Frameworks describing competences acquirable through intercomprehension highlight a close link between the development of intercomprehension competences and the acquisition of transversal competences. In the context of multilingual communication, speakers activate metacognitive, strategic, collaborative, relational, risk assumption and risk management skills transferable to professional and private contexts. Starting from this observation, in the academic year 2022/23 a course on intercomprehension between Romance languages was included in the “Transversal Skills” project of the Teaching and Learning Center of the University of Verona, aimed at promoting the acquisition of useful skills in the younger generations from an interpersonal and occupational point of view. The course aimed to lead learners to insert unexpected linguistic-cultural behaviors into shared frames of meaning to interact effectively in multilingual and intercultural contexts and collaborate productively in synchronous and asynchronous online work contexts, respecting times, roles and group objectives. After illustrating the concepts of “competence” and “soft skills”, the intervention will present the characteristics of the course and the methods of delivery and will focus on the research methodology adopted (survey of the perception of the skills gained by the students, analysis of written interactions, final diary), the qualitative-quantitative analysis conducted on the data collected and the methods of detecting the traces of maturation of the skills investigated.
This article investigates the discrepancy between certified English proficiency and actual academic performance in Romanian EFL university students. Drawing on Cummins' BICS-CALP framework, it shows that international certificates such as Cambridge or IELTS often confirm conversational fluency and general communicative competence, but fail to account for the cognitively demanding, context-reduced tasks required in higher education. Students who appear fluent and confident in spoken English frequently encounter difficulties with critical reading, academic writing, and discipline-specific discourse. The analysis highlights how certification culture creates the impression of readiness while masking weaknesses in academic literacy. Certificates are valuable as standardized measures of proficiency and gateways to mobility, yet they are insufficient predictors of academic success. The discussion is based primarily on ethnographic observation and classroom experience within English programs at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, and contextualized by national data indicating the steady rise in Cambridge English certifications obtained by Romanian students. The article ultimately argues for a broader view of competence that integrates certification with sustained development of academic language skills essential for success in English-medium university contexts.
The author seeks to identify the scribe of the oldest extant copy of the novel Varlaam and Ioasaph, preserved in Romanian manuscript 588 from the Romanian Academy Library in Bucharest. For this purpose, she compares the handwriting of this unsigned and undated manuscript with that of ms. rom. 3339, also held in the same library, which contains another copy of the novel. According to a note within the latter manuscript, it was copied by Fota the Grammarian. The resemblance between the two scripts led some scholars to conclude that both manuscripts were produced by the same hand. By comparing specific letters extracted from the two manuscripts, both in terms of their graphic features and the phonetic values they represent, the author concludes that neither of the two scribes who collaborated on the production of ms. rom. 588 can be identified as Fota the Grammarian.
The structure of our work comprises two distinct sections. The first one deals with various aspects concerning the Latin etymon, specifically: the potential connection of the inventoried Latin terms with Greek; epigraphic attestation and their relevance for the analysis; formal and/or semantic changes undergone by some of these terms prior to being inherited. The second section, much more substantial, is devoted to examining the key phenomena of continuity and discontinuity within the Romance area, identified in both semantic and formal terms. Latin served as the reference point for analyzing such phenomena. However, particular focus was on Romanian, a language for which we tried to highlight numerous conclusive features that underscore its distinctiveness within the Romance context, as well as specific characteristics relevant to its position within the Romance continuum or a subarea of it. As it is to be expected, the approach to these aspects inevitably had to consider the factors that shape the understanding of specific linguistic phenomena, mainly those that are distinctively characteristic for Romanian.
Translation is a complex activity that should be viewed not only in terms of the process and its result, but also in relation to the various factors that influence it at different stages. The socio-communicative value of a translated text can be fully understood and appreciated through a comprehensive study that considers, in addition to some objective factors that constitute a macro-context for the translation, the translator's subjectivity as a crucial connective point between the author's intention and the audience's perception. In this article, we aim to identify and analyze specific macro-and micro-context factors involved in the text selection stage of translation, providing actual examples and referencing real names to highlight the vast range of potential translation paradigms.
