translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

Translation Studies: Retrospective and Prospective Views ISSN 2065-3514
(2008) Year I, Issue 1
Galaţi University Press
Editors: Elena Croitoru and Floriana Popescu (First volume)
Proceedings of the Conference Translation Studies: Retrospective and Prospective Views
9 – 11 October 2008 “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi, ROMANIA
pp. 142 - 150
“PERFORMANCES” IN THE ENGLISH CLASS
Elena Bonta
University of Bacău, Romania
Our daily life is a continuous series of social interactions taking place
in different contexts (informal/formal interpersonal, informal/formal
social). 1 Any social interaction can be interpreted as a ritual ceremony (a
micro-ritual) in the ordinary everyday atmosphere; individuals, as part of
these interactions, observe certain rules and a code of behavior imposed by
social and cultural norms of society.
Micro-rituals/interpersonal rituals have become, for years, the
subject of communication sciences. Classroom life (an example of
interpersonal ritual) can be included among social interactions that take
place in everyday ritualistic space. The ritual that takes place in the
classroom can be viewed from different perspectives:
a) as performance - “a way of communication aesthetically marked,
thought of in a special way and performed in front of the audience.” 2
Performances (Goffman, 1973; 1974) in the classroom, within the
limits and under the form of small ceremonies (ritual situations), are those
in which teachers and students involved in social interactions manifest
their presence through ritualized behaviour closely connected to models
and habits offered by members of the same community. 3
b) as action - “something that people do bodily as well as
thoughtfully ” 4
In our opinion, what happens in the English class (as well as in any
class) is ritual, in the sense of “social action, characteristic/stylistic aspect of
the social action” 5; it is “closely connected with the concept of order,
position and social relationship, structured by social phenomena”. 6
c) as communicative form – the ritual “is always a form of saying .” 7
It is constructed of signs (words, gestures, pictures, etc) that have
meanings. This aspect is based on the idea that “…it is not just that rituals
may have communicative functions, but that if they do not function
communicatively, they do not function at all.” 8
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