Lo rumano en los manuales de ELE editados en Rumanía bajo el régimen comunista
The Romanian Elements in the Textbooks of Spanish (L2) Published in Romania under the Communist Regime

Summary/Abstract: This paper looks at the textbooks of Spanish (L2), published in Romania during the communist regime and designed for the public educational system. More precisely, it investigates the presence of elements related to the Romanian culture, from the angle of the ideological communist propaganda. The communist regime reformed the whole educational system in order to create the “new man” in the spirit of its values and ideology. In the first period of Ceausescu’s regime, characterised by ideological relaxation, among other things, Romanians could travel more and started learning foreign languages. In this social and political context, a great deal of foreign languages materials were published in Romania (i.e. grammars, dictionaries, exercise books etc.). The Spanish (L2) textbooks published in this period aimed, among others, at developing the national identity through texts and visual elements that highlighted Romania’s natural beauties, glorious past, economic development etc. Moreover, the grafic support depicts Romanian factories, representative buildings, monuments, landscapes, but few cultural elements related to the Spanish speaking world. The communist ideology promoted the national history, the traditions, natural beauties and the economic development. These elements played an important role in shaping the patriotism and national pride. The textbooks we analysed here contain a great variety of Romanian cultural elements and therefore do not develop the intercultural competence. Thus, they became an instrument of the political propaganda, whose main aim is to highlight the activity of the Romanian Communist Party and its achievements.

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