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The paper introduces the upcoming outputs of the Lexico-Semantic Database Project (LSD-Czech) supported by The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR) [TL02000041]: a Czech online conceptual dictionary and a lexico-semantic database. It reviews the phases of the implementation of the project and its results to be made available by the end of 2022. It describes both the dictionary and the database (from which the dictionary is generated). While the dictionary is intended for the general user, the database will serve linguists and experts in natural language processing and language data application. The paper briefly discusses the field of onomasiological lexicography, focusing on what is an onomasiological dictionary, what dictionaries of this type exist for Czech, and introduces the two dictionaries on which the database is founded, Haller’s Český slovník věcný a synonymický (1969–86) and Klégr’s Tezaurus jazyka českého (2007). The focus of the paper is on the description of the functions and features of the dictionary, the steps whereby to search in it and the envisaged future improvements. Finally, it gives the specifications of the database and the next steps planned in its development.

We combine observations from Western USA and inverse modelling to constrain global atmospheric emissions of microplastics (MPs) and microfibers (MFs). The latter are used further to model their global atmospheric dynamics. Global annual MP emissions were calculated as 9.6 ± 3.6 Tg and MF emissions as 6.5 ± 2.9 Tg. Global average monthly MP concentrations were 47 ng m-3 and 33 ng m-3 for MFs, at maximum. The largest deposition of agricultural MPs occurred close to the world’s largest agricultural regions. Road MPs mostly deposited in the East Coast of USA, Central Europe, and Southeastern Asia; MPs resuspended with mineral dust near Sahara and Middle East. Only 1.8% of the emitted mass of oceanic MPs was transferred to land, and 1.4% of land MPs to ocean; the rest were deposited in the same environment. Previous studies reported that 0.74–1.9 Tg y-1 of land-based atmospheric MPs/MFs (< 5 mm) are transported to the ocean, while riverine transport is between 3.3 and 14 Tg y-1. We calculate that 0.418 ± 0.201 Tg y-1 MPs/MFs (size up to 250 and 2500 µm) were transported from the land to ocean (large particles were ignored). Model validation against observations showed that particle removal must be urgently updated in global models.

The primary focus of this BA thesis is the choice of the third person singular pronoun in the contexts where the gender of a singular animate referent is unknown or unspecified. Specifically, the use of singular they in this context is examined, as its distribution in the press genre of written language over the past 20 years is analysed using corpus linguistics. In the theoretical part, both grammatical and sociolinguistics factors are considered in order to trace the history of prescription for gender-neutral third person singular pronouns, focusing specifically on the development of the issue in recent years. The research part documents the singular use of pronoun they on five samples from two newspaper corpora (SiBol: Corpus of English broadsheet newspapers for years 1993-2013 and The Timestamped JSI web corpus for years 2014-2020) and analyses its development from year 1993 to 2020. The data acquired from the corpora are partially analysed with the help of artificial intelligence language model. This paper's hypothesis is that singular they grows in popularity; potential sociolinguistics reasons for that change are examined.

This thesis pays attention to the Czech non-heterosexual sociolect and, more precisely, the English loanwords used in otherwise entirely Czech computer-mediated communication. The term in the title: "non-heterosexual", is used to include a broader spectrum of possible respondents who consider their sexual identity different from binary homosexual and heterosexual sexual orientation. To be able to observe a real sample of this type of communication, this thesis gathers a collection of conversations from users of a popular dating app called Grindr, which is one of the most popular dating services in the world. The reasons for the tendency of using the English loanwords instead of their Czech counterparts are mainly accredited to a degree of emotional detachment that they provide. The hypothesis is that the users of this service are most likely to use English loan words instead of their Czech counterparts when discussing sexual relations as it serves as a "depersonifying" defensive tool. A follow-up questionnaire is then also proposed to the respondents in which they are supposed to pick from a selection of messages in three different contexts the one they are more likely to use themselves. If the hypothesis is correct, they are most likely to choose the message with English loanwords in the context of sex....

This bachelor thesis aims to determine to what degree evaluative language is employed by Donald Trump in speeches made regarding the 2020 US presidential election. The objective of this work is to determine whether positive or negative evaluation is more prevalent while addressing the election. Trump's characteristic use of intensification and repetition will also be investigated in relation to the evaluation of the election. The theoretical part will introduce evaluative language on the background of Martin and White's Appraisal theory, which will later be used as a framework for analysis. Several characteristic features of Trump's language will be introduced and afterwards, the link between manipulation in rhetoric and evaluative language will be discussed. A corpus of Trump's post-election speeches will be compiled for the purposes of the analysis. The analysis will be conducted using the online corpus manager Sketch Engine. After generating a list of the corpus' most frequent tokens, those with an inherent semantic relevance to the topic of elections will be selected. Their most frequent collocates will then be searched for uses of evaluative language, focusing specifically on the adjectival and adverbial collocates, which typically express evaluative meaning. The results will be interpreted...

Sára Petrechová An acoustic-prosodic analysis of contrastive reduplication in English MA Thesis Prague, 2022 Abstract Contrastive reduplication (CR) is an emerging trend of spoken and written English that has been approached from many different angles, such as morphology, semantics, and pragmatics. The phonology and prosody of this phenomenon is to this date quite underresearched. The main function of contrastive reduplication is expressing contrast between the prototypical meaning of a word and its subcategories (e.g., the salad-salad, not tuna salad). This contrast between two reduplicated elements can be defined in acoustic as well as prosodic terms which emphasize the contrastive feature of CR constructions. The aim of this study is to analyze approximately 200 spoken excerpts based on a corpus of CR compiled by Ghomeshi et al. (2004), which includes written examples of CR taken from literature, radio, movies, and TV series. These written examples are manually retrieved and edited from the corresponding movies and TV series in spoken form. The spoken excerpts include primarily American English with a few examples of British English. The analysis focuses on the overall intonation pattern of constructions and differences between two reduplicants in intonation and other acoustic properties, such as overall...

The aim of this thesis is to ascertain whether and to what extent English language lessons at Czech secondary schools are affected by the so-called washback effect related to the final leaving examination ("maturita"), and to attempt to define how this potential negative impact may be minimized. The washback effect phenomenon occurs when a (language) course is concluded by a final examination, and describes how such an examination influences the actual curriculum, the instruction as such, and all the participants. Applied linguistics offers a number of both theoretical and empirical studies conducted worldwide which focus on the particular aspects of the washback effect occurring during language examinations. This thesis strives to follow up on the findings of these empirical studies and apply them to the current centralised Czech form of the English "maturita" examination. The thesis was initially inspired by students' observations during English lessons at a Czech grammar school, which were a part of pedagogical education at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University. After establishing the focus of the paper, preliminary research in the form of semi- structured interviews with four students in the final grades at Prague grammar schools was conducted. While this pre-research study allowed only...