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Experiential and Interpersonal Meanings in Product-Related Texts: Analysis of Online Shopping Websites Targeting Male and Female Customers
Dombajová, Helena ; Pípalová, Renata (advisor) ; Lancová, Klára (referee)
The present diploma thesis investigates meanings in product-related texts found on brands' online shopping websites. The thesis aims to identify the meanings which are communicated in relation to the products offered and additionally, attempt to uncover potential differences in communication with male and female customers. To fulfil these objectives, a specialized corpus was assembled, comprising product-related texts from nine brands grouped around three product types - sport shoes, body lotions along with creams, and luxury watches. The texts were subsequently analysed employing Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) as the analytical framework. Two types of meanings, experiential and selected interpersonal meanings, were analysed, with the former being the focus of the analysis and the latter playing a complementary role. In order to offer functional explanations for observed patterns, the findings were contextualised with brand identity information. Results indicate a close interconnection between the selection of experiential and interpersonal meanings and brand identity characteristics. Furthermore, the study identifies subgenres of the examined product-related texts as well as gender-specific communication strategies related to the presented brand image, the depiction of product's positive...
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Push: Translation and Stylistic Analysis of Selected Passages From the Novel
Hašková, Nikol ; Ženíšek, Jakub (advisor) ; Lancová, Klára (referee)
This bachelor's thesis aims to explore the unconventional register used in Sapphire's novel PUSH. The practical section of the thesis is dedicated to translating the first chapter and the final two paragraphs of the novel from the English language into the Czech language. The theoretical section of the thesis focuses on stylistic analysis of the translation, examining various textual elements such as register, vulgarisms, idiomatic expressions, and place names. The practical section also considers and explains the decisions made during the translation process. The thesis also includes chapters dealing with Sapphire's biography and a brief introduction to translation theory, discussing the theories of Jiří Levý, Dagmar Knittlová, Theodore Savory and Eugene Nida.
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Placeholders in present-day informal spoken English
Kuželková, Nina ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Lancová, Klára (referee)
The aim of the thesis is to describe one of the features of vague language called placeholders, the forms they are represented by, how frequently they occur in informal speech and in what contexts they are most likely to be used. The theoretical background comprises three parts. At first, the relationship between vague language and placeholders is discussed. Thereafter, vague language is defined itself and its features, types and aspects, namely grammatical, semantical, pragmatic and sociolinguistic, are explored in more detail. In the third part, the focus is then directed at placeholders themselves. In the analysis, two main groups of placeholders - what- placeholders and thing-placeholders - are further examined from both the morphologico- syntactical and pragmatic points of view. Furthermore, their frequency and gender-related use is also discussed. All the material analyzed in the thesis has been drawn from the Spoken British National Corpus 2014. KEYWORDS Vague language, placeholder, spoken English corpus, corupus linguistics
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Linguistic representation of female and male characters in the Harry Potter series of novels by J.K. Rowling
Landová, Alexandra ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Lancová, Klára (referee)
This thesis compares the ways female and male characters are represented in the Harry Potter series of novels, exploring how particular linguistic choices can shape gendered discourses. Methodologically, the thesis relies on the approaches of corpus stylistics, working with a corpus of Rowling's Harry Potter novels (using the KonText interface), and employing frequency lists and collocations as starting points of the analysis. By examining the most typical collocations of personal possessive pronouns his and her and noun referring to body parts, as well as 5- grams containing gendered possessive personal pronouns, I look at how male and female characters are typically linguistically represented in the Harry Potter series of novels. The analysis confirms that there is a certain imbalance in the linguistic representation of male and female characters, as has been mentioned in previous studies. Keywords: gender and language, gender in literature, corpus stylistics, Harry Potter
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Perception of Religious and Mythological Lexis among EFL Users
Boško, Martin ; Lancová, Klára (advisor) ; Pípalová, Renata (referee)
This diploma thesis explores the perception of mythological and religious lexis among EFL users with an emphasis on mythology. Firstly, it provides a brief theoretical introduction to the topic, after which the main research part describes and analyses the results of research conducted in several Czech lower and upper secondary schools. This research consisted of the assignment of a specially designed worksheet that aimed, among other things, to map students' knowledge of mythological and religious lexis. Two versions of this worksheet were created based on the level of English of the respondents. At the same time, it focused to a small extent on the respondents' ability to link the information within the given worksheet. The research showed that most respondents had some awareness of mythological lexis, with this awareness becoming less important with higher levels of English. However, it also showed that respondents who rated their own knowledge of mythology highly were more likely to succeed in linguistically based exercises. Furthermore, interlingual transfer played a large role in the ability to list the names of planets in English and indicated a relatively significant lack of knowledge on this topic. Finally, neither age nor English level appeared to affect respondents' ability to link...
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Phrasal compounds in English fiction
Rybínová, Veronika ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Lancová, Klára (referee)
The bachelor thesis deals with quotational/phrasal compounds in fiction. The work marginally describes word formation in contemporary English and gradually profiles itself from the category of compounds to phrasal compounds. They are examined on the basis of 109 examples from English original fiction from the English-Czech subcorpus of the parallel translation corpus InterCorp - version 13. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the structure of phrasal compounds, identify their types and their functions in the given functional style and also explore their translations into the Czech language. Based on the categories described in the theoretical part of the work, the practical part analyses particular attributes of phrasal compounds, which are illustrated by examples contained in the created subcorpus. KEYWORDS Phrasal compounds, quotational compounds, fiction, parallel translation corpus, translation counterparts, word formation
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Perception of English prototypes in Czech and German mono-lingual speakers
Kučerová, Alžběta ; Lancová, Klára (advisor) ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (referee)
[The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and describe how semantic prototypes are transferred and perceived from L1 Czech and L1 German participants into their L2 English. This thesis attempts to pinpoint and describe whether there are differences in the perception of the prototypes in the two monolingual groups, with the main focus on typicality judgement, grammatical gender and prepositional prototypes. The main assumed source of differences is considered to be the said L1 language background. A questionnaire was created for both Czech and German participants with seven tasks testing the perception of prototypes in their L2 English and to see whether a L1 to L2 negative language transfer takes place. The analysis shows that in the perception of prototypes within typicality judgement exercises, the two tested L1 groups do not differ largely and that the size of one's specialized vocabulary and the fact, that English is their L2, not L1, seems to play a role. Nonetheless, at the scale of this research, it seems plausible to say that prepositional and grammatical gender prototypes are transferred into the participants' L2. More in-depth research on the topic is needed; however, to confirm or reject these findings.]
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