Search

Copyright of Pravnik is the property of Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of State & Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper deals with the standardization process of the regnal name of the new King Charles III in Czech. It documents the fact that leading Czech internet media at first referred to the new king in the original form, Charles III, but very soon began to call him Karel III, using the Czech form of the English name Charles. The paper places this process into the broader context of translating foreign personal names into Czech and investigates whether European Monarchs are usually referred to by their original names or a translated form of their names in contemporary written Czech (as evidenced by the SYN corpus series). The central focus of the paper lies in the hour-by-hour detailed reconstruction of how it happened that the Czech internet media ceased quite suddenly to call the new king Charles III, beginning to call him Karel III. The paper proceeds to discuss this process in the context of language standardization theories, showing that although authorities (linguists, predominantly from the Czech Language Institute) explicitly refused to recommend ("from above") either the original, or a translated variant of the name, internet media representatives interpreted their statements in favour of the translated version and started to call the new king Karel III in Czech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study introduces OnomOs, a new corpus of Czech texts with annotation of proper names. The corpus was compiled by onomasticians from the Department of Czech Language, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava, and made available by the Institute of the Czech National Corpus, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. The paper briefly discusses the content and structure of the cor- pus, the selection of texts for inclusion, and the onomastic-geographical classification of the iden- tified names. The text consists chiefly of three preparatory analyses, which focus on the most fre- quent surnames, collocations found in Western and Eastern countries in the pre-1989 period, and the declension patterns of three types of onyms. In the summary, further possibilities of onomastic corpus research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term folk etymology is traditionally used to denote an erroneous, usually arbitrary connection of an etymologically opaque word to a word which is similar in the form or meaning but it is of different origin. Our approach is wider, we consider folk etymology as a part of folk linguistics. Folk (or also learned) etymology is one of the oldest methods of interpreting proper names and we can meet this phenomenon as early as in medieval chronicles. Folk interpretations often grow into size of etymological tales. They represent the period of the so-called pre-scientific etymology. However, folk etymology has not been replaced by scientific etymology, it is still alive and part of language users’ awareness. The term “folk etymology” was introduced by E. Förstemann in his paper Über deutsche Volksetymologie / About German Folk Etymology (1852) where he mentioned a whole range of examples for proper names. The term folk etymology coined by Förstemann was, despite some criticism, adopted into other languages including Czech. Three years later and independently of Förstemann, H. Wedgwood published a paper on what he called “false etymologies”. Similar terms actually appear in other lan)guages as well but they are considered problematic as they imply something improper. Folk etymology is sometimes treated as a non-scientific deformation of a language reality, as a misleading, deceptive preconception, which the educated scientists shall make sure to remove. F. de Saussure even supported the idea of folk etymology being something “pathological”. However, this opinion of his was frequently criticised. Nowadays, we do not perceive folk etymology as something wrong which is to be corrected. In our conception, the folk etymology is understood as a natural tendency of language users to explain foreign and opaque words as well as proper names, and to interpret, search and clarify the meaning connections even if these are not present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study focuses on the use of proper names in the articles of four Czech writers: Jan Neruda (1834–1891), Svatopluk Čech (1846–1908), Karel Čapek (1890–1938), and Karel Poláček (1892–1945), who reflected not only Czech culture and society, but also the Czech language. Given their avid interest in linguistics, the aim of this paper is to analyze the authors’ linguistic takes on proper names as reflected in their art journalism (essays, feuilletons, and columns). The present analysis focuses on their opinions of, for instance, naming of public spaces, personal names (and whether they use them stereotypically), misuse of proper names in politics, and naming in advertising. Their attitudes towards the naming strategy (seen as a linguistic strategy) are always examined in the context of the dominating linguistic views of the given period (the views on the language norms in particular), from approximately the 1850s until the 1930s. This approach, combined with a literary-cultural one, allows us to cover the issue comprehensively. The study is based on the chapter of the forthcoming dissertation Language and linguistic issues and their reflection in the works of selected Czech writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of Hindi/Urdu on Czech in advanced Hindi/Urdu L1 speakers of Czech as a second language. At present, dozens of Hindi/Urdu L1-speakers enroll in Czech language courses in India every year, and thousands of Hindi/Urdu L1-speakers live in the Czech Republic and have acquired Czech at various levels of proficiency. The objective of this paper is to provide first empirically based insights for teachers of Czech as a foreign/second language to Hindi/Urdu L1-speakers in India and in the Czech Republic. This study analyzes language production of 10 Hindi/Urdu L1 speakers who have lived long-term in the Czech Republic. The analysis is based on recordings of informal conversations. The obtained linguistic data was compared with standard grammar descriptions of Hindi/Urdu and Czech in order to perform error analysis. With the help of contrastive analysis, errors caused by language transfer were identified and categorized according to the following language domains: phonetics and phonology, and morphosyntax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bohemistyka is the property of Instytut Filologii Slowianskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This commentated edition with an introduction presents a little-known paper on translating the grotesque lyrics of Christian Morgenstern, given by Josef Hiršal at a seminar for the Translators' Circle of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union (Kruh překladatelů při Svazu československých spisovatelů) in November 1958. It concerns the circumstances in which his translation of Gallows Songs, published by the State Publishing House for Literature, Music and Art (Státní nakladatelství krásné literatury, hudby a umění) in February 1958, originated. Bohumila Grögerová had been very much involved in this publication, and Hiršal traces the reactions of the time. The paper provides an insight into Josef Hiršal's translation workshop and, using specific examples, points out the translation issues and questions he had to deal with. Among his general topics was the discovery of the flexible possibilities of the Czech language, as well as the search for the boundary between translation and paraphrase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution recapitulates and appraises the work of the Czech linguist Jiří Lípa (born December 12, 1928, Sušice, Czechoslovakia - died December 24, 2020, Broadview Heights, Ohio, USA). The first part is devoted to the beginnings of Lípa's interest in the Romani language and his publications from the period before he emigrated to the USA, including the two key monographs written in Czech, Příručka cikánštiny (A Handbook of the Gypsy Language, 1963) and Cikánština v jazykovém prostředí slovenském a českém (The Gypsy Language in the Czech and Slovak Linguistic Environment, 1965). The second part describes Lípa's work in the field of Roma studies in the USA, his participation in the activities of the Gyspy Lore Society and offers a commented review of his contributions written in English. Special attention is paid to two polemics triggered by Lípa's works. First, in 1983, in the Newsletter of the Gypsy Lore Society, and the second, a decade later, in 1993 in the Nationalities Papers. The author explains Lípa's stance in these polemics and shows that his position has been rather misunderstood and misinterpreted. The final section discusses why Lípa's pioneering work in the field of Roma studies has been mostly forgotten in his motherland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archeologia Technica is the property of Technical Museum in Brno and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper deals with two names of the direct Mojmir line (Great Moravia, 9th-10th century): *Mojьměrъ/*Mojьmirъ and *Svętěpъlkъ/*Svętopъlkъ. In the paper, the author analyzes three hypotheses concerning the origin of Proto-Slavic onymic elements *-měrъ/-mirъ in the Late Proto-Slavic personal name *Mojьměrъ/*Mojьmirъ > Czech-Slovak Mojmír, attested as Moimar, Moymar ʻMojmir I, ruler of Great Moraviaʼ, and Moymir, Moymarius ʻMojmir II, ruler of Great Moraviaʼ: (1) Proto-Slavic *-měrъ < Proto-Indo-European *meh1-ro- ʻglorious, greatʼ, (2) Proto-Slavic *-měrъ < Proto-Germanic, Gothic mērs ʻgloriousʼ, Proto-Slavic *-mirъ being in both cases secondary, Proto-Slavic *-mirъ < Proto-Slavic *mirъ ʻpeace, worldʼ, Proto-Slavic *-měrъ being secondary, which is rejected, as well as two hypotheses concerning the origin of the Proto-Slavic onymic element *-pъlkъ in the Late Proto-Slavic personal name *Svętěpъlkъ/*Svętopъlkъ > Czech Svatopluk, Slovak Svätopluk, attested as Szuentiepulc, Zuentibald, Zuentebald, Sfentopulch, etc. ʻSvatopluk I, ruler of Great Moraviaʼ, and Zentobolch, Zuentibald ʻSvatopluk II, prince of Great Moraviaʼ: (1) Proto-Slavic *-pъlkъ ʻregiment, crowd, etc.ʼ < Gothic or Longobardic fulk- ʻpeople, multitude, armyʼ < Proto-Indo-European *pel- ʻfill, etc.ʼ, which is more popular, (2) Proto-Slavic *-pъlkъ ʻregiment, house [= clan], etc.ʼ (cf. Old Czech meanings and Proto-Germanic fulg- ʻto followʼ) < Proto-Indo-European *plk- ʻto stand by sb.ʼ, which is more probable. After the discussion, the first personal name is reinterpreted as *Mojiměrъ < Proto-Indo-European *moios ʻmy [regiment, house]ʼ + *meh1-ro- ʻglorious, greatʼ, and the latter one as *Svętěpъlkъ/*Svętopъlkъ < Proto-Slavic *svęt ʻglorious, greatʼ (< Proto-Indo-European *ḱwen- ʻto celebrateʼ) + Proto-Slavic *-pъlkъ ʻregiment, houseʼ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on fundamental historical source important for recognition of judicial praxis in the early modern era: Books of Sentences of Appeal Court in Prag. This court was established in 1548 and since that year were the sentences taped down to books of sentences in two language rows: czech and german. The study analyzes both the outside of the source (font, language, graphical form of the decision) and, above all, its internal structure. At the same time, some particular requirements (which included each decision) are identified, and then the possibilities of their interpretation in individual and in context are presented. The paper is based on the knowledge of dozens of ortel books across the 250 year period for which the study is written. Its contribution lies mainly in describing some general elements that touch this source. The thesis can also serve as a basis for quantitative and qualitative research in the field of early modern justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses 379 folk etymological interpretations and other 141 assumptions about the foreign origin of surnames, all received either by the radio programme On the Origin of Surnames, the Language Counselling Centre of the Czech Language Institute, or the information service Ask the Library. These inquiries were sent by the public along with requests for a confirmation of the suggested etymological interpre)tations of the surnames in question, or for an official (correct / scientific) explanation. The analysis shows that most often the folk etymology consists in erroneous decomposition of the name or in connecting the name with an incorrect original form, i.e. usually a familiar noun recognized in the name. The folk etymologies do not respect the word-forming structure of names. They also ignore the age and origin of the surname which they like to look for in foreign languages (especially in French, Polish, Hungarian), regardless of the origin of the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deep learning methods of artificial neural networks have seen a significant uptake in recent years, and have succeeded in overcoming and advancing the success of auto-solving tasks in many fields. The field of computational linguistics and its application offshoot, natural language processing, with classic tasks such as morphological tagging, dependency analysis, named entity recognition and machine translation, are no exception to this. This paper provides an overview of recent advances in these tasks related to the Czech language and presents completely new results in the areas of morphological marking and recognition of named entities in Czech, along with a detailed error analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Speciální Pedagogika is the property of Charles University Prague, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Speciální Pedagogika is the property of Charles University Prague, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bohemistyka is the property of Instytut Filologii Slowianskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bohemistyka is the property of Instytut Filologii Slowianskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Slavica Litteraria is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper provides a thorough review of the corpus-linguistic approach to critical discourse analysis. It briefly presents the core of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and examines the possibilities of applying corpus tools to it. In the next step, critical commentaries on CDA are summarized and at the same time, possible corpus-linguistic solutions are offered. The final part offers an illustrative application of corpus-assisted CDA focusing on language ideologies in the Czech parliamentary discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bohemistyka is the property of Instytut Filologii Slowianskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Pedagogická Orientace is the property of Pedagogicka Orientace and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Personal proper names are part of a community's language inventory. To a large extent, they verbalise gender stereotypes, expectations and norms, power relations, political circumstances, and how minorities are treated. In my paper I analyse the current socioonomastic representation of gender-neutral names in the context of naming practices in the Czech Republic. More specifically, I examine what factors might explain the decreased use of these names, which, paradoxically, differ from other names in that they have an extended functionality. From a linguistic and legal perspective I inquire into how Czech naming practices stigmatise the sexual otherness of non-binary people and trans people in Czech society. In the conclusion I set out the conditions that must be met for gender-neutral names to be freely available to the entire population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the relationship between language and culture has recently found an interesting source of inspiration in the theoretical-methodological basis of cognitive linguistics and ethnolinguistics. The paper draws on this resource, especially on the findings of J. Bartmiński's Ethnolinguistic School of Lublin and the theory of culturally key words by Anna Wierzbicka, and following the previous ethnolinguistic research of Czech Christmas, it focuses on the image of the Christmas giver Ježíšek in contemporary Czech (private and public) discourse. This image has been reconstructed based on the analysis of language data and culturally significant texts dealing with the Ježíšek topic, and also based on a survey conducted among Czechs on social networks. The objective of the analysis is to contribute to the formulation of the so-called cognitive definition connected to the Ježíšek conceptualization, and to identify some of its aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our paper we will focus on the comparison of the Czech and Slovenian languages in terms of contrastive typology. In doing so, we will only deal with such differences between the two languages that may cause translation issues, erroneous interpretation of the original text or interferences. The selected phenomena will be compared at the morphosyntactic, lexical and wordforming levels. For certain phenomena we will briefly point out the differences in terms of sociolinguistics (social and situational variability of the language) and pragmalinguistics (relation of the linguistic means and their impact on the participants in the communication). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes and evaluates the responses from a sociolinguistic survey concerning capitalization in Czech. Approximately 4,100 participants utilized the opportunity to express their opinions on this matter. The expressed views varied greatly. They were often contradictory and concerned not only capitalization, but also other spelling issues or language issues in general. The paper devotes special attention to opinions on particular types of names. Most often, the participants expressed their views on geographical names, especially public places in cities. Other frequently mentioned types were company names, names of authorities and the titles of document or literary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the publication of the Concept of Minimal Intervention (Cvrček 2008a, Cvrček 2008b), three critical reactions have been published (Adam 2009, Beneš & Prošek 2011, Homoláč & Mrázková 2011) defending the current language policy (based on the Theory of Language Cultivation). This paper discusses the most important points of their criticism: axiology in the concepts of language regulation, prescriptivism in the Czech language situation and the means of measuring it, the role and nature of current and future codifications, speakers' attitudes toward language and the validity of their elicitation in linguistic research, the notion of the "literariness" of language, etc. This paper also enriches the original Concept of Minimal Intervention with observations and conclusions based on the experience of making the first non-interventional description of Czech, the Grammar of Contemporary Czech (Cvrček et al. 2010). The paper emphasizes three crucial differences between the Concept of Minimal Intervention and interventional approaches (esp. the Theory of Language Cultivation): preoccupation with literary language in the language regulation in current language policy, the priority of the noetic potential of the discipline over the public demand for language regulation, and the perception of linguists' activity as an artificial part of the language situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present paper is twofold. First, it aspires to outline the current state of linguis-tic comparison of German and Czech that has been significantly influenced in recent years by the increasing importance of corpus linguistics (very large corpora, parallel corpora). Most importantly, we argue that the theoretical framework of contrastive linguistics is to be rethought in the light of empirical data obtained from corpus analysis and, on the other hand, that corpus linguistics cannot be degraded to mere analytical methods without any theoretical background. In addition, we posit that German-Czech contrastive linguistics is in urgent need of a large learner corpus of texts produced by Czech learners of German and by German speak-ing learners of Czech respectively. Second, the paper presents a new online bibliography on German-Czech linguistic comparison, a project pursued at the Institute of Germanic Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. The new bibliography capitalizes on the pro-perties of the electronic medium that makes continual updates of its contents possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pedagogická Orientace is the property of Pedagogicka Orientace and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Historica Olomucensia: Journal for Central European History is the property of Palacky University in Olomouc and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper reviews the possibilities of analysis of linguistic variation in Czech. First, we focused on dialectology and variationist sociolinguistics as two disciplines which look at language variation from the perspective of language production. We argue that traditional dialectology is oriented towards the in-breadth description of language variation and it offers a convenient method to register differential features, especially lexical items and items which are in decline. On the other hand, variationist sociolinguistics aims for an in-depth analysis. It is concerned primarily with the phonological and grammatical variation and tries to explain it on the basis of its relation to the social stratification in the given society (community). Perceptual dialectology and the research on language attitudes analyze language variation from the perspective of both language perception and its evaluation. They are based on the idea that our linguistic behaviour is co-determined by our subjective perception of the language use. We argue that for a better understanding of the Czech linguistic situation, we need to utilize findings from all of these disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares five Czech- and English-language manuals and resources for the transcription of spoken interactions for research based in conversation analysis (CA). The presented method of transcription can also be used in sociolinguistics, pragmatics and for research in Language Management Theory or language communities. The following materials were selected for comparison: the DIALOG corpus manual (Kaderka -- Svobodová, 2006), the book Transcribing Talk and Interaction by Christopher J. Jenks (2011), a chapter from the book Doing Conversation Analysis by Paul ten Have (2006/1999) and two online modules by Emanuel A. Schegloff and Charles Antaki. The main purpose of this article is to familiarize readers with the selected publications and present them in an order appropriate for the gradual acquisition of transcription skills. Another aim is to create an overview of all particularities concerning transcription, so that mainly beginning researchers can acquire a complete image of the transcription process. The analysis of the selected materials focuses on current of the topics important for transcription: the theoretical background of a transcription, what can be captured in a transcription, the purpose of a transcription, the overall formatting of a transcription including the anonymization of data, transcription symbols. Furthermore, the paper touches upon additional aspects of transcription included in the materials: transcription software, the visual dimension of the data and the translation of the transcript. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides additional information which complements the article "On Dolník's theory of standard language" by V. Dovalil published in Slovo a slovesnost (73, 2012, no. 2). This is done in consideration of the fact that Dovalil's article is short of relevant information on the content of Dolník's book, hence potential readers may gain a distorted idea of the theory. The author describes the theory's fundamental ideas as well as the methodological basis for the explication of the standard language. The theory is based on the thesis that standard Slovak, originally an "artificial" language, optimally approached the status of natural language (mother tongue) and became a "folk" language at a higher stage of development. The goal of the theory is to discover the nature of the standard language at this stage of development in order to undertake qualified language cultivation. According to the author, this task can be handled using a cultural studies and pragmatics approach to the standard language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of the sociolinguistic survey Capitalization in Czech. The survey was conducted by the Department of Language Culture, Insitute of the Czech Language, Czech Academy of Sciences, from January 1 to June 30, 2012. The aim of the questionnaire survey was to monitor the knowledge of the current capitalization codification as well as the attitudes towards capitalization and possible changes in codification. The survey yielded 12,308 completed question- naires (from 18,646 participants). The capitalization rules for names included in the survey were known to 59 % of the participants. A statistical analysis of the survey data revealed both differing levels of the capitalization rules knowledge among individual groups of participants, as well as conservative attitudes (86 % of the participants preffered the preservation of the current codification). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a contribution to the field of translation studies focusing on translation history. It deals with the techniques and methods used in German-Czech translations at the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation. The main subject of the paper is an original analysis of three selected German texts form the 16th and early 17th century {Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dill Ulenspiegel; Historia von Doktor Johann Fausten; Martin Luther, Eine Heerpredigt wider den Türeken) and their first translations into Czech. The aim of the analysis is to revise and advance the current understanding of translations of the period and to provide an overview of the main problems connected with investigation of old prints. The results based on the analysis show that the translation techniques and methods used in the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation were very diverse and often mutually contradictory, there was usually no consistent translation strategy used by the translators and probably also no universal translation norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares the means of expressing interpersonal function in Czech and English academic texts dealing with linguistics. These expressions are found at various language levels and the classification takes into account both the formal and the functional point of view. Concerning the various approaches to metadiscourse, we follow the work of Ken Hyland. For the purpose of our analysis we gathered 24 academic articles, 12 per each language. As a first step, a detailed analysis of four academic texts was performed to obtain a range of metadiscourse expressions for the following corpus analysis. The aim of the corpus analysis was to find out to what extent the selected expressions were represented in a larger set of data. Despite the different language types, Czech and English use similar means to express interpersonal features of metadiscourse. The greatest difference was found in the category of hedges, relational markers and self-mentions; other categories displayed relatively similar frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Orbis Scholae is the property of Charles University Prague, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we deal with locative semantic diathesis in Czech from a lexicographic point of view. We consider semantic diathesis as a specific relation between semantically similar syntactic constructions which are characterized by changes in the valency structure of verbs. These changes arise from the changes in the correspondence of semantic participants and valency complementations and vary even within one type of diathesis. We assume that they can be described by general rules determining the changes in the mapping of participants and valency complementations. Here we focus primarily on the lexical-semantic representation of verbs, which represents the first part of the description of semantic diatheses. The second part of this task, i.e. formulating rules, is left aside here. Using the example of locative semantic diathesis, we demonstrate the advantage of the representation based on predicate decomposition (called lexical-conceptual structure) over those formulated in terms of semantic roles. Namely, we use the lexical-conceptual structure built on the subeventual analysis in which event complexity, i.e. whether an event is simple or complex, plays a key role. On this basis, we attempt to formulate the appropriate lexical-conceptual structures reflecting semantic difference between the members of locative semantic diathesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personal proper names are part of a community's language inventory. To a large extent, they verbalise gender stereotypes, expectations and norms, power relations, political circumstances, and how minorities are treated. In my paper I analyse the current socio-onomastic representation of gender-neutral names in the context of naming practices in the Czech Republic. More specifically, I examine what factors might explain the decreased use of these names, which, paradoxically, differ from other names in that they have an extended functionality. From a linguistic and legal perspective I inquire into how Czech naming practices stigmatise the sexual otherness of non-binary people and trans people in Czech society. In the conclusion I set out the conditions that must be met for gender-neutral names to be freely available to the entire population.

Copyright of Pedagogická Orientace is the property of Pedagogicka Orientace and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper deals with the development of specialized terminology in the field of cultural and creative industries. The first part, based on the Theory of Language Management and Critical Discourse Analysis, surveys how speakers in the field reflect the terminology and problems imposed by its use. The analysis focuses on a particular controversy in the nature of cultural and creative industries and its implementation in the Czech Republic (Gajdoš, 2010; Cikánek, 2011; Gajdoš, 2011). The second part scrutinizes the key collocation term kulturní a kreativní průmysly and its terminological variants. It investigates how the lexical components of the terms are used in Czech, what their common collocations are and what connotations they induce. The study shows how these properties affect the overall process of terminologization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explaining which circumstances, influences and phenomena enter into the gender of a text, the paper considers the conditions of its translatability. In the first part, examples of English -Czech translations of non -literary and literary texts are chosen for discussion. It is argued that even texts with a feminist potential, i.e. texts in whose themes and forms gender issues are highlighted as an apparent result of the author’s political intention or imaginative work, can lose this potential in the process of being translated into Czech. This is the case in the work of translators who are blind to gender manifestations in the text, and/or who suppress the gender of the translated text in accord with the cultural, textual, and language norms of the target (Czech) culture. In contrast with the quite frequent “gender blindness” of Czech translators, the article in its second part discusses the provocative concepts and approaches of Feminist Translation – a critical discourse and translation practice with its roots in the 1970s Québec. Though a few Czech translations are close to Feminist Translation, the main benefit of introducing it into the Czech milieu is to make the gender of a text an issue, and to work for its acknowledgement through small concrete steps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space, time and motion are crucial concepts in human thinking. They tend to be expressed differently in different languages and this can present difficulties for language learners. This paper summarises the basic linguistic means of expressing time, space and motion in contemporary Czech and attempts to systematise the existing linguistic research related to these topics. The analysis focuses on deictic, lexical (e.g. verbs of motion) and phrasal units and on selected grammatical categories (especially time, aspect and case) and points out specific features of a “Czech” understanding of the concepts as revealed by the given linguistic expressions. In Czech utterances, the concepts are usually interconnected, with several means connected with the concepts often appearing simultaneously. The “Czech” conceptualisation of space, time and motion is complex, but it is nevertheless organised in various ways (for example, along selected oppositions, metaphors or image schemas, using a specific categorisation of motion in verbs of motion). Furthermore, space and motion often function as a source domain for metaphors of more abstract concepts. It is suggested that this overview could provide some background for research into the use of Czech as a non-native language.

The text focuses on the historical development of Czech words used to name persons working in agriculture, such as zemědělec, rolník, sedlák and farmář during the 20th century. Their semantic changes and contemporary usage are researched through their collocations appearing in historical documents such as laws, language dictionaries, encyclopedias, contemporary journals and new-papers collected in the Czech National Corpus (SYN -- synchronic written corpora). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the online project called the Database of the Czech and Slovak Americans in the Service during WWII the both a practical and theoretical framework. This text explains the author’s intentions, describes the current state of affairs, and presents details and thoughts about the project’s future development. At the beginning of the 20th century, the United States were the home of the greatest Czech and Slovak compatriot community in the world. In 1920, two years after the birth of independent Czechoslovakia, 1 242 662 Americans claimed to be first or second generation immigrants from Czechoslovakia. Although the numbers of new immigrants plummeted in the 1920s and 1930s — mostly due to a change in the US immigration policy — the census in 1940 still registered 1 004 800 Czech and Slovak Americans (compared to approximately 15 million inhabitants in Czechoslovakia in 1930, which included more than 3 million German-speaking citizens). Many of these Americans of Czech and Slovak origins enlisted or volunteered for the military service during WWII. They can be found everywhere, from the first casualties at Pearl Harbor to the unfortunate Charles Havlat, who was shot on 7 May 1945, on Czechoslovak soil which he helped to liberate, and who is considered to be the last US casualty in the European war theatre. Unfortunately, the memory of these soldiers and veterans is fading and many of the documents and materials related to their participation in war events are endangered; especially those written in Czech (a common language in the correspondence between sons and their parents in the 1940s). Therefore, we have created the Database as an open web-based archive that utilizes one of the major cultural changes of the digital era: participation. We believe that the compatriot community in the USA could use such a tool in order to preserve not only names and events, but also materials that are often stored in family archives, but unfortunately often also destroyed or discarded. Besides the current application layer, the study also opens a discussion on the understanding of the “archive” concept in new media as a fundamental change of institutional memory itself (following Manovich, Gane and Beer, van Dijk and many other theorists of new media). To further exploit this change for the users’ benefit, we also discuss the possibility of using geospatial data and digital cartography (or, in short, the GIS), to further enhance our means to read, connect, and understand data hidden in the database. In this way, we want to connect individuals to their location in space and time during WWII. We believe that this enables us to see previously unknown or unseen processes and movements (and thus, we want to transform the understanding of a map from a static representation of the world to a fluid processing of the events, to turn a map into a narrative). Finally, we offer several other potential uses of the stored and accessible materials, including an analysis of the Czech language used among the compatriots in the 1940, spatial analysis of a change in the settlement patterns, and a qualitative analysis of the texts with a focus on the ethnicity and selfawareness of Czech and Slovak Americans. These suggestions or open topics, however, do not limit the possible uses of the data we hope to gain through the project. Digitalizace [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, the author seeks to explore features peculiar to spoken language in Czech schools. For this purpose, the system of stylistic classification of linguistic items proposed by J. Homoláč and K. Mrázková is used. This system is based on an understanding of the Czech language situation as consisting of two basic sets of communicative situations: (1) everyday communication and (2) the realization of higher communicative aims. Data for the present study comprised 31 audio-recordings of classes in grades 6-9 conducted in Czech schools: the participants were 4 teachers and their pupils (aged 11-15). This material was described using the following criteria: (1) everyday communication or institutional communication, (2) the position of the linguistic item on the axis of high, medium and low style, (3) expressiveness of the linguistic item, (4) typically Bohemian or Moravian use. The analysis shows that the stylistic classification of linguistic items in these spoken texts should reflect criteria derived from the description of communication situations rather than their link to structural varieties of Czech (Standard Czech or Common Czech). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pedagogická Orientace is the property of Pedagogicka Orientace and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)