYSTEMS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION AS A RESULT OF THE COVID 19 CRISIS

Author(s): Nicoleta Mihăilă / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: tax revenues; taxation; economic growth; inequality; fiscal trends;

The aim of the paper is to analyze the trends of reconfiguration of post-COVID-19 tax policies, at a global level, in order to increase the revenues of the states, the impact of the crisis being felt more strongly, and the countries being in a position to identify sources / bases of taxation through which to ensure the resources necessary for the restoration, but also for the short and medium term support of its economic, social and equity objectives/functions. We thus take into consideration the tax revenues recorded in the EU in 2020, the main challenges of tax policy in the current economic context, as well as ways of adapting/orienting it to achieve the established economic objectives. In our approach, we used a descriptive methodology, by calling on various bibliographic sources and statistical data belonging to specialized institutions at the European and international level.

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THE CHICANO RELIGIOUS UNIVERSE IN ERIKA SÁNCHEZ’S CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVE

Author(s): Oana Andreea Ghiţă-Pîrnuţă / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: Chicano; religion; tradition; Catholic; culture; identity; modernism;

The present study aims at exploring various religious aspects as they are presented by Erika Sánchez in her novel entitled ”I am not your perfect Mexican daughter”. On the one hand, the focus is laid upon Julia and her modern way in which she perceives religion. She is a nihilist or an atheist being surrounded by religious elements and rituals. Julia is dissatisfied with the way in which religion treats women in general as it is outdated for the modern standards. On the other hand, the emphasis is laid upon Amá, Julia’s mother, who is a conservative, traditional, Catholic religious woman. The Chicano movement was influenced by the Catholic identities. The study highlights important religious traditions and rituals, which are part of the Chicano cultural heritage.

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SAMUEL JEAN POZZI AND THE BELLE EPOQUE IN JULIAN BARNES’ “THE MAN IN THE RED COAT”

Author(s): Anca Bădulescu / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: surgeon; gynecology; dandyism; aestheticism; insularity;

Julian Barnes’ “The Man in the Red Coat”, the biography of the French celebrity surgeon, Samuel Jean Pozzi is, in fact, much more than the life story of an outstanding medical figure. Barnes achieved an inciting historical study of an epoque, ‘la Belle Epoque’, bringing to the foreground the most prominent figures of the time. In doing so, Barnes repeatedly states that a biographer should not refrain from acknowledging that ‘one does not know all the truth’. The Prince Edouard de Polignac, the Count Robert de Montesquiou, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Sarah Bernhardt, Henry James, James Whistler, Guy de Maupassant, Stephane Mallarme – and not only – are part of Pozzi’s dazzling circle of contemporaries. But “The Man in the Red Coat” is not a succession of linear events of the epoque. It is the pretext for amazing artistic and literary discussions, and an interesting depiction of the exaggerations and excesses of the period between the 1870s until the First World War. This article aims at showing how Julian Barnes succeeds in bridging the gap between the beginning of the twentieth century and our times. By alluding to recent events, especially Brexit, the author points out similarities between ‘la fin de siecle’ and the present. What we do not know is whether English-European ‘cultural/ literary’ exchanges will be the same after Brexit. Probably not!

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FAMILY CONFLICTS IN ERIKA SÁNCHEZ’S CHICANO FICTION

Author(s): Oana Andreea Ghiţă-Pîrnuţă / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: family; conflict; tension; rupture; teenage years; children; parents;

The present study aims at exploring the family conflicts, family tensions or the so-called ”family rupture” in Erika Sánchez’s novel entitled ”I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter”. It displays the difficulties of a person going through the teenage years when everything is surrounded by uncertainty. In this stage of one’s life, guidance and understanding are very precious. Unfortunately, the novel reveals the repercussion of the family not being there to support their adolescent daughter, not because they do not care about her, but due to how they have been raised themselves, not understanding that the world around them changes, children grow up faster and instilling certain restrictions without any explanation will not protect their children. Also, forcing their values and opinions onto their kids will not reach an agreement between them, it will create a feeling of alienation, a sense of not belonging anywhere in the world, and being an outcast. The author chose to implement one of the worst outcomes when it comes to parents not communicating or trying to empathize with their kids: they might attempt to take their own lives. Although the relationship between parents and their daughter improves at the end of the novel, the theme of ”family rupture” still applies because after such a traumatic last resort, no one will be able to fully heal from it: the parents, while attempting to be understanding, will try and walk on eggshells around their daughter to prevent it from happening again, which is not, in fact, a solution. Their daughter, while being more comfortable to communicating with her parents, will never be fully honest with them because she realizes their minds are too limited to deal with certain truths, like the one about their dead daughter being pregnant at the time of the accident from an affair with a married man. Even though this family is not torn apart, they have unhealed wounds that will never go away.

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HOW COMMUNICATION PATTERNS IN DENTAL PRACTICE HAVE BEEN RE-SHAPED IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE PANDEMIC

Author(s): Laura Ioana Leon / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: communication skills; healthcare settings; doctor-patient interaction; online communication; communication during pandemic;

The importance of doctor-patient communication has been well established in healthcare settings. However, the COVID-19 pandemic might have brought some new challenges to the doctor-patient communication and relationship by and large. Besides the fact that, at least for a while, in the beginning of the pandemic, the communication process took place mostly in the online medium, the whole new context has added new challenges to the doctor-patient interaction. Patients have become more anxious and nervous before a consultation and therefore the whole communication process had to be reshaped. This paper is going to address some of the major issues that have been brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in terms of developing the doctor-patient communication and the actual building of the relationship. The level of patients’ anxiety has increased and the doctors’ communication skills had to be rethought in order to respond to the patients’ present-day needs. This mainly has in view trying to find ways to reduce patients’ anxiety, the tendency to transfer the communication process in the online medium, and overcoming all the barriers that might affect the doctor-patient dialogue in the long run.

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MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL, IN THE EU27, WHO’S LIVING WORST OF ALL?

Author(s): Alina Georgeta Ailincă / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: living conditions; SDGs; macroeconomic evolutions; poverty; inflation;

As we know, poverty and wealth are relative concepts, depending on the social, political, economic, cultural benchmarks of those who evaluate these states. However, in the objectives of sustainable development and in the policies and strategic programs of the EU, there are a series of indicators that can measure, in a relatively appropriate manner, the state of poverty or wealth of the population. Thus, the article does not aim to point fingers, it does not analyse the paradox of resources - the conflict between the wealth of resources and the poverty of the population, but rather tries to investigate why some states are unable to provide sufficient social protection compared to others at the level EU27. The pandemic crisis of COVID-19 seriously hit all the economies of the world, as well as the economies of the EU27, but some recovered faster, others more difficult, the social transposition of the recovery being practically non-existent within the social parameters in certain EU countries. Thus, the article tries to investigate why and proposes a series of solutions for fixing this state of affairs.

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THE MINDSET OF THE MEXICAN PEOPLE IN ERIKA SÁNCHEZ’S I AM NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER

Author(s): Oana-Andreea Ghiță-Pîrnuță / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: mindset; Mexican; belief; behavior; value; attitude; habit; celebration;

The present study aims at exploring the mindset of the Mexican people in Erika Sánchez’s novel entitled ”I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter”. It lays emphasis upon the Mexicans’ beliefs, behavior, values, outlook and mental attitudes. The emotional character of the Mexicans is highlighted as well as the paradoxes of the Mexican cultural heritage. While the female characters are portrayed as emotional beings with complex feelings, the male characters lack personality in the novel. Mexicans value family and religion. Food is a significant element in the Mexican culture, the focus being laid on both cooking and eating. Singing and dancing as well as other important Mexicans customs, traditions or celebrations have a great impact on personal relationships, all these multifarious elements shaping the mindset of the Mexican people.

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A WORLD AND ITS DOUBLE

Author(s): Violeta Bercaru Oneață / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: transfer; frontier; monade; double; multitude;

The study values certain outstanding elements of C.G. Jung's Psychological Analytics like the transfer or the frontier in the ongoing display of the profound layer of the human mind – the unconscious- ; Leibniz monadism concept as well as the generative capacity of the monade in Jung's vision on the other hand to produce an abstract cosmogony that this study finds as being similar to the concept of the multitude. The double face medal like of the unconscious and the generative valence of the monade to produce multitudes are landmarks trying to explain the creative facts formation, among which the study focuses on the Poetical Function of the language.

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TEACHING PUBLIC SPEAKING TO BUSINESS STUDENTS

Author(s): Raluca Emilia Moldovan / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: public speaking; Business English; presentation;

Teaching English to Business students as compared to teaching General English is from the very beginning a challenging task. If we go further and try to integrate public speaking skills into the teaching process, this task will be even more thought-provoking, both for the teachers and the students. It is commonly known that people are reluctant to speaking (more than 70% of the people worldwide experience nervousness when they have to speak in public), let alone in a foreign language in front of an audience. Therefore, integrating public speaking skills and tasks into Business English classes, is intended to better prepare the students for the presentations and projects that they will have to deliver in their future jobs, at the same time enabling them to acquire the necessary concepts and strategies that a good public speaker should master. Moreover, combining traditional face to face public speaking with digital public speaking would instruct and prepare the university graduates for a business digital age, that is so likely to be more ubiquitous in the not-too-distant future.

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THE UNIVERSAL AND CULTURAL SPECIFIC IMAGE OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH, ROMANIAN AND RUSSIAN IDIOMS

Author(s): Viorica Lifari / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: cognitive studies; idioms; images of animals; cultural specific scenarios;

Idiomatic expressions are considered special creations of various languages as they reflect the specific cultural way the people think and bear a metaphoric or metonymic meaning. Moreover cognitive linguistics says that we perceive the reality by means of our body and environment, thus various cultures makes use of similar linguistic means to render various cultural scenarios with cases of universal linguistic representation of similar cultural patterns. Since old times writers used to speak about various vices of humans by means of animal images so as to soften the criticism and the process of deriding the weaknesses of people. However, the existing linguistic expressions were constructed in the course of language development being influenced by some previous common writings as the religious books and common human dwellings since ancient times thus explaining the common cases of associating similar animals with similar situations cross-culturally. The idioms that differ among various languages witness about the different mentality of the humans representing different cultures. In this study we compare the images of domestic animals in English, Romanian and Russian so as to identify the possible similar cases and most important, those culturally specific ones so as to help in understanding which way to conduct an intercultural communication in a correct way.

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SOME CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT ECOSOPHY

Author(s): Gabriela – Cornelia Piciu / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: ecosophy; climate change; environment; globalization; solidarity;

Governments and institutions seem unable to understand the ecological problem, the environment, in all its implications, and even if there is a partial understanding of the most visible dangers that threaten the natural environment of man and societies, it boils down to the general approach of industrial damage, and only from a technocratic perspective. What can answer these problems is the ethico-political, ecocentric articulation, called ecosophy, located between the three ecological dimensions - of the environment, of social relations and of human subjectivity - could properly explain and clarify this problem, from the perspective deep ecology.

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IDENTITY AND IMPERIALISM IN JOSEPH CONRAD’S FICTION

Author(s): Dimitrie Andrei Borcan / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: identity; colonisation; imperialism; Empire; Counter-Empire;

This article focuses on Joseph Conrad’s proleptic gift to infer in each stage of appropriating foreign territories the specific psychology of the imperialistic identity and its continuous march from seemingly well-meaning colonization towards Empire, as the expression of globalization. Conrad’s position is anti-globalist. Moreover, he warns about the advent of the Counter-Empire, either as anarchism or as communism, both forms of evil brought about by Empire, counteracting it while sharing with it certain globalist identity features.

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WHOLISTIC TRANSLATION THEORY - A WHOLISTIC APPROACH ON TRANSLATION –

Author(s): Marius Golea / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: Wholistic Translation Theory; Translation Theories Matrix / Multitude; Holarchy; Holons; Translation Process;

Holistic Translation Theory aims to impropriate holism’s philosophical doctrine and to graft it on the stem of the translation studies, so that to build up a Holistic Meta-paradigm on Translation. Holistic Translation Theory has as bot practical and ethical principle that of taking in account any translation theory and reckon it as a partial view on the translation process. Holistic Translation Theory is a meta-theory for dealing with the Translation Theories. As work method, Holistic Translation Theory founds theoretically, and it proposes to be constituted and periodically updated, the Translation Theories Matrix / Multitude, so that to provide the researchers and the translators with an efficient tool for developing their Traductological Capacity. Holistic Theory envisages the need for constituting and setting in work an International Center for Holism in Translation Studies. Holistic Translation Theory is a multidisciplinary undertaking and it aims to establish connections with any scientific domain that can contribute to a better understanding of the Translation Process, among which we explicitly mention AI and psychology.

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ASPECTS OF TIME IN ROMANIAN POPULAR MENTALITY

Author(s): Florica Iuhaş / Language(s): English / Issue: 32/2023

Keywords: time; popular calendar; imagination; magical practices; rites;

In the Romanian imagination, the entirety of the Universe participates at the birth and death of man - when the star of life rises or falls. Starting with the first blink of life, human existence assigns itself to a mythical time. The future of the child is not only connected to the blessings of the Fairy Godmothers but also to the time of birth, which is also fated. The human is predestined for a certain existence depending on when his/her "time comes"1 to be born, and also depending on the day, the month, the year and if it's during daylight or nigh-time. After dusk, the villager would turn to shadows and fireflies for guidance; at night they would listen after the sounds made by domestic or wild animals and the flight of bats and moths, while the chirping or humming of birds and the crowing of roosters marked the coming of dawn. Whether these signs were real or imagined, from dawn until dusk and then until midnight, the compartmentalization of time has amassed a complex set of magical-mythical practices and beliefs that rhythmize the passage rites of the being with those of the calendar. This article aims to present the hypostases of time in the Romanian popular tradition as a spiritual synthesis of ancestral origin. Divinities, hieroglyphic beings, magical practices, holidays, traditions and symbols that animate human existence and pace its experience, are part of a popular Calendar where time plays a central role because, as stated by Romulus Vulcănescu (1987, pp. 437 - 438), Romanians measure mythical time in close relation to that of mythical space.

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VLADIMIR ABUSHENKO: BELARUS’ RETURN TO EUROPE IS A MATTER OF LIFE

Author(s): Sergei Gavrov / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2021

Keywords: V.L. Abushenko; Yu.M. Reznik; V.V. Matskevich; Wojtek Slomski; the magazine «Personality. Culture. Society»; Moscow; Minsk; Belarus; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Think Belarus;

Article-memory of the scientist V.L. Abushenko, our communication in Minsk and in Moscow. The article considers the intellectual community formed in the 2000s around the editor-in-chief of the journal, Professor Y.M. Reznik. I remember the departed colleagues, members of the editorial Board of the magazine era «Golden age» LKO.

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Capital Matters: Middle Class between Welcome Culture and Ukrainian Refugee Crisis

Author(s): Zanan Akin / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: capital; charity; disorientation of the world; hostility; hospitality; middle-class; self-realization; welcome culture; Ukrainian refugee crisis;

Confused between their insatiable hunger for ‘self-realization,’ their enjoyment of petit bonheurs of life and an aggressive will to preserve their welfare position, for not going downhill and joining the 50% of the world population who own nothing, today’s middle-class individual seems to choose one of two ‘fronts of worldviews,’ of which the attitude toward ‘refugees’ constitutes a new ‘battlefield.’ So, with the flow of Ukrainian refugees after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, one of the most worrying questions in Germany has been if the experience of the ‘welcome culture’ of 2015, that is a severe shift from hospitality to hostility, would repeat. Statistics show that so far, it has not been the case. This paper addresses the question of what might differ in the experience of ‘the Ukrainian refugee wave’ from the ‘welcome culture’ of 2015. Tracing both hospitality and then the shift to hostility in 2015 back to its middle-class dynamics, the paper tries to conceptualize a difference in attitudes within the middle-class toward both ‘refugee crises.’

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The Social Construction of ‘Ethnic Identity’: Confusion over Terms? How the Sociology of ‘Ethnic Identity’ can be Relevant to the Use of Theory in Counselling Psychology

Author(s): Byron J. Gaist / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Keywords: acculturation; cultural identity; ethnic identity development; immigration; race

In today’s shifting social climate of financial crises, war, economic migration and refugee crises, ethnic identity is an increasingly important psychosocial variable to consider within the helping professions. In this article, a postmodern perspective on the development and experience of ethnic identity is discussed - in particular, the social constructionist view, which is based on a fluid, non-binary identity logic. Using applications of ethnic identity in the field of counselling psychology as a professional example, some major theoretical approaches to the study of ethnic identity are briefly described - including social identity theory, acculturation and psychodynamic approaches, as well as the contribution of identity process theory - and questions are raised about the useful potential of adopting this postmodern perspective alongside these standard theoretical models in clinical work.

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Gender Stratification and Feminist Sociology: Why East-Central Europe Needs More Quantitative Gender Stratification Research

Author(s): Helen Law,Joanna Sikora / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Keywords: gender stratification; feminist sociology; ideal types; public sociology; professional sociology

Unlike in Anglophone sociology, the sociological analysis of gender inequalities in East-Central Europe has not yet reached the status of a prominent subfield in stratification research. To address the key societal challenges of this century in East-Central Europe, we argue that the region is in need of a strong development in gender stratification research and a greater use of quantitative methodologies. Such advancement would strengthen not only stratification research but also feminist sociology in East-Central Europe. It would also facilitate the transfer of professional knowledge in stratification and feminist studies to the public. Drawing on the classical concept of Weber’s ideal types, we further argue that gender stratification research, with its participation in academic and public debates, has the potential to not only reveal the differences in opportunities between males and females but also reduce such inequalities.

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How to Facilitate Routinized Reflection and Truly Dynamic Adaptation in an Ever-changing Business World

Author(s): Ingo Bildstein / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Keywords: learning organization; innovation; resource-based view; dynamic capabilities; organizational culture

The paper at hand elaborates on two conceptual ambiguities inherent in the current state of development in the important research field of how individual thinking links with effective organizational action. In so doing the text firstly arguments why routinized reflection is needed to balance the danger of complacency on the individual level of analysis. Secondly, the paper gives a review of why existing writing on the key strategic management concept of dynamic capabilities is hitherto unclear about how exactly that pivotal theoretical concept can simultaneously safeguard both routinized replication and dynamic adaptation. The paper also provides evidence for that topic’s practical relevance in today’s increasingly knowledge-based business environment, as being simultaneously sensitive to weak signals of required changes while exploiting existing sources of revenue constitutes a key requirement for organizational longevity. The paper makes the conceptual proposition of a jester-like mindset to bridge the two outlined theoretical gaps. In a nutshell, this idea centers around the fact that individual organizational actors cannot stand the immense challenge of continually judging whether use of time-tested solutions or constructive challenging of routine action is required. This is the reason why the needed routinized reflection has to be transferred to the group-level of analysis by creating an attitude shared by all constituents, which makes it safe to trigger organizational adaptation. The paper sketches six fields of application, where the proposed mindset augments our understanding of how to create organizations prone to effective changeability. The paper ends with sketching avenues for further empirical research to inform the jester-mindset’s theoretical refinement.

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Torben Iversen and Philipp Rehm: Big Data and the Welfare State: How the Information Revolution Threatens Social Solidarity

Author(s): Josip Lučev / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Welfare state; Big Data; use of information; information revolution; book review;

Review of: -Torben Iversen and Philipp Rehm. Big Data and the Welfare State: How the Information Revolution Threatens Social Solidarity, Cambridge University Press, 2022. 256 pp.

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