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Nominal and adjectival modification in English and the Czech equivalents
Kančevová, Silvia ; Vašků, Kateřina (advisor) ; Sudková, Marcela (referee)
This bachelor thesis studies differences between adjectival and nominal modification in English. It aims to explore if the relationship between the head and the modifier is different when the modifier is an adjective or when it is a noun. The translation to Czech language is supposed to be helpful in this matter, since Czech is not able to use a means of partial conversion it is in English. The thesis analyses 20 pairs of morphologically related nouns and adjectives functioning as premodifiers. These pairs were excerpted from the parallel corpus InterCorp being accessible through the Czech National Corpus website. The sample consisted of 10 entries from each pair and these 200 occurrences were analyzed in empirical part of the work. Theoretical part deals with the function and the form of noun phrase premodificators and focuses on the semantic relationship between modifiers and the head. Analysis should prove if there is a relationship between the forms of premodification and whether it is possible to explain this relationship semantically. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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English modals "may" and "might" and their Czech translation equivalents
Čuchalová, Marie ; Šaldová, Pavlína (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
This BA thesis is concerned with the English modals may and might and their Czech translation counterparts. The theoretical section will briefly introduce the category of modality and its two basic subtypes: deontic and epistemic. It will also provide an overview of the formal features and meanings of the two modals. Apart from that, it will focus on the mutual relationship between the two modal verbs. Furthermore, it will touch upon the situation in Czech. The empirical part will present an analysis of 100 authentic Czech translation equivalents of may and might. The material will be drawn from the parallel corpus InterCorp, specifically from prose and drama. The main objective of this analysis is to examine the proportion of the Czech means of expressing the meanings of may and might (modal verbs, modal particles etc.)
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A corpus-based analysis of a synonym set: suppose - assume - presume
Teuchnerová, Michaela ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
The thesis deals with study of synonyms and the possible ways distinguishing between them on the basis of data from The British National Corpus. Firstly, theoretical part defines the term semantic relations and meaning and then focuses on synonymy. Different approaches to synonymy are presented and there is also a list of types of synonymy according to each approach. This part is the base for the theoretical part as it introduces the main idea - the meaning of the word in context. The practical part studies the synonymous set of verbs suppose - assume - presume. We used the material from The British National Corpus and the program Word Net which also uses data from BNC. This part focuses on aspects in which these synonyms may differ. It deals with frequency, grammatical features and collocations (subject or object). The conclusion of this paper sums up the results from the research and thus offers us more concrete knowledge of using these synonyms.
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Some aspects of hip hop nation language (HHNL) from a linguistic point of view
Mataruga, Jana ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
This thesis presents a selective survey of the specifics of the language of the hip hop culture in the United States of America, which is closely connected with African-American English. Theoretical part is an introduction to hip hop culture, its history, language it uses; studies that deal with the language of hip-hop (especially sociolinguistics) are presented , as well as modes of discourse and the association with African-American English. Afterwards artists are whose lyrics are used for the research are introduced. Practical part of the thesis then concentrates on describing the differences between hip hop nation language and standard American English in terms of lexical and grammatical features. Keywords: HHNL - hip hop nation language, lexical differences, grammatical differences, sociolinguistics, modes of discourse, SAE - standard American English
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Keywords in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels
Hošek, Karolina ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
Keyword analysis is a method used in corpus linguistics, in which keywords are generated automatically from the text against the background of a reference corpus serve as the starting point of the analysis of the text. In this thesis, keywords are retrieved from a literary text and analyzed, with a focus on their function as style markers. The theoretical part of this work centers around the description of corpus stylistics, the role of keywords in corpus stylistics and previous findings in the field by other researchers, including linguistic analyses of literary texts. This chapter is complemented by a methodological part which describes the software used in the research and its individual tools. The keyword analysis method is tested by comparing the seven novels of the Harry Potter series to a reference corpus - a subcorpus of the British National Corpus comprising fiction for children and teenage readers. The first one hundred keywords generated using the concordance software AntConc are further divided into subgroups of grammatical and stylistic words, and lexical words, which are listed together with proper nouns. The analyzed keywords illustrate the ways in which the explored text differs from comparable works of children's literature in both lexis and grammar. The concluding part evaluates...
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English conditional conjunctions "unless" and "if (not)" and their Czech counterparts
Kuthanová, Magdalena ; Brůhová, Gabriela (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
The present thesis analyzes the English conditional clauses introduced by unless and if (not) conjunctions and their Czech counterparts. However the two conjunctions might seem the same, their meaning and use widely differs: while unless combines condition with exception (its meaning could be interpreted as 'except if') and thus introduces clauses expressing the only condition that prevents the realization of the matrix clause, if (not)-clauses express only one of several such conditions. The limitation of meaning of unless is reflected in its limited frequency in English texts and its limited possibilities as to positions and semantic roles. The thesis consists of two parts. The theoretical part presents the concept of English conditional constructions from various aspects: their syntactic and semantic functions, and most importantly the conjunction unless and its difference from the negative if. The empirical part provides linguistic classification of 120 excerpted examples (60 if (not) and 60 unless conditional clauses) with their corresponding Czech equivalents; the examples are excerpted from Intercorp, a multilingual parallel translation corpus, provided by Charles University. All the conditions are first classified according to their syntactic functions (adjuncts vs. disjuncts) and semantic...
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English present perfect in translation from Czech
Kuznetsova, Anna ; Šaldová, Pavlína (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
This BA thesis deals with the tense which has no direct counterpart in the Czech language, i.e. the present perfect tense. There is only one past tense in Czech in contrast to the three in English: perfect, preterite, pluperfect (simple and progressive forms). Those tenses differ in the time zone they refer to. It is also important to mention that the temporal meaning of a verb can be influenced by context, e.g. presence of an adverbial. The thesis summarizes the theoretical background of the present perfect and the present perfect progressive. In the analytical part 137 authentic examples excerpted with the ParaConc software are sorted according to the meaning of the present perfect and consequently analysed according to their morphological structure, semantics and pragmatics (comparing the Czech sources and the English translations). The conditions which lead to the use of the perfect tense when translated from Czech are then deduced.
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Lexical gaps in Czech as compared with English: their identification and characterization
Kolman, Martin ; Klégr, Aleš (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
Lexical Gaps Abstract in English The general assumption among most language users is that every single concept in our world can be labeled by a proper lexical item, i.e. there is a name for all of the physical or abstract entities we live with and situations we experience. It has been suggested by several studies, and we will concentrate on these, that there are usually several conceptual structures in the studied languages which are in fact not lexicalized. This linguistic phenomenon is called a lexical gap, and there is more than one type of lexical gap observable in languages. Recent studies of the occurrence of a lexical gap show various approaches to the subject with various results. The study of lexical gaps can be approached from the point of view of lexical fields, as suggested by Alan Cruse and Adrienne Lehrer among others. In this approach different fields: taxonomies, hierarchies, clusters, grids, linear structures and matrixes help to organize the lexicon into conceptual structures where the missing structural part is then best observable and studied with relation to the other units in the field. Other approaches, Bentivogli and Pianta for example, favour contrastive lexicological studies where a lexical gap is identified as a missing translational equivalent in a target language to a lexical...
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Comparative aspects of TEFL in Czech and Australian MA theses: Charles University versus The University of Queensland
Braunová, Vendula ; Mothejzíková, Jarmila (advisor) ; Vašků, Kateřina (referee)
This study attempts to identify learning opportunities at the Department of English Language and ELT Methodology at Charles University in Prague via a comparison with an Australian institution, The University of Queensland located in Brisbane. The secondary objective of the study is to further thesis writing culture at the Department at CU by cataloging and auditing past TEFL theses. Thus, future students could more easily and efficiently identify new areas for research and benefit from the foundations laid by previous students. The first half of this thesis provides a review of previous works conducted in the field of the history of English linguistics, with a special focus on ELT Methodology at CU. Thus, a list of Prague TEFL theses submitted between 1946-2008 follows. A similar list is created for UQ TEFL theses between 1994-2009 on the basis of research at UQ that was carried out in 2009-2010. This results in a comparison of TEFL theses topics from both universities' intersection 1994-2008. This information is then linked to establishment of areas of strength or improvement at CU. In phase two of this study, MA theses writing guidelines released by CU and UQ are compared. These guidelines are characterised into five categories, i.e. flexibility, structure, academic integrity, conformity, and...
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Kant's Categorical Imperativ and its Critique by Nineteenth Century Philosophers
Vašků, Kateřina ; Blažková, Miloslava (advisor) ; Hogenová, Anna (referee)
Diploma thesis "Kant's Categorical Imperative and Its Critique by Nineteenth Century Philosophers" deals with a question of Kant's fundamental principle known as the Categorical Imperative or Moral Law. The aim of this work is at first to discuss two other moral principles because of their great impact on Kant seeking the moral principle. These are Hume's moral code called Moral sense and Rousseau' moral views relating to the freedom of individuals. Secondly, to find out how both moral theories did inspire Immanuel Kant. It is necessary to explain strengths of Kant's Formula of the Categorical Imperative especially to emphasise its objectivity and universality. Then the purpose is to show Kant's influence on moral thinking in the nineteenth century. It is necessary to mention philosophers such as Johan Gottlieb Fichte and Bernard Bolzano who focused on critique of the Categorical Imperative.
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