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Word-Formation Processes in Contemporary English Slang
Libertin, Daniel ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
The presented study focuses on the processes involved in the formation of words in contemporary English slang. The aim of the study is to determine which patterns of word building are the most frequent, also compared to the general word stock of contemporary English, based on the analysis of a representative sample of contemporary slang expressions. In addition, the study attempts to determine if there are any phenomena that have been given little or no attention so far. The study consists of two parts. The theoretical part describes the phenomena that are relevant to the scope of the research and the study in general. The first section of the theoretical part includes a description of slang, also pointing out the differences in the treatment of slang between the English-speaking and Czech linguistic tradition. The second section contains a description of the source of the data used in the research, namely, the open Internet repository of slang expressions Urban Dictionary, which is one of the most widely used slang dictionaries on the Internet. The third section provides an overview of word- formation processes that are productive in contemporary English and relevant to the source material of slang lexemes. They include affixation, compounding, conversion, shortening, semantic change, borrowing or...
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A contrastive study of hyperbole in Czech and English. A corpus-based study
Macháčková, Anežka ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
The aim of this study is to compare and contrast the use of hyperbole or exaggeration in spoken Czech and English language. The research is based on comparative approach to two samples accounting for 100 hyperbolic instances in Czech and 100 instances of hyperbole in English. The Czech sample has been randomly excerpted from the oral part of the Czech National Corpus ORAL2008, whereas the English sample has been randomly excerpted from the "spoken context-govern" and "spoken demographic" sections of The British National Corpus. The two samples are subject to analysis. Firstly, the formal realization of hyperbole is examined. Secondly, the occurrences are classified semantically (quantitative versus qualitative hyperbole) and, thirdly, the lexico-semantics is examined (hyperbolic source domains). By this, the present study tests the hypothesis of universal hyperbolic source domains by examining the situation in Czech and English. Finally, the occurrence of conventionalized instances of hyperbole as opposed to creative instances of hyperbolic nonce-usages is examined. Last but not least, it is the aim of this study to provide the overall frequency figures of hyperbole in both languages.
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Eventive objects after "have" and "take" - identification and translation correspondences
Křístková, Jana ; Brůhová, Gabriela (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
The present MA thesis is concerned with an English verbonominal construction, which consists of a semantically light verb, in the case of the present thesis have and take, with an eventive object. The construction represents one semantic unit, which is proved by a paraphrase in which the object replaces the whole construction as the verb of the clause without any change of meaning. The construction affects the aspectual features of the verb, which is reflected in Czech translation equivalents. It also allows for easier modification and quantification. The kind of determiner and modifier present has an impact on the Czech counterparts, most importantly on the aspect of the verb. Modifiers usually translate as adverbials or adjectives modifying a syntactic object, if the Czech counterpart is verbonominal. The integration of the English modifiers into the Czech sentence is often problematic. The thesis presents a theoretical survey of information on the topic and provides a linguistic description of 279 examples of the construction obtained through the online corpora InterCorp. The examples are analyzed with respect to determiners, quantifiers and modifiers. This, along with the Czech counterparts, is the basis for conclusions on the influence of the construction on the translation to Czech.
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Testing English collocations in Czech learners of English
Vaňková, Lenka ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
The present study focuses on English collocations and their testing in Czech learners of English. Since the importance of collocations and phraseology as a linguistic discipline has not been recognised until recently, these concepts are introduced from the general point of view. First, the attention is given to the history of phraseology and its underlying principles as well as to the major approaches to it. Second, phraseological units are described from the point of view of their categorisation and of some influential typologies of these units. The main focus of interest is collocations, particularly major approaches to them as well as criteria commonly used to describe and delimit collocations from other types of prefabricated units and their definition and classification. Previous research on collocations in learner English is also outlined. The analytical part (based on Granger's (1998) study) analyzes the results of testing English collocations in Czech learners of English. The main focus is on whether these results confirm or deny the results of Granger's study, as well as on the learners' knowledge of and ability to use collocations, particularly on their (non)attaining the native "ideal."
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Chivalry in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"
Malá Štěpánková, Jana ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
1 Thesis abstract The thesis is concerned with the reflection of chivalry and chivalric culture in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and with the relation of his testimony to the social reality of the late Middle Ages. Chapter 1 introduces the chosen topic in relation to the specific character of the Tales, of the context of the period, and of Chaucer's life. It specifies the aim of the thesis, deals with its limitations, and outlines the criteria and the structure of the analysis. Chapter 2 presents the origin and the development of the knight along with the formation of the code of chivalric virtues and the literary constituent of the phenomenon of chivalry until the end of the fourteenth century and identifies two fundamental chivalric archetypes in the characters of the Knight and the Squire from "The Prologue". Chapter 3 pursues manifestations of chivalry throughout the Tales across genres except romances and analyses their reflection with respect to the narrators of the tales. The analysis first focuses on the chivalrousness of the knightly characters (The Franklin's Tale, The Physician's Tale, The Manciple's Tale, The Monk's Tale, The Clerk's Tale, The Man of Law's Tale, The Merchant's Tale) and then on the signs of the influence of chivalric virtues and culture on the non-knightly characters (The Miller's...
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The Motives of Separation and Solitude in Old English Lyrical Poetry
Klasnová, Lenka ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
This thesis is concerned with four Old English lyrical poems of the so-called elegiac group, i.e. The Wife's Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wanderer and The Seafarer and their shared themes of separation and solitude. After a brief account of the few facts known about the poems, the appropriateness of the elegiac genre imposed upon them by scholarly tradition is addressed in the introduction. The first chapter gives a brief overview of the history of critical opinion on each of the poems. Since their simple unambiguous translation is impossible, given the cryptic nature of the narratives and numerous grammatically, syntactically, semantically or otherwise problematic points, the chapter also attempts the notoriously difficult task of their interpretation. While some solutions to the problematic aspects may be preferred in the course of the interpretation, a variety of potential possibilities is discussed in most cases. The resulting interpretations strive to present each poem as a unified and logical narrative. The second chapter addresses the themes of loneliness, alienation, isolation and separation in each of the four poems, their given reasons, manifestations, progress and the common elegiac imagery used to express them. The mood evoked by specific word meanings and employed rhetorical devices...
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The Tikkanen - Kihlman debate. Prelude. Works - reception - polemics
Dlask, Jan ; Parente Čapková, Viola (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee) ; Gáborová, Margita (referee)
Henrik Tikkanen (1924 - 1984) and Christer Kih1man (bom 1930) are so called Fin1and-Swedish writers: they belong to the Swedish minority in Fin1and and they both write in Swedish. In genera1 they are viewed as authors who describe - and often go into rather intimate detail s - the "Fin1and-Swedish decadent upper c1ass". In the autumn 1975 Tikkanen pub1ished his autobiographica1 text Brandovagen 8 Brando Tel. 35 and Kih1man brought out his novel called Dyre prins. Both of the books are reviewed in the main Fin1and-Swedish newspapers and subsequently they provoke some discussions, whi1st the 1argest po1emics is risen in the beginning of 1976 by the te1evision appearence ofboth writers. This thesis called "The Tikkanen - Kihlman Debate. Prelude. Works - Reception - Polemics" seeks to exp1ain the events of the autumn 1975 and of the fi.rst ha1f of the year 1976, conceming the reception of the both works and the interconnected 1iterary debates. On the methodo10gica11eve1 the thesis hand1es the materia1 thematically by the standard method "adfontes" (supporting too11 - question WHAT), whi1e the interpretation in the first p1ace as a generation revolt is perfonned by means of the theory of literary field, based on so called Pierre Bourdieu's French Socio10gica1 Schoo1 (supporting too12 - question WHY). A starting...
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Attitudes to language in the prescriptive grammars in the Age of Reason
Grosser, David ; Tichý, Ondřej (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
This thesis concerns itself with the formation of the attitudes to language in the course of the standardization of the English language in the eighteenth century. It is the aim of this thesis to show that the rise of the prescriptive grammars was caused by certain ideological presumptions about the nature of language and by certain social processes and that the understanding of the ideological and historical background is crucial for the interpretation of these grammars. The first chapter discusses the proposals for the English academy. It is shown that these proposals presented and propagated the ideas that formed the basis of the prescriptive attitude to language and that they, therefore, represent the essential prelude for the flowering of the prescriptive ideology in the later decades of the eighteenth century. The second chapter deals with the consequences of the effort of the strong rising middle classes for the social selfidentification. It is shown that language played an important role in this process and that the desire of reaching the standard of the upper classes caused an unprecedented demand after the language codification and influenced its shape. In the last chapter, the nature of the norm of the prescriptive grammars is examined and it is argued that it was based on the usage of the upper...
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The language of war in "Sir Gawain and the Green knight" and "Beowulf"
Hajniková, Kristína ; Čermák, Jan (advisor) ; Znojemská, Helena (referee)
It is said that in times of war, the muses are silent. Yet extraordinary poetic voices can be heard from the past if we listen close enough; they tell the tales of glorious victories, woeful defeats, terrible monsters and heroes of old. Two such tales are the poems Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Both poems are separated by an abyss of time, yet there is something in the tone and manner of the yarn that unites the two. It may be the character of the hero, his adventures, his enemies or his ultimate downfall; but the tales are told in a language that has great dignity, capacity for expression and a slow sonority seems to echo the roar of the ancient battlefields. The language of war, then, is the topic of the present work. The ways of characterizing a man as a warrior in Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will be subject to analysis that should reveal the cornerstones of poetic diction in both poems. In order to achieve this, we shall look at the lexical fields that denote 'warrior' in the poems. These lexical items will be subject to analysis from three points of view: (1) First, we shall investigate the structure of the lexical fields denoting 'warrior.' The items will be looked at from a morpho-semantic point of view. The description will contain morphological characterization of the...
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Phonological changes between Old and Middle English (an algorithmic approach)
Marek, Daniel ; Tichý, Ondřej (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
The purpose of this thesis was to create an automatic analyzer of phonetic changes in the historical development of English, namely between Old and Middle English. The analyzer gets an OE and ME form of a word at the input and produces a suggestion of an explanatory sequence of changes connecting these two forms as the output. As sound changes operate mainly on the spoken language, three main subtasks emerge: to create a grapheme-to-phoneme convertor for Old English, the same (although structurally more complicated) for Middle English and a core algorithm that searches for possible sequences that would explain the development of the word between its OE and ME spoken forms. There is a certain regularity in the diachronic phonetic changes, and therefore these can be translated into a set of rules. A general framework is proposed and implemented that works with these rules in a certain formalized fashion that allows their integration within standard algorithms. The form of the rules is largely adopted from regular expressions, with some alterations and additions, the most important being the possibility of using wildcards that are based on phonetic properties. A database of phoneme representations and phonetic properties is taken from Kirshenbaum's 1992 proposal for ASCII representation of IPA symbols. In the...
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