Daniela Ionecu is a professor at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Section for Translation, Interpretation and Terminology. She is the coordinator of the inter-departmental section and the director of the European MA Programme in Conference Interpretation.

She graduated from the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Section for Translation and Interpretation; speciality: English, Spanish. In 1998, she defended her PhD in English Linguists at the University of Bucharest. She has also attended postgraduate courses in Plymouth and Warwick, and has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar, 1^st. of January – 15^th of July, 2015, UVM, VT, USA.

She is a specialist in simultaneuous interpretation in conferences, and has done translation work for various institutions, e.g. UNDP, USAID, Ministry of the Environment, National Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, Ministry of European Integration, documents of the Acquis Communautaire (translation and proofreading for the contracting translation firm in Romania, between 2003 – 2005). She has done occasional translation work with the Romanian Institute for the European Union. Shehas worked on translation of literary works, nominated by the Court of Appeal in Bucharest, on copyright issues, in past years. She has translated some books, e.g. Viața lui David Levinsky (The Rise of David Levinsky, by Abraham Kahan), 2019, HASEFER Publishing House, Bucharest.

She is a member of some professional associations, such as ESSE member (European Society for the Study of English); former ARACIS member (Romanian Association for Accreditation of Higher Education Institutions), until 2012. She is an accredited interpreter trainer in ETI, Ecole de Traduction et d’Interprétation, Genève, Suisse.

ABSTRACT

IDIOMS AS PHRASEMES, PHRASEOLOGY AS AN INVESTIGATING TOOL – A CASE STUDY ON FOOD IDIOMS FROM A CONTRASTIVE PERSPECTIVE (ENGLISH/ROMANIAN)

This study regards a lexical-semantic and pragmatic analysis of idioms defined as phrases encapsulating ‘units’ or clusters of idiomatic meaning, i.e. the figurative interpretation of a linguistic expression. Idiomaticity is viewed as an essential feature of metaphorical language which underlies culture, the speaker’s inner lexicon, and paremiological competence from the part of a community of speakers. Therefore, contrastive analyses of language-specific idioms, such as English and Romanian or Spanish and French, etc. could lead to deeper knowledge about and of the way in which idiomaticity manifests itself in real communication situations and use. The present study includes the following aspects:

• ‘grammar’ and the lexical-semantic features of idioms;

• figurative language in idioms, language- and culture-bound considerations as a basis of cognitive motivation;

• contrastive perspectives of food idioms in English and Romanian: a short list of a set of ‘image-triggers’;

• Conclusions: Creativity of language by way of its idiomaticity (cultural and idiomatic contrastiveness as a basis for interdisciplinary research (linguistics, cognitive psychology, sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics)