|
|
English back-formation in the 20th and the early 21st century
Stašková, Naděžda ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Kavka, Tomáš (referee) ; Pípalová, Renata (referee)
(Naděžda Stašková) The subject of the present study is a description and analysis of English back- formation in the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. The work mainly focuses on the last part of the given period and aims at highlighting the most typical features of this morphological process today, resulting from its development over the whole century. Based on the analysis of the contemporary situation and on the results of the research of neologisms involved in the process of back-formation, prevailing tendencies for the nearest future have been drawn and possible subjects for further research have been suggested. Investigation of an overall sample of 768 back-formed units has resulted in the following conclusions: Productivity of back-formation remains on the same level as it was in the first half of the 20th century. The most productive process is formation of verbs from action nouns, which has grown significantly. Back-formation of verbs from agent nouns has decreased, formation of verbs from adjectives almost disappeared. Adjectives can be seen as a minor source of back- formed nouns, probably decreasing in productivity. There is a growth in involvement of compounds in this process. The most frequent subtracted suffixes are -ing, -ion/-ation and -er, all of them being involved in the...
|
|
|
Lexical coselections in non-native speaker English text
Felcmanová, Andrea ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor)
The research reported in this thesis explores the degree of authenticity of the formulaic language used by NNSs and the extent to which a learner's L1 interferes in the production of different types of multi-word units, namely non-idiomatic recurrent three and four-word combinations (lexical bundles), phrasal and prepositional verbs and collocation. Drawing on Granger's Contrastive Interlanguage analysis (CIA 1996), the investigation is conducted on two different learner sample corpora and subsequently contrasted with a native sample corpus. The study aims to prove that multi-word units pose a challenge for learners for several reasons. In general terms, learners are assumed to operate predominantly on what Sinclair calls the open-choice principle, that is to say their production will be less idiomatic than that of native speakers'. This assumption is independently tested on different types of phraseological combinations. As regards non-idiomatic recurrent word combinations, learners are expected to be more repetitive in their three- and four-word combinations and use less creativity in their writing. Concerning the phrasal verbs, it is highly likely to observe a small number of phrasal verbs in the non-native writing whereas prepositional verbs are considered problematic for learners due to the...
|
|
|
Complex words of the type 'absobloominlutely'
Vojtěch, Albert ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
iv Abstract The MA thesis examines the word-formation potential of expletive insertion with simple and complex words in English. It represents a linguistic phenomenon that is commonly used by native speakers, shows a certain degree of regularity and has gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, social media and the movie industry. The theoretical part introduces the previous studies on the phenomenon and presents the basic features of the phenomenon, namely the categorization of inserts and the classification of their positions in terms of the structure of the base as outlined by McMillan (1980). The extraction of the sample is described in the methodology section. The empirical part examines the phenomenon's main principles of use governed by prosody and morphology and illustrates the properties and both regularities and irregularities that the process exhibits (predictable insert position, poly-syllabicity of the base, its unchanged meaning and syntactic category, alternative categories of input bases and morphematic discontinuity of bases). The analysis comprises of two main parts: the study of the inserted bases (word-class, type of base, simple vs. complex, and a number of syllables) and the study of the expletive insert (representation of individual inserts and their position relative to stress...
|
|
|
Reference patterns of "this" and corresponding Czech equivalents
Čížková, Markéta ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
This MA thesis is first of all concerned with the distribution of different types of reference of the English demonstrative pronoun this. Reference can be divided into exophoric (personal, spatial, temporal, discourse, social, empathetic, and emotional deixis), endophoric (anaphora and cataphora), and non-phoric reference (introductory and recognitional). The second aim of this thesis is to study the way by which the individual occurrences of the pronoun this with different reference are translated into the Czech language. The sample that was studied consisted of 219 occurrences of this collected from three British plays: The Caretaker (1960) by Harold Pinter, The Public Eye (1962) by Peter Shaffer, and The Real Inspector Hound (1968) by Tom Stoppard. The Czech translations of these plays were used for the second part of the research. The analysis of the plays showed that the most frequent type of reference of this is exophoric deictic reference, more precisely its subtype spatial deixis. The outcome of the translational analysis was the finding that this is most frequently translated by the Czech demonstrative pronoun ten. Keywords: demonstrative pronoun this, reference distribution, exophora, deixis, endophora, non-phoric reference, Czech translation equivalents
|
|
|
Lexical idioms in English
Vašků, Kateřina ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Čermák, František (referee) ; Bozděchová, Ivana (referee)
According to the standard definition phraseology deals with multi-word lexical units, i.e. word combinations. Voices claiming that even complex words composed of two or more meaningful units may qualify for the status of (lexical) phrasemes/idioms, especially when their meaning is non- compositional, are still very isolated, in spite of the fact that linguistic literature is teeming with references to idiomatic compounds and derivatives (Chap. 3). In fact, the only systematic treatment of lexical idioms seems to be that offered by Čermák (2007), who focuses primarily on lexical idioms in Czech. The aim of the thesis is therefore to explore the situation in English and attempt to develop a useful definition of, and especially criteria for, distinguishing lexical idioms from other complex lexemes and provide an outline of the main types of lexical idioms obtaining in English. After an introduction (Chap. 1) and the presentation of state-of-the-art approaches to phraseology and the relevant information about phraseological units and their features (Chap. 2), the thesis reviews Čermák's theory of lexical idioms which inspired their quantitative study in Czech (Chap. 4). The core part is the analysis of two samples. The first one, gathered from the BNC, includes a random selection of 1000 single-word...
|
|
|
General extenders in English and in Czech
Novotný, Tomáš ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
Pervasive in spontaneous informal conversation, general extenders (GEs) are vague multiword expressions (e.g. or something (like that), and stuff (like that) vs. nebo něco (takovýho), a tak(ový věci)) that have been shown to fulfil a number of communicative functions, ranging from propositional to expressive. But while the English extenders have received a lot of meticulous attention in nearly four decades of research, the corresponding Czech constructions remain largely overlooked (perhaps with the exception of Tárnyiková 2009 and Novotný & Malá 2018). The current study aims to (1) present a wide range of English and Czech GE forms (collected using the method of collocational frames (Aijmer 2015) and then categorised according to structural similarities, thus suggesting possible GE patterns); and (2) examine their communicative functions in contemporary English and Czech as represented in comparable corpora of informal spoken discourse (Spoken BNC2014 and ORAL2013, respectively). Relying extensively on functional frameworks introduced in previous research (e.g. Overstreet 1999, 2014), this study confirms what has been known about English GEs and investigates the degree of applicability to the respective Czech constructions. A close qualitative analysis of some of the collected GE forms (in total,...
|
|
|
Textual Patterns and Idiolect: a Corpus-Assisted Study of Individual Textual Profiles of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
Kvítková, Alena ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The present master thesis analyses the idiolects of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump against the background of the speeches of other candidates for the post of President of the United States in 2016. Using the 'corpus-assisted discourse analysis' (Partington et al., 2013), the thesis strives to uncover words, phrases and patterns that distinguish the speech of the two candidates in a political discourse from other presidential candidates. First, the thesis examines the keywords, collocations, negative keywords and clusters of the respective target corpora. While the main focal points of the study are lexical and grammatical indicators of style, proper nouns and lexical indicators of content ('aboutness keywords') are subjects to analysis as well. In the next step the results of the respective analyses are compared, i.e. the differences between the speeches of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are discussed.
|
|
|
The representation of cultures in English textbooks
Rybková, Veronika ; Gráf, Tomáš (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The thesis examines the representation of cultures in ELT textbooks in order to reveal whether the textbooks may serve as tools of developing intercultural communicative competence (ICC). The specific aim of the thesis is to assess the extent to which different cultures appear in the textbooks' cultural content. It also aims at examining the manner in which specific cultures are represented. Three textbooks have been selected for the study and the visuals and reading components of units 1-10 of each have been analysed. The method of extracting and counting the cultural references is used to carry out a cultural breadth analysis. In the analysis of the manner of cultural representation, specific cultures are examined in the textbooks which quantitatively favour them. The results show that the two textbooks that have been evaluated as possible ICC- developing tools exhibit diversity both in the extent of different cultures they include and also in the varying manner in which the cultures are represented and which often shows cultures in juxtaposition. Methodological choices made in writing the thesis may inspire further research of cultural content of ICC-supportive textbooks. The thesis also promotes the importance of a critical approach to textbooks as materials of considerable educational value.
|
|
|
Intensifiers of adjectives in present-day spoken British English
Švedová, Zuzana ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The objective of the present thesis is to provide an overview of the usage of adjectival intensifiers in present-day spoken British English. For this purpose the corpus Spoken BNC 2014 was selected as the most suitable studying material. In the theoretical part of the thesis the available information on intensifiers is summarised, both from grammar books and more recent studies. The variation in the usage of intensifiers with respect to different socio-linguistic variables is described and finally, some more detailed characteristics of a few specific intensifiers are mentioned. The practical section of the thesis follows a similar structure to that of the theoretical part. It first includes a list of the 105 most frequently used intensifiers of adjectives in the Spoken BNC 2014. Furthermore, two specific intensifiers, namely quite and pretty, were selected for closer analysis and comparison. The analysed features of the intensifiers are their syntactic environment, collocational patterns and socio-linguistic characteristics of the speakers. key words: intensification, intensifiers of adjectives, spoken British English, syntactic environment, semantic preferences, socio-linguistic characteristics
|
|
|
Politeness strategies in foreign students' written requests
Hermanová, Andrea ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
i Abstract The MA thesis examines the politeness strategies which native speakers and non-native speakers of English employ in written English requests addressed to the faculty. The requests represent by nature the category of Face threatening acts and require a certain level of politeness. The account of politeness is based on the Face management theoretical framework by Brown and Levinson (1987). The empirical part compares on-record (positive and negative) and o↵-record politeness strategies and the level of directness (Blum-Kulka, 1987) comprised in two hundred email messages sent by students of British and Irish, German, and French nationality. The analysis discovered that the nationality/native language is to some extent a determinative feature in the choice of politeness strategies, while the gender of the student influences the level of directness of the request. The Appendix contains the full sample of examined emails. Keywords politeness theory, face management, request, on- record politeness (negative and positive), o↵-record politeness, directness of request
|
guest ::
