Socio-Cultural Difficulties in Teaching Political and Diplomatic Language at the Preparatory Year

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present some of the social and cultural difficulties which appear during the process of teaching and learning political and diplomatic language at the Preparatory Year (Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest). The identification of the aforementioned difficulties is based on a six-year experience in teaching this specialised language to foreign students who intend to study in Romanian different scientific areas, mainly related to law and political sciences. The paper examines various situations in which the socio-cultural background of the foreign students becomes a barrier to the proper comprehension of political and diplomatic concepts, as well as to the corresponding terminology.

Keywords

• teaching difficulties
• specialised language
• political and diplomatic language
• foreign students
• socio-cultural barrier