Foreign Languages
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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 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.Item Turning eu into me and you the politicization of eu representations in macedonia(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarEU is discursive field where multiple meanings are created, negotiated and contested. Research has shown that it has interpretive power often used as an instrument of political confrontation. Such is the case, this study argues, with the two largest Macedonian parties – the Social Democrats and VMRO -DPMNE – who in a pursuit of changing or maintaining power have produced an EU discourse fitting to their own political agendas. In a situation of a prolonged political crisis, and a significant EU involvement in it, the two parties have turned their EU discourse into an instrument of positive presentation of the self and a negative presentation of the other. The general goal of the study is to analyze the specific discursive strategies in the party programs and media statements of the two parties and their leaders.Item REPRESENTING SEXUALITY THROUGH FOLKLORE: EROTIC FOLKTALES AND ONLINE JOKES AS ‘MIRRORS’ OF GENDER HIERARCHIES(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarGender roles, relations, and structures are aspects of human sexuality that are (re)constructed, negotiated, and even contested through a variety of discourses, including folklore. Erotic tales and sexual jokes are folk genres in which human sexuality is most explicitly presented. In this respect, the two key questions this study seeks to answer are: what kind of sexuality (gender roles, relations, and structures) is constructed through these genres and what inferences may be made about the society underpinning the discourse thus produced. To accomplish the ends, the study uses material collected from the Republic of Macedonia, organized in two data corpuses: erotic folktales and online sexual jokes. The content of the data is analyzed in order to identify the most reoccurring themes, gender roles, and relations constructed vis-à-vis the dominant motif in these narratives – the sexual intercourse, and thus to be able to describe the discourse on sexuality constructed by and through these genres, comment upon its social implications, and suggest way(s) of using it as a tool to counteract gender inequalities.Item While the ball is in the air: Metaphors and humour in the 2018 World Cup commentaries(AAB College, 2025-07-15) Takovski, AleksandarMetaphors and humour are pervasive elements occurring in many spoken genres, among which, the genre of sports commentaries. Football commentators tend to use war metaphors to highlight the competitive nature of the sport while at the same time making the spectacle and its communication more exciting and vivid (Charteris-Black 2004; Nordin 2008). Punning and humour are additionally used as strategies to engage the audience into the game (Chovanec 2005). In this respect our research tends to analyze the use of metaphors and humour by Macedonian TV commentators during the World Cup 2018 and discuss their role and contribution to the ‘vividness’ of the sports language. Through a linguistic analysis of the commentaries of ten sport matches played during the 2018 World Cup, we intend to identify instances of metaphors and humour used in order to analyze and discuss their role in the sports commentaries. In particular we were interested in the following issues: a) type and function of metaphors according to the source domain, and b) type and function of humour identified in the material. In order to investigate the issue further, we conducted semi-structured interviews with two Macedonian commentators making a more detailed inquiry about the use of metaphors and humor in their live commentaries.