Dear reader, welcome to the new issue of „Rhetoric and Communications“. The Journal’s mission is to make „cognitive science, education and communication, ICT and rhetoric, viewed as an area of knowledge, teaching and oratorical heritage, research and applied techniques accessible to a wide audience“ (Ivanka Mavrodieva, 2012, R&C, Vol. 3). Thus, we establish a tradition of providing a forum for Bulgarian scholars and students. We hope you find our publication of interest and, as we continue to seek new research and ideas, we hope that you will share your ideas with us.
This issue is meant to achieve a twofold purpose: it is supposed to present recent research in the area of languages and to do that through the modern lingua franca – English. The terms „use“, „function“ and „purpose“ are often applied interchangeably and we intend to clarify their meanings. In addition, „lingua franca“ is a challenging research problem; we plan to pursue it in future volumes of this online journal.
Naturally, authors’ research interests vary and the papers cover diverse topics but the focus of all research projects presented is the same – language use and social context. As for the issue of the choice of the specific working language, the editors’ position is that “it is not an English examination”. We deem a paper scientifically valuable if expression is clear and content is original and convincing. Hence, R&C disclaims responsibility for authors’ styles which experts may not evaluate as flawless; neither does the Journal answer for the ideas expressed. But R&C will make public all valuable research and development work of Bulgarian authors in the area of languages.
Sincerely,
Todor Shopov and Gergana Apostolova,
Editors,
Journal of Rhetoric and Communications