Language and Culture

In order for a person to be competent in English, it is not only about learning the basics of it, it is about how well you use it for the purpose that you have learned it, that is to say, how confidently you communicate in English, how well you understand different contexts in which language is put, how much you feel able to avoid misunderstandings and to put a flow to the communication. Here comes into consideration culture as one of the most important aspects of a language. Thus, it needs to be an inseparable part of EFL language classrooms. Also, it is not only about learning the target culture. Many students, depending on their family and education background, are not even aware of their own culture. Therefore, teaching the foreign culture can be considered as a tool for developing the sense of culture in general, and raise the awareness of students of the concepts and principles of culture all around the world, even theirs. This article aims to provide an insight on the importance of cultural awareness in English Language Classrooms, the attention that should be paid to culture of English when this language is being taught to students and ways how to do incorporate it within the class.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the corpus of two magazines (Cosmopolitan and Men’s Health) and whether they sub-consciously portray gender stereotypes. This study focuses on the usage of the seven basic colors (Primary (N=3), secondary (N=3), and black) in the magazines, their frequency in articles, and the purpose of usage. A mixed method was used in order to retrieve the results of this research. The quantitative method was utilized to extract the frequency of a color in both magazines, whereas the qualitative method explored the usage of colors in context, so within the articles. The findings of the study may suggest a tendency toward gender stereotypes and advertising stereotypes through the usage of colors in combination with clothes or body parts which were found during the qualitative method.

The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how music can be an essential tool for learning languages. First of all, music is a form of communication and compared to many of the other art forms used to communicate, such as dance, art, films etc, it is probably one of the easiest for everyone to participate in. Music changes our body temperature, it affects our mood, our energy levels and most importantly, our emotions. It is well-known that our best and worst emotional experiences are impossible to forget, whether or not we want to. We remember everything linked to our emotions, the event itself, plus all the minor details which we would normally forget. This strong link between music and emotions means that music can stimulate memory. When we hear a song or piece of music, an experience we have had comes to our mind, maybe an image, a situation. We associate each song or piece of music with our experience, be in positive or negative. This association between music and memory can only facilitate learning, so rather than using traditional old-fashioned techniques which often make learning a burden and a struggle, why not use a simple and effective form of communication, which stimulates our emotions and makes learning that much easier?

This paper investigates the effects of language etiquette of English on EFL Learners at Mila University. The fact is that, EFL students use language etiquette inside and outside the classroom context. However, the misuse of language etiquette creates confusion and misunderstanding between teachers and learners when using adjacency pairs during conversations inside and outside the classroom context. This paper tries to unveil the main reasons behind the thorny issue of language etiquette, and its influence on Arabic speakers of English. The assumption made here hypothesises that background knowledge of L2 is an important factor to understand language etiquette expressions. In this paper, a sample of 75 students is selected randomly from a population of 200 EFL students at the department of foreign languages, at Mila University. Then, the sample was given small conversations in which language etiquette common words, phrases and expressions are underlined, and students are required to explain their meanings. The focus of this test is on cultural-bound aspects namely: collocations, forms of address and gestures. These culturally-bound aspects are important when they are used in conversation, since the context determines the extent to which these expressions are used. The results indicate that exposure, background information and familiarity with language etiquette expressions are important factors to speak effectively and efficiently in different contexts.

Macedonia is a country where there are living together many ethnicities as: Macedonians, Albanians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Turkish, Romans and Wallach and it is the best example of natural multiculturalism, which has been historically manipulated through the politics and led the country towards a steady conflict. After North Macedonia became an independent state in 1991, the different political parties in power tried to use and misuse the common value of the society: the multiculturalism. But all of them didn’t implement an approach which was based in the naturalism, although they created only a political perception which failed again and again. First of all, the source of the dissatisfaction of Non-Macedonian ethnicities in North Macedonia is the Constitution which permanently promotes a one-nation state: “The country of North Macedonia belongs to the Macedonians and the others” (Preamble). Even the conflict in 2001 and the achieved peace agreement (Ohrid Framework Agreement) after that which supposed to project an open society, couldn’t change the whole situation. My aim in this paper work is to prove that the natural facts of multiculturalism in North Macedonia don’t match at all with the political perception based in profit and domination. I have conducted a survey during 1 st of February till 1 st of March 2019 with representatives of the two biggest ethnicities in North Macedonia: Albanians and Macedonians and the results are giving us a real picture about the real functioning of multiculturalism in North Macedonia.

The task-based and intercultural approach are key concepts of modern foreign language teaching. In addition, they are among the Council of Europe's most important requirements for the training of foreign language teachers. But how are the teachers handling with this? How do they prepare for task-based and intercultural language courses and how do they motivate their students? On the other part of my research I observe how students perceive foreign language teaching? Can they see the concrete / task-based and intercultural aspect in the representations of their teachers? In my presentation at the conference I would like to put the stress on the student’s point of view, focusing on the importance of culture when it comes to foreign language teaching.

With the advancements in science and technology in 1930s and the great developments in industrial revolution, road narratives have flourished due to a reflection of the American society towards the dynamic and upheaval changes that have happened by the recovery from the war. These multifaceted approaches to the road narratives differ, but in most cases it remains within one flow, from journey to their daily routines, traveling, means of transportations by car or motorcycles, decisions taken, and everything until the story, that is narrating the whole picture of the adventure. Therefore, the paper will study the comparison of American road movies Bony Clyde and Easy Rider.

From the perspective of teachers in general, teaching in-person to online teaching was concerning and quite challenging. In the middle of March, Kosovo faced the same challenge as other countries in the world. English language teachers began immediate preparations to implement the curriculum by changing their strategic approach to teaching. In addition to the concerns they had about the progress and implementation of the lesson, they also faced the concerns of students to be part of online classes. The study is conducted through semi structured interviews with English foreign language teachers in schools of the municipality of Gjakova. Descriptive research method is used in the present study in order to understand as concretely as possible the challenges and problems faced by teachers during online learning. but eventually, the study shows that despite the difficulties, English language teachers have positively evaluated the realization of online teaching and learning and have also stressed that such a ‘sudden experience’ has affected their professional development. The present study is focused in two main research questions: What are the difficulties you experienced while teaching in online classes? and... How effective was English language learning during online teaching? Some of the challenges mentioned by English language teachers were the problems with the internet network that continues to be a concern in our country, motivation to learn due to students' poor emotional condition afraid of the virus, lack of activities used to be done in- person while being in school, etc. As a result, it seems that all this challenge has given a good message to teachers to become strategic teachers.

This article examines the evolution of multiculturalism in Kosovar society focusing on Albanians and Serbs both as citizens of Republic of Kosovo. Backlash of multiculturalism in Kosovo causes enlargement of communication gaps between these two communities. Is multicultural education applied in schools enough for improvement of communication? Does Kosovar government need to design steady long-lasting joint projects in order to develop interculturalism in Kosovo before multiculturalism and does it damage and cause separation of particular territories from Kosovo? Can English language contribute on communication that can increase trust and cooperation between these two societies? According to experiences of other multicultural countries, development of interculturalism is a long challenging process. This article also gives the answer to the above-mentioned questions.

In linguistic and political terminology, we come across many abstract terms and notions that aim to define written language in its various uses. The literal language of the word (originally the "language of letters") has recently been increasingly replaced by the word standard language, meaning the definition of certain grammatical norms or rules for the use of written language in terms of codification or unification of written words that would apply to all cases in similar situations of their use, either as separate units or as integral parts within the sentence. Such dilemmas arise especially in cases of borrowing words of foreign origin, which in some cases are accepted as such without modification or with minor modification in terms of their grammatical adaptation by means of suffixes in the translation language, for the purpose of their Albanianization. At the same time, the need for precise codification of the use of the Albanian letter "ë" is unavoidable, which for foreigners who want to learn Albanian is a barely passable obstacle, among others, due to insufficient scientific research in comparative linguistics and contrastive analysis of the grammatical use of the Albanian language with the sister foreign languages. Even the concept of official language is faced with linguistic and political dilemmas and confusion regarding the use of written or standard language with special legal status, especially in terms of the need and volume of its use in state administration institutions and public life in the country.

Currently, Society past mistakes about gender discrimination are being recognized. Social and civic strife are achieving to take out barriers, pre-established by means of hard pressure and control from male chauvinism. One of these barriers is that which is set through non-inclusive and sexist language, frequently biasing the message to the masculine sector, neglecting or keeping women down or on invisibility. This language is widely used and we can see it nowadays in official administrative documents. In spite of to-the-change tendency which is important and realizable, and the hard efforts which are being carried out, incomplete attempts to carry out this processing-oriented-to-inclusive-language introduction have been found, as can be viewed in official documents about Education terms & regulations. In this paper gender biased language into the R.D. 1631/2006 was studied, setting out the specific expressions along with the prompting, attending the own qualified administrations’ wisdom and at their, decisions and implementations disposal.

English Language has become more than a necessity for different backgrounds; nevertheless, the need for ESP (English for Specific Purposes) became an interest of certain business people in order to improve their communications skills, focusing in vocabulary enrichment. The following paper will discuss the ESP phenomenon, examining the role of teachers based on a case study developed at a public company “Training and Development Center “of Kosovo Telecom. There has been an assessment of the modules of ESP, teacher’s role and methodology. The research was based upon a questionnaire that helped the author in measuring the impact ESP had on the candidates. The questions were carefully analyzed and delivered to 250 people, out of which 200 responses were collected. The respondents were 60% above 35 years old, 59% were male respondents, 88% of the respondents were positively affected by the training courses, 58% strongly improved their communication skills and 75% of the respondents highly evaluated the skills of the ESP teacher.

The integration of technology in foreign language learning and teaching has expended rapidly in the last few years and provided numerous opportunities in traditional face- to-face classrooms. However, the COVID-19 crisis has significantly disrupted teaching and learning practices at all level education institutions worldwide. It has ultimately raised the use of technological tools as an alternative way to maintain teaching and learning services. Moreover, the pandemic lockdown made educational institutions switch to digital learning- teaching process, requiring from teachers and students to harness it properly to achieve the goal. This paper presents the theoretical framework of digital teaching and learning design methods and empirical results from a case study conducted with students at UBT enrolled in a German language class. Our study explores two questions: First, can digital foreign language teaching and learning be implemented? Second, does it support learning processes and achieve the goals? The findings of the study demonstrate that digital learning can be an effective approach to helping students achieve their learning goals. This study also provides strategies for second-language teachers to manage challenges encountered during digital teaching and learning.-

Learning English is not as difficult as it seems to people in general, provided that proper methods are used to teach it to the students. This paper deals with the importance of idioms as a bridge towards understanding English better as well as the ways Albanian students understand English idioms more easily. It is based on a study (for the title of PhD) carried out with fourth-year students from Fehmi Agani Public University in Gjakova and the first-year students from Universum College in Prishtina and Ferizaj, more particularly in the English departments at these universities. The researcher has paid particular attention to the ways the students from these university comprehend English idioms by also comparing some of the local idioms used Kosovo-wide. This, as seen from the study, may serve as a good ground and aid in teaching idioms in particular and English in general to the Albanian students in Kosovo.

Culture shows the life people live and as of this fact, we see that the term culture refers to beliefs, ideas, values, and knowledge of one nation. On the other side, we also can say that culture and language are bonded together and they cannot be separated when learning takes place as it develops standard communication skills. Otherwise, if languages are taught without their cultures, students are only the visitors of the language who aren’t familiar in detail about the origin of a particular language. Therefore, one of the strategies to learn English as a foreign language is if we see it through its culture and acquire this learning through the technique of competency base learning as it helps students develop their skills in their pace and provides students with useful models of authentic use of the language in the classroom and online. The purpose of this study is to discover the possibilities of learning English for the development of intercultural competence and to distinguish successful teaching methods for the development of this competence in higher education also to show that students need to acquire these competencies, so they can have the most effective communication with individuals from the cultures of English-speaking countries.

Metaphor, as a stylistic figure, finds use in both professional and everyday discourses. It serves as a weapon of expression, as a means of expressing the ninth, figurative and ornate meaning. In our communication space, recently, metaphor finds a dense use even in political discourse. In the current circumstances of Albanian policy-making, it often happens that we have conceptual ambiguities in the expression of what is said, scandals and even linguistic distortions, which cause a visible confusion of the entire public opinion. The most recent example to illustrate this is the metaphor of the vegeta in front of the media, by an Albanian party leader in the Republic of Northern Macedonia. Consequently, due to the thematic specificity, this case will be the object of study of this paper. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the special discursive implications, which are becoming more unconventional and more present in Albanian policy-making.

The object of this work will be the two parts novel by the writer Migel de Cervantes, translated into Albanian by two different authors. Through the analysis of the text, but also through the criticisms that have been made for these translations, we will highlight its values and the great importance it had for the Albania of that time. How it was received by the reader and how much it was appreciated by the critics. This is where the originality and value of our work lies, as no scientific research has been done about this topic before. The methods used will be mainly textual and comparative analysis methods, combined with each other. The literature to be used will be theoretical literature related to translation and reception as a communication process. But there will also be critical literature, which includes articles and writings that have been made on the translation of this work into Albanian.

The Thirteenth Tale is a contemporary Gothic novel written by Diane Setterfield, in which the author included various elements of the original 18 th century genre, building up her plot and basing her characters on different classic works that are scattered throughout the storyline. This essay deals with the intertextuality between the book and one of the classic narratives it references, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The main focus of the paper is on the phenomenon of twins that characterizes both fictions. For attentive readers both the analogy and dichotomy between the two novels are evident, though Setterfield’s story introduces a new third sibling, giving to her own chain of events a fresh, eerie extension and a complexity to the plot.

The aim of the research paper entitled “The Incarnation of Biopower, and Biopolitics in the novel Women as Lovers and Greed by Elfriede Jelinek” is to decipher how the omnipresent modern technologies of power are used to exploit the human sentiments. The paper will also portray the power dynamics working through different institutes of the society that ultimately subjugate, traumatize, alienate, dehumanize, and disperse the subjects. The characters of Elfriede Jelinek are always struggling to achieve self-actualization, dignity, and esteem as they have been fragmented and tormented by the power struggle in the society. The novel Women as Lovers and Greed by Elfriede Jelinek depict the way the class of the society suffers from prejudice, animosity, and malice in the Austrian society. Through the characters like Brigitte, Paula, and Gerti, the author has highlighted the violence of the basic rights, and injustice confronted by the people particularly the women atrocities and oppression employing both capitalism and patriarchy. She has exposed the hypocrisies of the social structures, the hollowness of the social conventions, the cunningness of the traditional rituals, and patriarchal domination that led to the oppression and suppression of the characters since they are demonized and marginalized in society. Jelinek has been successful while providing the chilling and truthful vision of women’s precarious position in the Austria dominated entirely by men and money. Her characters are treated like tissue papers that entail the subjugation of human life to capitalist labor. Hence, the paper will analyze the issues of power politics and power dynamics in the novel Women as Lovers and Greed by Elfriede Jelinek through the technologies of power from the Foucauldian perspective.