Mariana Neagu has been an Associate-Professor of English Language and Linguistics in the Department of English at ‘Dunărea de Jos’ University of Galaţi, Romania, since 2001. She teaches graduate courses on Phonology, Semantics, Text Typology and Cognitive Linguistics, as well as an MA course on the Translation of Metaphor. She is currently a research member of projects focusing on translation (Interface research of the original and translated text. Cognitive and communicative aspects of the message) and intra-cultural communication (FP6 project: Society and Lifestyles: Towards Enhancing Social Harmonization through Knowledge of Subcultural Communities). She has occasionally served as a reviewer for conferences and journals (The Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics) and participated as an Erasmus lecturer in MA and BA programmes at the University of Aachen (Germany) and the University of La Rioja (Spain). In 1998 Mariana Neagu completed her Ph.D in linguistics (Categories in Natural Languages. A Study of Nominal Polysemy in English and Romanian) at the University of Bucureşti. In her previous research, she investigated basic element metaphors (i.e. fire, water, air and earth metaphors) and prepositions from a cross-linguistic perspective and also looked into communicative issues (e.g. politeness, significant silence) from a cross-cultural perspective. Her present research interests include aspects of cognitive linguistics (metaphor, metonymy, humour, constructions) and of Critical Discourse Analysis. Some of her recent publications are the following: Variety and Style in English. (Buzău: Alpha, 2001), Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction. (Bucureşti: Editura Didactică şi Pedagogică, 2005), “Ethnocentrism, Relativism and Cultural Values” (in Colocviile filologice gălăţene, 2003), “Cross-Cultural Communication: Theoretical and Practical Issues” (in ISMs and NESSes, 2nd Anti-Conference, Constanţa: Ovidius University Press, 2004), “Is There Anything Cultural in the Domain Matrix of SOUL?” (co-authored with Anca Teleoacă in Cultural Matrix Reloaded. 7th International Conference of Romanian Society for English and Romanian Studies, Bucureşti: Editura Didactică şi Pedagogică, 2005), “Communication Styles across Cultures” (in The Circulation of Cultural Models within the Euroregional Spaces, Proceedings of the International Conference, Galaţi, May 26-28, 2006), “Politeness and the Public Sphere” (in Communication and Argumentation in the Public Sphere. Proceedings of the First CAPS Conference, Galaţi: GUP, 2007), “Metaphorical Thought in Culture. The Issue of Time in Romanian” (in Proceedings of Culture, Subculture, Counterculture Conference, Galaţi: Europlus, 2007).