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Utilization of general rhythm metrics for differentiation of Slovak English from Slovak and English
Kaprál, Jakub ; Volín, Jan (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The purpose of the present thesis is to analyze Slovak English from the perspective of speech rhythm in relation to its native (Slovak) and target (English) language. The first part contains theoretical background for the study of language rhythm, history of its research, and describes rhythmically relevant features of English and Slovak phonetic systems. It is concluded by summary of rhythmical differences between the two languages and hypotheses are proposed. The experimental part uses rhythm metrics for determination of phonetic properties of rhythm in Slovak English. It is based on recordings of one English and two Slovak representative radio reporters along with six recordings of Slovak students of English studies. The rhythm metrcis results for Slovak English closely approximate the results for native English but due to inconsistency of the results the question of aplicability of rhythm metrics to L1, let alone L2, remains open. Keywords: Slovak English, speech rhythm, rhythm metrics, prosody, second language acquisition
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Introduction to ELT Methodology
Gráf, Tomáš ; Mothejzíková, Jarmila (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The thesis presents a theoretical framework for a portfolio for the course Teorie a praxe jazykové akvizice pro uèitele angliètiny (didaktická propedeutika). This preparatory course in didactics serves as an introduction to the subject for future teachers of English in secondary schools, whom it should equip with a basic level of understanding of the general principles of learning, language acquisition and language learning. The work presents a course syllabus, and in its individual chapters it describes the theoretical background for each seminar. The themes introduced in the course are: theories of learning and their application to language teaching, language identity, theory and description of first and second language acquisition, learner variables (age, gender,aptitude, intelligence, motivation, affective filter, learning styles, multiple intelligences, learner beliefs, the role of brain and memory in language acquisition, methods of teaching foreign languages, interlanguage, linguistic errors, levels of proficiency, communication and learning strategies, learner autonomy, the theory of a good language learner and teacher. The thesis includes an appendix containing handouts for each seminar and a student evaluation form for the assessment of the quality of the seminar.
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Introduction to ELT Methodology - Learning Languages
Gráf, Tomáš ; Mothejzíková, Jarmila (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The thesis presents a theoretical framework for the preparation of a portfolio for the course Didaktická propedeutika pro studenty angliètiny na FF UK. This preparatory course in didactics should serve as an introduction to the subject for future teachers of English in secondary schools, whom it should equip with a basic level of understanding of the general principles of learning, language acquisition and language learning. The work presents a course syllabus and in its individual chapters it describes the theoretical background for each seminar. The themes introduced in the course are: theories of learning and their application to language teaching, language identity, theory and description of first and second language acquisition, learner variables (age, gender, aptitude, intelligence, motivation, affective filter, learning styles, multiple intelligences, learner beliefs, the role of brain and memory in language acquisition, methods of teaching foreign languages, interlanguage, linguistic errors, levels of proficiency, communication and learning strategies, learner autonomy, the theory of a good language learner and teacher. The thesis includes an appendix containing handouts for each seminar and a student evaluation form for the assessment of the quality of the seminar.
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English translation equivalents of Czech prepositions "s" and "na" (in parallel electronic texts)
Pokorná, Petra ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The aim of this study is to analyze and describe the English translation equivalents of two Czech prepositions 'na' and 's' (including its vocalized form 'se') in texts of contemporary Czech fiction and their English translations. The study is divided into three major parts: a theoretical overview, an analysis and a conclusion. The theoretical survey consists of two parts, in which the syntactic and semantic characteristics of prepositions in general are dealt with and the status of prepositions in Czech and English is compared. The first, syntactic part provides an overview of the syntactic functions of the prepositional phrases. The semantic part describes the treatment of prepositional meanings in Czech and English grammars and focuses on the meanings attributed to 'na' and 's' in Czech grammars and monolingual and bilingual Czech-English dictionaries. The analytical part of the present paper will be preceded by a brief specification of the data on which the analysis was based. The analysis itself is divided into two parts, each of which comprises two subsections. The first analytical part compares the syntactic functions of the Czech prepositional phrases and their English counterparts, the first subsection providing an analysis of the preposition 'na', the other examining the preposition 's/se'. In the...
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Phrasal compounds in fiction and their translation into Czech
Mitlenerová, Silvie ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Tichý, Ondřej (referee)
This diploma thesis analyses issues of translation of phrasal compounds from English to Czech language (in fiction). All examples observed have been chosen from the database of fiction texts that is incorporated in the project InterCorp (v. 7). In particular, the thesis deals with phrasal compounds in premodifying position. The corpus analysis of Czech translation shows that phrasal compounds can be categorized in various groups, and there can also be various approaches to translation. These two sets of categories do not always necessarily overlap. The diploma thesis is based on the categorization of the translations; in each category, several examples are selected and commented upon in more detail. In Conclusion, the findings of these subchapters are summed up and the level of translation work is evaluated in general terms. In the final section, few thoughts about general recommendations for translators are formulated as well - can there be any general recommendation? Or is there a "best approach" for each individual case as it was noticeable throughout the paper? Key words: phrasal compounds, translation, corpus analysis, premodifiers
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A contrastive study of the Czech translation equivalents of the pragmatic markers now and well in electronic parallel texts
Houra, Aleš ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
This thesis presents a contrastive analysis of the English pragmatic markers now and well and their Czech translation equivalents. The overall material is based on 200+12 occurrences that were excerpted from the electronic parallel corpus InterCorp, with all the instances appearing in fictional dialogues. The contrastive study focuses on the role of translation as a means to understand better the nature of the two pragmatic markers. It analyzes specific marker-collocate sequences and the respective Czech translation equivalents. It demonstrates that certain marker-collocate sequences have a tendency to be translated by specific Czech translation equivalents and that the role of other factors, such as position in discourse structure, prosody, and broader context, play in this respect an important role as well. All this and the finding that both now and well share certain Czech translation equivalents add to the multifunctionality of both now and well and prove that a combination of other factors is needed to comprehend the use of the two pragmatic markers in English. The comparison of the Czech translation equivalents in this thesis to the Czech translation equivalents in the Czech-English dictionary Lingea attempted to provide an example of how a contrastive analysis can be useful in Lexicography.
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A comparative study of the Czech lexeme "aby" and its English translations in parallel Czech-English texts
Vašková, Petra ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Tichý, Ondřej (referee)
The present study focuses on functions and English translation counterparts of the Czech lexeme aby. It is a relatively frequent word in the Czech language which is described as a subordinating conjunction expressing purpose, effect, manner, and also as a particle with a number of discourse functions. The current description, however, does not seem complete and this study therefore aims to analyse its use in more detail. Lexicographic and grammatical sources served as a basis for the classification of aby as a conjunction and as a particle. After an analysis of 200 examples it soon became evident that this listing is not complete and the use of aby is more complex than originally expected. The present paper thus treats all the functions of aby and also exemplifies each of them using extracted corpus data. In the study, aby in its conjunction and particle use is firstly treated separately to analyse each of them in more depth. This analysis, consequently, provides basis to point out their common features as well as their differences. The English translational counterparts are another point of interest in the study, in particular, their adequacy, regularity, and lexicalization.
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English non-prepositional counterparts of Czech "v/ve" and "z/ze" prepositional phrases
Čuchalová, Marie ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The present diploma thesis is concerned with English non-prepositional equivalents of the Czech v/ve and z/ze prepositional phrases. This type of equivalent is found in approximately 20% of cases (Klégr et al., 2011). The thesis shows that some of the divergent equivalents are conditioned lexically (different valency of the Czech and English verb), while others, being of systemic nature, are related to typological differences between Czech and English. Among the systemic counterparts are particularly English locative subjects in sentence-initial position correspoding to Czech adverbials, and English premodification by a noun translated into Czech as postmodification by a prepositional phrase. Material for the analytical part was extracted from the "Core" of the parallel corpus InterCorp, consisting of original Czech fiction texts and their English translations. A total of more than 200 divergent counterparts of both Czech prepositional phrases was collected.
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Theory and practice of Czech bilingual specialized dictionaries
Tihelková, Alice ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee) ; Peprník, Jaroslav (referee)
The thesis deals with the theory and practice of bilingual specialized lexicography, with special focus on the production of bilingual specialized dictionaries intended for Czech users. The main objective is to propose an original methodology for the compilation of Czech-English and EnglishCzech LSP dictionaries (with possible application to other foreign languages). The methodology aims at the introduction of the latest trends in pedagogical lexicography, as presented in the leading ESL dictionaries, into specialized lexicography. The thesis is complete with an original lexicographic project illustrating the individual points made. The initial part of the thesis discusses of the main aspects and principles of the discipline of specialized lexicography, clarifying the basic concepts and comparing the state of research in the Western countries with the situation in the Czech Republic. This critical overview is followed by an analysis of the character of Czech bilingual specialized dictionaries based on a sample of 25 recently published dictionaries of a wide variety of subject fields. The main features of these dictionaries are established and their overall quality assessed, resulting in the presentation of a typology of their major shortcomings. The analysis is accompanied by the results of a preliminary...
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Epistemic and root possibility meanings of can and may in written English
Huschová, Petra ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Hornová, Magdalena (referee) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The study is concerned with the English modal auxiliaries CAN and MAY and their morphologically past tense forms COULD and MIGHT.1 It is essentially a small-scale corpus-based investigation into possibility meanings of these modal auxiliaries in contemporary written British English, taking account of stylistic variation. The investigation focuses on assigning appropriate readings to contextualized occurrences of modal auxiliaries and is thus primarily based on discussions of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. The study attempts to present a general account of possibility senses of CAN/COULD and MAY/MIGHT and reviews the issues relating to their use and distribution on the basis of a semantic and quantitative analysis. However, frequency of occurrence is meant to provide merely a supplementary view of the qualitative analysis, focusing on the role of context in interpreting modal meanings. Among the modal-specific questions that the treatise addresses are those concerning modal semantics, syntactic co-occurrence patterns, stylistic variation, and pragmatic inferencing. It is important to note that the study does not attempt to provide an exhaustive and systematic semantic description of CAN/COULD and MAY/MIGHT. Based on interpreting particular contextualized occurrences, it primarily investigates...
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