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Conceptualization of Menstruation in Czech and English Cultural Background
Malečková, Nikola ; Vašků, Kateřina (advisor) ; Šebestová, Denisa (referee)
Menstruation continues to be one the most severe taboos due to its intimate nature and its involving bodily effluvia. This taboo has also been transferred into language and so speakers often have to opt for alternative expressions in order to be able to talk about menstruation covertly without using the most transparent and taboo names such as menstruation or menses. The study of these alternative terms may inform us about the underlying attitudes towards menstruation as a concept. The aim of the present research is thus to uncover and describe the conceptual metaphors which exist in English and Czech and which structure speakers' understanding of the concept of menstruation. The thesis is based on a data set composed of metaphorical expressions which serve as alternative names for menstruation, and which were collected from online discussion forums. The present thesis is based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory defined by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and further developed by Kövecses (2010). The research is primarily qualitative in nature and serves as an exploratory study, describing the menstruation expressions encountered. Based on the collected menstruation expressions the underlying conceptual metaphors existing in the two languages in question were formulated. These were further described with...
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A contrastive description of English and Czech using the methodology of n-gram extraction
Šebestová, Denisa ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Březina, Václav (referee) ; Kopřivová, Marie (referee)
This dissertation examines phraseological patterns in three registers (parliamentary debates, newspaper reporting, children's fiction) in English and Czech. It identifies and analyses recurrent word sequences through n-gram extraction, aiming to characterise the phraseology of each register and compare them cross- linguistically, while observing how the n-gram method can be adapted to accommodate for the typological properties of each language. Czech is particularly challenging in this respect due to its morphological and positional variability. The dissertation comprises three case studies, each focussed on a different register. The first case study explores different n-gram lengths using a small corpus of a specialised register - parliamentary debates, suggesting that for a comprehensive register characterisation, different lengths should be combined. It notes the importance of discourse-structuring patterns and the problem of overlaps between n-grams. In the newspaper study, I extract n-grams containing prepositions - a convenient starting point given their frequency and involvement in text- structuring. N-grams are complemented with collocation analysis, revealing some evaluative prosodies and semantic preferences of patterns and suggesting that the newspaper register is not purely...
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Conceptual Metaphor in Female Stand-Up Comedy
Shumilova, Sofia ; Vašků, Kateřina (advisor) ; Šebestová, Denisa (referee)
This diploma thesis investigates the usage of conceptual metaphor by female stand-up comedians. The theoretical part discusses the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the Blending Theory, theories of humor and the relation between metaphor and humor. It also presents the history and characteristics of the genre of stand-up comedy. The analytical part of the thesis focuses on the most recurring topics in the corpus and attempts to unravel the underlying messages and attitudes the comedians convey with the help of conceptual metaphor. The corpus, which was specifically created for the purpose of this thesis, contains 154 examples, 71 of which are analyzed in depth. The analysis revealed a substantial display of negative sentiments and outlooks across the majority of the examined topics. The thesis provides an insight into the notion of conceptual metaphor and its usage in a creative genre, and hopes to contribute to the greater understanding of its inner workings and potential. keywords: conceptual metaphor, female stand-up, blending, humor theory
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Evaluative language in the idiolect of Donald Trump in the context of the 2020 US presidential election
Ďuriš, Pavel ; Šebestová, Denisa (advisor) ; Tichý, Ondřej (referee)
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...
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Representation of gender in fiction: collocations of selected nouns and adjectives in English
Tvrdíková, Štěpánka ; Šebestová, Denisa (advisor) ; Císlerová, Magdalena (referee)
This bachelor's thesis focuses on the representation of gender in fiction based on an analysis of a sample of collocations of the nouns girl and boy and the adjectives girlish and boyish in English. The thesis attempts to show whether there is a tendency towards a more balanced representation of boys and girls in contemporary British fiction or whether they are represented stereotypically. The theoretical part defines the theoretical framework of collocation and semantic preference. Furthermore, it introduces approaches to the study of language in terms of gender, primarily focusing on the issue of linguistic sexism and the representation of gender in written texts across genres. The empirical part is based on the analysis of data drawn from the British National Corpus's fiction texts. The obtained data will be analysed using the corpus manager Sketch Engine, which allows examining the frequencies and the nature of differences and similarities of the way the selected lemmas are displayed. By means of Sketch Engine, the thesis also uncovers whether the differences and similarities in the representation of selected lemmas' collocations form a pattern with other word forms in different grammatical relations. The analysed data from the British National Corpus' fiction texts will then be divided per...
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The influence of English and Czech on the overuse of the Slovak preposition 'pre' in official discussion
Kobzová, Dorothea ; Šebestová, Denisa (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
This bachelor thesis is aimed at the study of the influence of English and Czech on the overuse of the preposition pre in Slovak language. The theoretical part characterizes prepositions as a whole and their relationship with language contact. It further describes the Slovak prepositions pre and na and their direct dictionary equivalents in Czech and in English, comparing the semantic characteristics of prepositions across these languages. The analytical part is based on a corpus study which consists of 150 samples of the use of pre, including translations from English and Czech as well as uses in original transcripts. The samples are taken from the Europarl subcorpus, which is a part of the InterCorp v13. The analytical part deals with the categorization of the uses and their frequencies compared to the frequency of the non-standard use of pre, observing the influence of the direct language contact during interpretation on the overuse of the preposition pre. This bachelor thesis is trying to contribute to the study of the overuse of the preposition pre as well as the question of this preposition within the Slovak language as well as in the context of language contact. Keywords: prepositions, overuse, corpus study, language contact
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English translation counterparts of the Czech construction "mít + participle"
Staňková, Anna ; Brůhová, Gabriela (advisor) ; Šebestová, Denisa (referee)
The BA thesis focuses on the Czech "mít" + -n/-t participle construction (e. g. "mít uvařeno/zakázáno"), its uses, and their English translation counterparts. English offers more than one equivalent for the Czech construction. This thesis, therefore, aims to demonstrate the variety of the possible counterparts. The construction is a means of expressing diathesis as it is described by Panevová et al. A diathesis uses specific syntactic and semantic structures to convey information, and its subject usually does not carry the agentive semantic role. The verb "mít" in diathesis acquires an auxiliary character. The analysis is based on 100 examples drawn from InterCorp. The instances of the Czech construction are categorized into three main groups: the possessive resultative (with its non-ambiguous and ambiguous variants), resultative localization, and the recipient passive. The thesis aims to identify their English counterparts and describe the prominent semantic and grammatical features of the translations. Keywords: diathesis, "mít", possessive resultative, recipient passive, translation counterpart, semantic role
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Progressive forms of the verb have in present-day spoken British English
Pokorná, Eliška ; Vašků, Kateřina (advisor) ; Šebestová, Denisa (referee)
This bachelor's thesis focuses on the progressive forms of the verb have and their function in present-day spoken British English. The theoretical part deals with the grammatical description of the verb have and of the progressive aspect including their functions and frequency of use. The practical part takes form of a corpus study exploring mainly semantic aspects of the particular instances of use in connection with the grammatical ones. The spoken component of the British National Corpus 2014 version was used to retrieve 100 results, which were analysed with regard to the theoretical part of the thesis. The focus of the analysis is on the dynamic and stative use of the verb have, its semantic function, tense form, time reference, negation, intentional modality, and the links between these aspects. Key words: the verb have, progressive aspect, corpus study, dynamic and stative use, semantic function, tense form, time reference, negation, intentional modality
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The use of phrasal verbs in spoken academic English
Dobeš, Štěpán ; Vašků, Kateřina (advisor) ; Šebestová, Denisa (referee)
The thesis aims to provide new information about phrasal verbs and their use across various registers. The theoretical background part of the thesis describes the structure of the phrasal verb and its different types. The chapter also includes information about the adverbial particle, a vital component in phrasal verbs. In order to be able to see differences in the use of the phrasal verbs, mode and register are chosen as key markers. Material and method chapter describes the query to extract phrasal verbs from a corpus as well as it provides an overview of how the data was processed and structured. The sources this thesis draws from are Spoken British National Corpus 2014 (Spoken BNC2014), British Academic Spoken English corpus (BASE), and most importantly British Academic Written English corpus (BAWE).The analytic part begins with a quantitative research of how frequently the phrasal verbs occur in various registers. Afterwards, the thesis compares the twenty most common phrasal verbs of each corpus based on their relative frequencies and semantic domains. Lastly, several phrasal verbs are chosen for a more detailed semantic analysis.
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English copular be in the progressive: adjective complements, meaning and Czech counterparts
Svobodová, Aneta ; Šaldová, Pavlína (advisor) ; Šebestová, Denisa (referee)
Clauses, where copular be occurs in the progressive, express an occurrence or a certain situation rather than a permanent state. (Matthews, 2014: 144) Each adjective that would occur in combination with such an aspect of be can also occur with its simple form, but not vice versa. Clauses in which the adjective is used with the progressive have narrower meaning. (ibid., 146) This thesis explores the predicative constructions with be in the progressive complemented by an adjective. It examines which adjectives tend to occur in such a construction, how often and by which intensifiers or other adverbials they are modified, and what other elements in the text suggest the construction is used as describing momentary behaviour. An integral part of the thesis describes how these text elements are translated into Czech and which ways does the Czech use to translate the construction as a whole. One hundred examples of the use of the construction in English original fiction and their Czech equivalents were excerpted from the parallel corpus InterCorp. The thesis also describes how often the predicate contains more than one adjective a how it is reflected in Czech. Further it examines which other constituents in the sentence suggest that the construction describes momentary behaviour in a certain situation and...
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