English in Slovenia: status, functions, and features

English Today ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 28-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Špela MeŽek
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
World Language ◽  
Slovene Language ◽  
Science And Education ◽  
The Media ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Education Science ◽  
Second World

ABSTRACTSlovenia, like many former Eastern bloc countries, is now coming to terms with the increasing popularity of English.Today English is the most widely used foreign language in Europe. It is used in business, education, science, the media, advertisements, music, graffiti, and in many other places, although its greatest use can be found in commerce, culture, science and education (Phillipson, 2003). The presence of English is felt more in some parts of Europe than in others, however. In the Scandinavian countries, for example, English manifests itself in all parts of society and the knowledge of English is so high that some consider it a second language (McArthur, 1996). In Eastern Europe, the acquisition and use of English has traditionally not been as widespread, although in recent years, the picture has changed greatly, as English has become more and more popular in what were formerly Eastern bloc countries.In many ways Slovenia has been following the trends in other Central and Eastern European countries. The influence of English has been growing since the Second World War and in particular after the end of the Cold War. Its influence has intensified even more after Slovenia became an independent country. Today, Slovenes feel both cautious and enthusiastic about English. There is extensive legislation to protect the Slovene language, while at the same time there is a ‘certain enthusiasm for both “western” ideas and the world language, English’ (Schlick, 2003: 4).

Androgen misuse and abuse

2011 ◽  
pp. 1475-1478
Author(s):  
David J. Handelsman
Keyword(s):  
Pharmaceutical Industry ◽  
Anabolic Steroid ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
East German ◽  
Sports Doping ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Synthetic Glucocorticoids ◽  
Second World

The Nobel prize-winning identification of testosterone as the mammalian male sex hormone in 1935 was the culmination of an ancient pursuit to learn how the testis was responsible for masculine virility and superior muscular strength. Within two years, testosterone was being used clinically, and within a decade much of the clinical pharmacology and many applications were recognised (1, 2). Given its weighty historical legacy as the archetypal virilizing substance, testosterone was soon being evaluated to boost pharmacologically the muscular size and strength of healthy men beyond physiological development. In the years following the Second World War, the pharmaceutical industry undertook an extensive quest to identify an ‘anabolic steroid’, an androgen without virilizing properties. Although this proved futile, with the search abandoned, the now meaningless term ‘anabolic steroid’, perpetuating a distinction without a difference, has persisted long beyond its scientific obsolescence largely as a journalistic device for sensationalism and demonization (3). Systematic androgen abuse first appears an epidemic, with an epicentre among Eastern European elite athletes, in the mid 1950s (4). This timing coincided with the golden age of steroid pharmacology in the postwar pharmaceutical industry boom years, which produced the oral contraceptive and synthetic glucocorticoids, and with the early years of the Cold War. This fortuitous intersection of industrial means, unscrupulous operators, and political goals shaped the emergence of systematic androgen abuse as a convenient tool by which sociopolitically dysfunctional Eastern bloc countries could gain short-cut ascendancy through symbolic victories over Western political rivals, a challenge quickly reciprocated by athletes and trainers from the advanced noncommunist countries. This bidding war escalated into national sports doping programs operated covertly by Eastern European communist governments. These organized programs of unscrupulous cheating mixed competitive fraudulence with callous ruination of their athletes’ welfare for national political goals. Of these, only the East German program, with its dire consequences for athletes’ health, has so far been fully disclosed (5). Over the next 4 decades, androgen abuse became endemic in countries where the population is sufficiently affluent to support this consumer variant of drug abuse. Once entrenched in the community, androgen abuse spreads beyond elite sports, where it remains as a low level endemic, to nonsporting users with recreational, cosmetic, and occupational motivations for body-building, such as seeking to promote a fearsome muscular image (6).

Airy Curtains

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 158-179
Author(s):  
Christian Henrich-Franke
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Western European ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Radio Free Europe ◽  
Second World

After the Second World War, the infrastructural connections between the Western and the Eastern part of Europe were subsequently cut. The sealing of the passages through the Iron Curtain did not, however, succeed entirely. One increasingly important breach was generated by radio frequencies, which carried broadcasting programs, for example, from Radio Free Europe, straight across the Iron Curtain. This paper analyses the negotiations on the broadcasting map of Europe by focusing on the broadcasting conference of Geneva 1974/75, which moved the “Airy Curtains” much more westward. Three factors explain the Eastern European success. First, Eastern European delegations followed a coordinated strategy in contrast to the Western European ones. Second, the hierarchical ussr leadership made sure that the Eastern European countries stuck to their strategy, whereas Western European countries preferred to depend on themselves. Third, the Eastern bloc let politics and politicians rule, while in Western Europe, to the contrary, frequency allocation was a battle that was largely fought by technicians. The gap between the “political East” and the “technical West” was an important advantage for the East. Focus in this article is put on the radio stations which were situated in Berlin because the city was an important bridgehead for Western broadcasters on socialist territory.

Regime Change, State Crime and Transitional Justice: A Criminal Law Retrospective Concentrating on Former Eastern bloc Countries3

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-158
Author(s):  
Jörg Arnold ◽  
Emily Silverman
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The Past ◽  
Change State ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
The Individual

AbstractIn an initial summing up of this necessarily abbreviated and cursory report of findings, the first thing to recognise is that the countries examined in the study accorded different significance to the criminal law as a means for dealing with the past. The Eastern European countries, at any rate, appear to be largely in agreement with regard to the role of rehabilitation and compensation, although more comparative research into their realization in practice is required. With regard to the direct criminal prosecution and punishment of political and state-promoted crime, however, there is much less uniformity. This is clearly illustrated by the disparate criminal justice practices in the individual countries. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that criminal law plays no role whatsoever in accounting for the past.

scholarly journals The Eastern Bloc, Human Rights, and the Global Fight against Apartheid

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 290-317
Author(s):  
Sebastian Gehrig ◽  
James Mark ◽  
Paul Betts ◽  
Kim Christiaens ◽  
Idesbald Goddeeris
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
African Countries ◽  
International Rights ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Active Contribution

Anti-apartheid advocacy allowed Eastern Bloc countries to reframe their ideological language of solidarity towards African countries into a legalist rhetoric during the 1960s and 70s. Support for international anti-racial discrimination law and self-determination from colonial rule reinforced their ties to Africa after the disenchantment of the Hungarian Uprising. Rights activism against apartheid showcased the socialist Bloc’s active contribution to the international rise of human rights language and international law during the Cold War. By the mid-1970s, however, international rights engagement became problematic for most Eastern European states, and dissidents at home eventually appropriated the term apartheid based on decades of state-mandated international rights activism to criticise socialism.

Non-Market Economies' Accessions to the WTO: Evolution of the Approach and Implications for the Organization

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-81
Author(s):  
Chieh Huang
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
World War ◽  
Market Economies ◽  
Market Structures ◽  
Multilateral Trade ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Second World

AbstractThe General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the Word Trade Organization (WTO), have been the main forum of international trade since the end of the Second World War. The regime is unquestionably based on free-market rules and principles. Yet in the last two decades, formerly planned economies — including Eastern European countries, former Soviet countries and China — have attempted to join the GATT/WTO. To encourage their transition under the influence of free-market principles, and to be a truly global trade organization, the GATT/WTO has accepted applicants with a reforming planned economy. This article studies the evolution of the GATT/WTO's approaches to integrate non-market economies and shows that the approach to integrate non-market economies during the WTO era is significantly different than during the GATT. While special mechanisms were provided in GATT accession protocols to bridge different market structures, WTO accessions require non-market economies to convert their own market structures. This article holds that this intolerance of different market structures in the WTO reflects the collapse of embedded liberalism and the rise of coercive trade diplomacy. Multilateral trade diplomacy has therefore become a means of imposing a domestic restructuring of economic structures rather than providing a negotiation forum for trade liberalization.

Assistance to Nuclear Safety Regulatory Bodies in the Central and Eastern European countries and the Former Soviet Union

1995 ◽  
Vol 209 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-153
Author(s):  
R J Campbell ◽  
G J Vaughan
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Safety ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Regulatory Bodies ◽  
Eastern European Countries

The Regulatory Bodies of the former Eastern Bloc countries are striving towards the adoption of internationally recognized regulatory practices. This paper provides some background and an update on the assistance being provided to them by the Western regulatory community.

Japan-EEC/EU Relations, 1970-2005: Re-Emergence as Strategic Partners in Trade and Environment

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-36
Author(s):  
Hitoshi SUZUKI ◽  
Izuru MAKIHARA
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Foreign Trade Policy ◽  
Business People ◽  
European Business ◽  
The Common ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Eu

Negotiations on a Japan-EEC trade agreement faced a deadlock only three years after the launch of the common foreign trade policy in 1970. The European Commission adopted a step-by-step approach to change the climate. European business people were sent to Japan under the ETP-Japan. The Commission welcomed Japanese investments so that Japanese exports could be reduced. Japanese plants were launched in Britain. After the cold war ended, Japanese manufacturers headed towards the newly liberalised countries. Japan’s policy of commitment - via both aid and investments - was an extension of her relations with the Central and Eastern European countries during the cold war, namely towards the GDR. However, after 1991, Japan’s priority was not limited to her market share in Europe and gained a longer perspective to stabilise the region. Joint efforts made Japan and the EU claim themselves as global actors. Both shared fears on global warming and agreed upon the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

Migration between States and Markets

2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 593-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Martiniello
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Structure ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Intercultural Encounters ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽  
The City ◽  
Second World

Liège has always been a city of passage, of migration, of intercultural encounters. Due to its location at the core of Europe and to its economic and industrial structure, Liège has for decades attracted immigrants. In the nineteenth century, migrants were coming mainly from Flanders, which at the time was an underdeveloped rural area. In the interwar period, many migrants from Poland and other Eastern European countries settled in the region. Right after the Second World War, the mining industry needed an additional labor force. It came from Italy and later from Morocco and other countries. Nowadays, refugees and asylum-seekers from Africa and Asia live in the city and in the region. Liège is a multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial society with a long tradition of integration and toleration. Of course, Liège is no paradise. In this changing city, there are serious social and economic problems that sometimes find an expression in the field of ethnicity. But, contrary to other Belgian cities, racist and fascist political parties do not play a significant role in local politics.

scholarly journals Druga wojna światowa a pozycja ustrojowa europejskich monarchów

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 251
Author(s):  
Maciej Rakowski
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
World War ◽  
Royal Authority ◽  
Fascist Regime ◽  
Political Model ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Second World

<p>The Second World War brought significant political changes to European monarchies. Immediately after the war, six kingdoms ceased to exist and became republics. This concerned Eastern European countries in the Soviet sphere of influence, as well as Italy, where Victor Emmanuel III had to pay for years of cooperation with the fascist regime. Before the outbreak of the war, at least three European monarchies had considerable power, holding the most important prerogatives in their hands: this was the case in Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. Such a political model failed to survive the war, as after 1945 the kings and princes of the Old Continent only “reigned, but did not rule” (only Louis II, Prince of Monaco kept a stronger position until the end of the 1950s). It used to happen during the war that in countries with an established parliamentary system the monarch played a greater role than during the years of peace (the most prominent example being Wilhelmina, the Queen of the Netherlands). The article also presents other issues important to the royal authority – the functioning of monarchs in exile, the threat to their lives, the exercise of sovereignty (usually only in a ceremonial capacity) over the armed forces, and abdications forced by the circumstances.</p>

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