Foreign Languages
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://repository.aab-edu.net/handle/123456789/55
The Foreign Languages community showcases scholarly publications and research outputs authored by faculty and researchers in the Faculty of Foreign Languages. This collection includes journal articles, working papers, conference proceedings, and other academic works that contribute to the understanding of theory, policy, and practice. It aims to promote open access to high-quality economic research conducted within the institution.
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Item Foreign Languages: The Key Factor in Employability(AAB College, 2025-07-16) Martinaj, FitneteThe globalization of knowledge, and of higher education itself, is contributing to an increasing use of foreign languages. Nowadays, labour markets worldwide demand employees and graduates who possess foreign language proficiency and good communication skills. The aim of this article is to show that possessing foreign language skills offers graduates and employees the opportunity of a better job, career success and promotion. This study investigates the role of foreign language skills in the employability and success of Kosovo citizens. In addition, an international review of the effects of language skills on effective communication is provided in order to make a national and international comparison. Our findings support the hypothesis that foreign languages constitute a good amount of knowledge management which generates success for both graduates and employees. We will try to prove this hypothesis through a relevant literature review and others’ research. This article’s objective is to explore the benefits of learning foreign languages. The results show that the use of foreign languages is crucial for employment, career success, knowledge sharing and cross-cultural communication.Item Difficulties in Learning and Producing Passive Voice(AAB College, 2025-07-16) Martinaj, FitneteThis study examines how learners learning English produce and judge English passive voice structures. The ultimate goal of this study is to contribute to an understanding of the extent, nature and sources of learners' persistent difficulties with some syntactic properties of the language they are acquiring. It is to examine whether word order errors in the production of English passive voice by L2 learners stem from lack of knowledge or from difficulties with automatic implementation of L2 procedures. To examine whether errors in the production of English passive voice by L2 learners (in our case, English) can be attributed to transfer of L1 (in our case, Albanian) properties and vice versa, Albanian and English patterns are compared. Taken together, the facts indicate that difficulties with English passive voice structures are a consistent phenomenon in L2 acquisition, and do not follow in a direct way from properties of the L1. Furthermore, the facts show that learners' errors are associated with some syntactic configurations, suggesting that L2 learners divert similar grammatical hypotheses and make use of similar mechanisms for language acquisition.Item ENGLISH-CONFLICTING FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LANGUAGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATION(AAB College, 2025-07-16) Martinaj, FitneteThe English language is considered the global business language and a mutual language to provide communication and understanding in business. Learning foreign languages and implementing language management strategies enable cross-cultural communication, business growth and career enhancement. Drawing on this theory of business communication, this study explores the effects of language proficiency in business operations of Kosovan small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which intend to become integrated globally, by using mixed methods and the interpretation of business managers (Sample 1, N = 5), two pilot tests (Sample 2, N = 7 and N = 29) and an online questionnaire (Sample 3, N = 139). The role of English in business communication was interrelated with an analysis of other foreign languages, along with the implementation of language strategies and the effect of language skills on career development. This squares well with the proposition that these three aspects are consistent in their contribution to effective communication in business and convey richness on both an individual and a company level. The findings offer a new perspective on the effects of using foreign languages in business communication, which consequently contributes to internationalization, multilingualism and cross-cultural communication.Item Автор-Хумор-Текст: Хуморот на Тери Прачет како смртник и како книжевник(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarОвој труд се обидува да ги истражи поимите автор, хумор и текст и нивната меѓусебна поврзаност, преку анализа на хуморот во делата на Тери Прачет. Во фокусот се поставува улогата на авторот како креатор на хумористични светови, но и како читател и интерпретатор на светот што го живееме. Се следи начинот на кој Прачет создава комплексни хумористични текстови што се карактеризираат со интертекстуалност, иронија и пародија.Item Advertising Semiotics: A methodological discussion on the complexity of the communicatively modeled processes(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarThe aim of the paper is to provide a comprehensive insight into the net of activities that shape, give content and meaning to the complex process of advertising communication. In this attempt, the paper will primarily refer to the existent semiotic research on meaning making using it as a general methodological background against which it builds and presents its own account. The account itself will focus on the semiotic agents, resources, processes and factors, both supportive and restrictive of the semantic complexity of the advertising message (here taken as metonym of the communication). For the purposes of convenience the whole advertising process is subdivided into three sets of related and semioticly relevant activities: a) processes that precede the production of the message, and are related to the market concerns like company’s image, USB, objective, previous advertising history etc, and that should correspond to the question of What to communicate, b) processes related to the shaping and the communication of the message, and that relate to the question of how to shape and communicate the meaning(s), and c) the comprehensive reception and reaction on the part of the audience, which covers the question of what audiences make from it.Item Learning from Skopje 2014: Architectural spectacle in the 21st century(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarItem Redefining national identity in Macedonia: Analyzing competing origin myths and interpretations through hegemonic representations(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarThis paper analyzes symbolism pertaining to and popular receptions of the project Skopje 214, an architectural journey in the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. While attempting to understand the multifaceted symbolic meanings and perceptions associated with this project, we pay attention to the existence of previous narratives of Macedonian national identity prior to the announcement of Skopje 2014 and therefore position the project against that backdrop. We want to argue that Skopje 2014 represents a monumental and spectacular turning point in official narratives of Macedonian national identity. ' e gap between the previously dominant narrative of Macedonian national identity, and the new official discourse offered and realized in and through Skopje 2014, and the multicultural reality of the country are the central themes of this work.Item F!!! In the name of the father. Abusing the discourse on reproduction(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarRegulating sexuality has long been an institutional practice exercised towards the accomplishment of strategic economic and political ends. The fundamentally functional triad framing this practice is ‘power-ideology-discourse’. Relying on this general conceptual framework, the study’s prime objective is to identify and account for the elements of power abuse potentially present in the Macedonian government discourse on reproduction deployed as means of combating the problem of depopulation. Thus, within a critical discourse framework, the analysis focuses on linguistic manifestations of power abuse present in texts and talks produced by the Government and on their discursive relations with underlying and supporting practices, policies and procedures.Item WHEN THE OLD MEETS THE NEW: HEROIZATION, VILIFICATION, NEW MEDIA, AND MODERN DAY POLITICS(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarIronically, defining a hero, is a heroic endeavour in its own right, considering the diversity of hero types (mythological, epic, folk, national, local, up to family heroes), but also the diversity of cultural contexts, which underlie the production of various hero systems.1 Such phenomenological diversity has been tackled by different research areas as diverse as literary studies2, history folk studies, anthropology (Levi-Strauss),3 sociology (Mauss, Hubert)4 all contributing to the fuller understanding of the phenomenon, while also making the simple definition of it an impossible task. Notwithstanding this phenomenological and epistemological complexity, we contend that certain consistencies can be mapped out. What we have in mind are some universal traits of heroism, most notably the cultural and political functions of heroes across diverse contexts. Among these, the key function we would like to focus on, is the hero’s role as a protector of the community which worships him with the belief that he will perpetuate their biological, cultural and political existence through space and time. To do so he needs to confront dangers and enemies incarnated in the image of his Arche opponent, the villain. This dialectically presupposing dichotomy, we contend, is still an existent mode of human perception and interaction with the world. What differs in modern times are the types of social actors that embody the positions of heroes and villains, as well as the means by which they are represented.Item Extending ethnic humour theory: Genuine vs. functional ethnic jokе scripts(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarMost ethnic humour that has been studied so far consists of jokes which use ethnically nonspecific qualities such as stupidity or canniness in order to ridicule an ethnic group and thus to preserve and perpetuate ethnically based social hierarchies in western industrial societies. In light of this dominant logic in ethnic humour theory, the objective of this study is to problematize the relation of such non-ethnic qualities and the notion of ethnic identity, as well as their relation to a specific type of society, in an attempt to convincingly argue in favour of the need to differentiate between ‘ethnically-empty’ functional joke scripts and genuine ethnic joke scripts that are related to the ethnic identity of the target. In so doing, I extend ethnic humour theory by introducing and testing the notion of genuine ethnic joke scripts in order to motivate future research that will tackle other potential ethnic humour idiosyncrasies. Toward this end, I have collected and analysed joke material (N=369) coming from Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Albania, societies with histories and relations very different that those in the western industrial societies. Additionally, the study incorporates two questionnaires with members of the two largest ethnicities in the Republic of Macedonia, Macedonians and Albanians, to ascertain the relation between the genuine ethnic humour and ethnic identity.