Language in Use: The Case of Youth Entertainment Magazines is a collection of seven studies by several Romanian, Bulgarian and Slovenian linguists on the discourse of entertainment magazines targeted at young readers, and published in their respective countries. The starting point of the seven studies was the idea that the discourse specific to the variety of printed media products selected for analysis was characterized by distinctive features and that these features might exert a manipulative influence on the linguistic and social behavior of the targeted readership. The scholars' initial aim was to validate these hypotheses and to confirm their soundness across countries. However, they hope that, besides suggesting new perspectives on the discourse chosen for analysis and thus filling a gap in the eastern European literature in the field, they may also develop (admittedly, within limits) media literacy in young readers, by equipping them with skills that could transform them from passive media consumers into responsible readers, able to make informed decisions and thus be less vulnerable to the strategies of manipulation employed by those who control information.
About the Author: Loredana Fratila is Senior Lecturer in English, at the University of the West, Timisoara, Romania. Her domains of expertise are English lexicology, English phonetics and phonology, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, ESP and translation studies. She is the author of The English Verb Made Easy (Timisoara: Art Press, 2003); On Language and Ecology (Timisoara: Editura Universitatii de Vest, 2006); English for Students of Kinetotherapy (Timisoara: Art Press, 2007; co-author Carmen Nedelea); English for Sports and Games (Timisoara: Editura Universitatii de Vest, 2010; co-author Carmen Nedelea). Loredana Fratila is editor of The Art and Craft of Translation (Timisoara: Editura Universitatii de Vest, 2009), to which she has also contributed a chapter. Hortensia Parlog is Professor of English language at the University of the West, Timisoara, Romania. Her previous publications include The Sounds of English and Romanian (Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii, 1984; co-authors Dumitru Chitoran and James Augerot); Ghid de pronuntie a limbii engleze (Bucuresti: Editura Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989; co-author Dumitru Chitoran); The Sound of Sounds (Timisoara, Editura Hestia, 1995); Dictionar englez-roman de colocatii verbale (Iasi: Editura Polirom, 2000; edited by Hortensia Parlog and Maria Teleaga); Translating the Body (Munchen: Lincom, 2007 and Iasi: Institutul European, 2009-the latter being a revised edition; co-authors Pia Brinzeu and Aba-Carina Parlog).