Volume 16, issue 1

Introduction

This volume of in esse: English Studies in Albania collects articles from four different subject areas, grouped into four sections in this issue: Film Studies, Discourse Analysis, Linguistics, and English Language Teaching. 

The first section, Film Studies, contains one contribution, “The manifestation of refusal: Veganism in Club Zero,” by Martina Martausová from Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Slovakia. In this article, the author discusses veganism not merely as a food preference but, most importantly, as an ideology that advocates ethical integrity and environmental awareness. For this purpose, the article looks into the film Club Zero (2023), which attacks veganism by exploring the culture of conscious eating while satirising its performative elements. The film posits that motivations for veganism frequently originate from the pursuit of social recognition rather than authentic ethical considerations, exaggerating this notion by portraying characters who entirely abstain from eating. This approach tackles broader issues such as eating disorders and questions conventional social behaviours through a repudiation of both human and animal scrutiny. 

The second section, Discourse Analysis, has two articles, both focusing on advertisements. The first article, “Consumability illocution of precedent-phenomenon-embedded presupposition in advertisements,” written by Hranush Tovmasyan, National Polytechnic University of Armenia, examines the cognitive-pragmatic interpretation of illocution via precedence-embedded presuppositions in advertisements. The author draws on the argument that unlike precedence, precedence-embedded presuppositions and their illocution within the framework of advertisement “felicity” have not yet received enough scholarly attention. Using both descriptive and analytical methods, the author conducts a comprehensive analysis of how the illocution of precedence-embedded presupposition in advertising stimulates customers’ prior knowledge and assumptions, generating cognitive meaning and affecting their attitudes and decisions. The author concludes that the illocutionary force of these presuppositions derives from engaging human cognition via self-referential cognition to guarantee the advertisement felicity and consumability, with precedence-embedded presupposition at the centre.

Whereas the second article, “Preserving persuasion: Translation techniques for English TV commercials and advertising slogans into Albanian,” written by Bledar Toska from the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain, analyses seven TV commercials and five global advertising slogans in English and their translated versions into Albanian. The article examines whether translation choices maintain the original persuasive effect in the Albanian cultural and media contexts, arguing that intercultural mediation is central to this analysis and using a multimodal textual analysis to compare the English and Albanian versions of the advertising texts. The results demonstrate that literal translation ascertains semantic accuracy, but it compromises rhythm, wordplay, and emotional appeal, while techniques such as modulation and transcreation can better retain persuasive intent. The author identifies the target audience’s familiarity with the source culture references, media habits, and brand identity, among the factors for dictating translation decisions. Hence, the author proposes a skopos‑centred, decision‑oriented framework for translators and marketing professionals whose primary focus is the advertising text’s comprehensibility and persuasive effect, which acknowledges them as intercultural mediators. 

The third section, Linguistics, comprises one article, “The terminological lexicon of sports: The influence of English on the Albanian language,” written by Juljana Kume, Academy of Sciences of Albania, Institute of Linguistics and Literature, Albania, Marlind Pelushi, University of Tirana, Albania and Enkelejda Malaj, University of Tirana, Albania. The authors analyse Albanian sports terminology, focusing on sports Anglicisms in team sports like football, basketball, volleyball, and tennis. Noting that Anglicisms often form synonymous pairs with their Albanian equivalents during adaptation, the authors question the role of Anglicisms in Albanian sports terminology to examine the extent of de-anglicisation concerning the status of popular terms. They analyse one-word and multi-word phrases to explore the development of sports terminology using lexical corpora of 100 to 200 units from various sports disciplines. They also address the transfer of lexical-conceptual forms from English to Albanian, including complete borrowings and de-anglicisms with local equivalents.

In the fourth section, English Language Teaching, Ekaterina Sinyashina, Universidad de Alicante, Spain, contributes with an article titled “YouTube Videos as supplementary material for Spanish learners’ acquisition of English vowel sounds” that discusses the role of YouTube videos in teaching English vowel sounds to Spanish learners. This study investigates whether YouTube videos can serve as effective supplementary material for teaching English vowel sounds to Spanish learners. In an experiment, two groups (one supplemented with YouTube videos and the other taught traditionally) participated in six sessions. Post-test results showed similar outcomes for both groups, with /ɜ:/, /ə/, /eɪ/, and /ʊə/ identified as the most challenging phonemes. The author points out that despite the videos’ not demonstrating measurable effectiveness, the survey results suggest they could enhance learner engagement, thus warranting their integration into language classes.

In the end, we would like to thank all our contributors for sharing their ideas and perspectives with us in this issue of in esse. Our most sincere thanks also go to our reviewers for their tireless work in reviewing and providing their invaluable feedback on the articles that are included in this collection.

Armela Panajoti, general editor 

The manifestation of refusal: Veganism in Club Zero[1] 

Martina MARTAUSOVÁ, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice

email: martina.martausova@upjs.sk

Abstract

The growing awareness of the negative consequences of the ongoing environmental crisis has prompted a reevaluation of the ways we treat animals, with many writers and thinkers now challenging the prevailing anthropocentric perspectives. Disciplines such as Critical Animal Studies and Animal Ethics have been addressing the cultural and philosophical aspects of the relationship between human and non-human animals since the late 20th century, but recent decades have seen a notable surge in interest and scholarship focused on cultural reactions to the ethical implications of human interactions with non-human animals, stimulating critical analysis of this type of representation in the media. Veganism not only represents the abstention from the consumption of animals and animal products, but it also stands as a distinct ideology that has permeated cultural discourse globally, encompassing an identity that centralises ethical purity, ecological practices, and a wider philosophy. This study examines the cultural reflection of veganism as an all-embracing ideology that constructs authority and a framework of control within the context of the recent film Club Zero (Hausner 2023). The international coproduction explores the conflicting cultural forms of veganism through a critical examination of the movement’s primary form as a diet that adheres to conscious eating practices, while satirising the performativity of these practices defined by the politics of refusal instead of a deeper consideration of its ethical motivations. The analysis explores the film’s assertion that the primary motivation for adopting vegan dietary practices is the act of being seen as not eating meat, an approach that the film takes to the extreme by depicting its characters as not eating at all, as the film is an ironic nod to the broader issue of the social contagion of eating disorders. The refusal to eat animal products thus aligns with the rejection of the human gaze as opposed to the Derridean notion of the animal gaze, challenging social normativity and cultural contextualisation of the construction of identities through the act of not being seen eating.

Keywords: Veganism, eating disorder, film, representation, refusal, gaze

[1] All film references and quotations in this article are based on the original theatrical version of Club Zero (Hausner 2023), screened in cinemas in Slovakia at the time of its release. This version includes scenes that do not appear in the edited version currently available on streaming platforms. All citations reflect the full version listed in the References.

Consumability illocution of precedent-phenomenon-embedded presupposition in advertisements

Hranush TOVMASYAN, National Polytechnic University of Armenia

email: anushtovmasyan@yahoo.com

Abstract

The study focuses on the cognitive-pragmatic interpretation of illocution through precedence-embedded presupposition in advertisements. Although precedence enjoys an extensive track of research, precedence-embedded presuppositions and their illocution in the context of advertisement “felicity” have not yet received adequate scholarly attention, which makes up for the novelty and relevance of this research. The aim of the present paper is to analyse in-depth how the illocution of precedence-embedded presupposition in advertisement activates consumers’ previous knowledge and assumptions (presuppositions), generating cognitive meaning and influencing their attitudes and decisions. The illocutionary force of these presuppositions arises from tapping into human cognition through self-referential cognition, ensuring advertisement felicity and consumability, with precedence-embedded presupposition at the core. The methods employed for the study include descriptive and analytical.

Keywords: precedence, precedent phenomena, precedence-embedded presupposition, advertisement, illocution, precedent phenomena core presupposition, consumability

Preserving persuasion: Translation techniques for English TV commercials and advertising slogans into Albanian

Bledar TOSKA, University of the Balearic Islands

email: bledar.toska@yahoo.co.uk

Abstract

This study looks into how English TV commercials and global advertising slogans are translated into Albanian with a particular focus on translation choices that preserve their persuasive effect in the target cultural and media contexts. For this purpose, a multimodal comparative analysis of seven internationally distributed commercials and five well‑known slogans is employed to identify translation techniques used to translate them from English into Albanian and evaluate their effects on idiomaticity, humour, rhetorical devices, brand identity and target audience’s comprehension. Findings show that literal translation often preserves propositional content but reduces rhythm, wordplay, and emotional appeal, while modulation and transcreation better restore persuasive intent. Translation decisions are informed by the target audience’s familiarity with the source culture references, media habits (dubbing vs. subtitling; read‑aloud taglines), and brand identity. In this study, I propose a skopos‑centred, decision‑oriented framework for translators and marketing professionals that prioritises comprehensibility and persuasive equivalence and recognises their role as intercultural mediators. Recommendations are also made for further research that centres on audience reception and engagement and carries out experimental work to quantify the impact of adaptation strategies on Albanian audiences.

Keywords: advertising slogans, decision-oriented, intercultural mediation, persuasion, translation techniques, TV commercials

The terminological lexicon of sports: The influence of English on the Albanian language

Juljana KUME, Academy of Sciences of Albania, Institute of Linguistics and Literature

Marlind PELUSHI, University of Tirana

Enkelejda MALAJ, University of Tirana

email: juljana_kume@yahoo.com

Abstract

The influence of English on Albanian sports terminology is notably significant, especially in internationally popular team sports like football, basketball, volleyball, and tennis.  This impact manifests in both the form and conceptual content of the terms, known as Anglicisms, in the classification nomenclature relevant to these sports disciplines, which have penetrated in the same way as in the source language. Likewise, many lexical elements associated with these sports have also integrated into the structure of the respective sports. These Anglicisms, along with their original lexical equivalents, have often formed synonymous pairs during their adaptation process in Albanian, adhering to its unique laws and word-formation phenomena. This occurs particularly through the creation of single-word or multi-word phrases, mainly two-part phrases derived from the everyday Albanian lexicon stock or other areas of knowledge. Questions emerging from this study are: What place do Anglicisms occupy in the sports terminology in the Albanian language? To what extent has de-anglicisation occurred in sports terminology in Albanian (i.e., regarding the official status of popular terms or colloquial expressions and the replacement of Anglicisms with everyday usage)?  The coining of synonymous terms serves as an indicator of the lexical-conceptual and conceptual-structural wealth of languages, including Albanian, and is relevant to linguistic policy-making, particularly regarding typologies of term formation. This is linked to the typological classifications of most popular sports disciplines in Albania, which will be presented in this study in the form of lexical corpora. For instance, we will analyse direct borrowings from the source language to their equivalents in Albanian, such as words ending in -boll (–“ball”), such as futboll, basketboll, volejboll, and bejsboll, which represent full lexical-conceptual borrowings. Other examples include boks (“box”), kros (“cross”) and motokros (“motocross”), tenis (“tennis”), hokei (“hockey”), derbi (“derby”) etc. The typology of one-word and multiword phrases is one central focus in this study (e.g., mesfushor – “midfielder”; mbrojtës – “defender”; ndeshja e kthimit – “return match”; zona e penalltisë – “penalty area”; koha shtesë - “added time”; koha extra –“extra time” etc.). Besides, the process of de-anglicisation through lexical equivalents from folk or everyday discourse in the receiving language is examined, with examples such as portier – Eng. “goalkeeper,” anësor – “winger,” etc.  In this study, we will also look into the development of sports terminology through terminological corpora, including approximately 100 to 200 lexical units from several sports disciplines, team sports, ball and other games. We will focus on the transfer of lexical-conceptual form-content of terms (Anglicisms) to their Albanian equivalents, such as complete borrowings and de-anglicisms with equivalents in the receiving language, as well as hybrid formations related to lexical composites or syntagms. 

Keywords: sports, Anglicisms, terminological, specialised discourse, lexical-conceptual and conceptual-structural borrowings

YouTube Videos as supplementary material for Spanish learners’ acquisition of English vowel sounds

Ekaterina SINYASHINA, Universidad de Alicante

email: kate.sinyashina@ua.es

Abstract

Since the emergence of YouTube in 2005, issues related to the effectiveness of integrating YouTube videos in the teaching-learning process of different English language aspects and skills, as well as learners’ perception of their usefulness, have been addressed in various studies. Nevertheless, the efficacy of their supplementary use for the acquisition of segmental elements of English by learners from different language contexts has so far received little attention. This study aims to address this gap by examining the effectiveness of didactic YouTube videos as supplementary classroom material for teaching English vowel sounds to Spanish learners of English. Moreover, it explores learners’ perspectives on using these videos for teaching and learning vowel sounds and offers insight into the acquisition of the English vowel sounds that tend to pose difficulties for Spanish learners. Students from the experimental and traditional groups participated in six teaching-learning sessions. While the explanation and practice of the vowels in the experimental group was supplemented by YouTube videos, in the traditional group it was performed by a teacher. The post-test results revealed very similar results for both groups. The phonemes /ɜ:/, /ə/, /eɪ/ and /ʊə/ were identified as the most challenging ones. Although the effectiveness of didactic YouTube videos as supplementary material was not proven, the results of the survey indicate that they can positively influence learners’ engagement in the teaching-learning process, and, for this reason, their inclusion in language classes is recommended.   

Keywords: English pronunciation, English vowels, didactic videos, YouTube videos