Brno Studies in English最新文献

{"title":"Interactive repair among English as a lingua franca speakers in academic settings","authors":"Magdalena Hanusková","doi":"10.5817/bse2019-2-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/bse2019-2-2","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents the results of research which studies the use of English as a lingua franca in spoken academic discourse interactions, providing a deeper insight into the interactional practices utilized in the process of achieving the communicative purpose(s) of international university seminars. Drawing on audio-recorded data collected from English-taught seminars at the University of Ostrava and using conversation analytic procedures, the research explores the character and functions of interactive repair and its role in increasing mutual understanding and preventing communication breakdown in lingua franca academic talk. The article discusses strategies of providing language support and/or feedback to one’s communicative partners in negotiating both meaning and form of talk, and offers findings which portray ELF speakers as competent communicators adaptable to different sociopragmatic contexts.","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the grammaticalization of as well as in the history of English","authors":"Miriam Criado-Peña","doi":"10.5817/bse2019-1-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/bse2019-1-1","url":null,"abstract":"The English language as it is known today has undergone a number of developments that have changed it throughout time. Among them, grammaticalization stands out because of its relevance in the progress of the language, as it consists in the process by which a lexical word having full meaning becomes a grammatical item. The present paper analyses the process of grammaticalization of the quasi-coordinator as well as in order to ascertain its origin and describe its developmental path, identify the linguistic causes that motivated the change, propose a functional taxonomy of the construction, and evaluate the influence of sociolinguistic factors in the development and standardization of the quasi-coordinator.","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The semantic field of the English modal auxiliary can interacting with the grammatical aspect of the main verb in Contemporary American English","authors":"Leszek Szymański","doi":"10.5817/BSE2019-1-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2019-1-5","url":null,"abstract":"Existing research recognizes the important role aspect plays in the interpretation of modal readings. This paper presents an empirical approach to this area of study, based on corpus material. The investigation described here is part of the author’s large-scale corpus research into modality-aspect interfaces. It traces patterns of interaction as exhibited in the Kratzerian semantic field of the English modal auxiliary can and the grammatical aspects which follow it within matrix predicates. The analyzed language samples were extracted from The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The study demonstrates patterns of interaction between the modal readings of can and the grammatical aspectual forms of the main verb. Moreover, it also shows that when modality concerns past events expressed through the perfect aspect, it tends to take epistemic conversational backgrounds. In addition to this, this research has also revealed the interaction of modality with subjectival negation.","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Audience involvement in academic book review articles : an English and Czech comparative study","authors":"Jana Kozubíková Šandová","doi":"10.5817/bse2019-2-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/bse2019-2-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Shakespeare's Bohemia : terror and toleration in early modern Europe","authors":"Alfred Thomas","doi":"10.5817/bse2019-1-12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/bse2019-1-12","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Thematic structure vs. information structure in the analysis of translation shifts","authors":"Maciej Reda","doi":"10.5817/bse2019-2-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/bse2019-2-7","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to show that the comparison of the source and target text’s information structure should be a prerequisite of and take priority over the analysis of their thematic structure (in the Hallidayan sense). Thus, it is argued that in such analysis the original’s distribution of communicative dynamism is a more important consideration that its linear arrangement. The article offers a critical analysis of Munday (1998) and contrasts his approach with the one based on the model developed by the Brno branch of the Prague School. It is also pointed out that the conflict between keeping the originalʼs word order and the distribution of communicative dynamism may often be resolved by means of the strategies for avoiding linear dislocation described by Baker (1992: 167–172). The paper also establishes a hierarchy of priorities that the translator should follow to keep the STʼs information structure.","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71336186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Information structure in parallel texts : a Czech-English view","authors":"L. Dušková","doi":"10.5817/bse2019-2-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/bse2019-2-1","url":null,"abstract":"The article is a contrastive study of information structure in Czech originals and their English translations. It focuses on problems arising from a different hierarchy of the word order principles in the two languages, the primary word order principle being functional sentence perspective (FSP) in Czech, in contrast to the primary grammatical function of word order in English. Three aspects are considered: linear ordering, FSP structure, and within the latter the basic distribution of communicative dynamism (CD). The study pursues two aims: to find out which configurations of linear ordering and FSP structure present translation problems, and to compare the results with the findings obtained in the opposite English-Czech direction. The research material comprising 300 examples, drawn equally from three novels, was excerpted from parallel InterCorp texts manually as the contextual and the semantic FSP factors, together with the varying realization forms of the carriers of the FSP functions, flout corpus search through query forms. The results corroborate the general validity of the principle of end focus and present some novel findings from the contrastive viewpoint.","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"English placeholders as manifestations of vague language : their role in social interaction","authors":"Jarmila Tárnyiková","doi":"10.5817/bse2019-2-10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/bse2019-2-10","url":null,"abstract":"The present paper is a sketch of a larger project focusing on overt manifestations of vague language (as understood and classified by Channell 1994) and on communicative strategies underlying both intentional and unintentional vagueness in our everyday encounters. Vagueness is not approached here as a deviation from expected precision and clarity but as a relevant contribution to naturalness and the informal tenor of our everyday talks. The focus is on relatively peripheral, yet communicatively relevant means of vague language, i.e. placeholders (PHs), with restriction to Noun PHs, such as Mr Thingy, John Whatsisname, whatchamacallit or whatsit, their forms, functions and distribution in British and American English, as emergent from Mark Davies’ BYU suite corpora. Within the theoretical framework of a functional and systemic grammar, the PHs are approached here as systemic parts of vague language network, as pro-forms referring to yet-to-be-specified referents, delayed due to word-formulating difficulties, which are caused by temporarily forgotten, difficult-to-pronounce, or deliberately withhold naming units. In the analytical part, two types of relations will be activated to taxonomize the results: the paradigmatic relation of alternations (Thingy/Whatsisname/So and so), and the syntagmatic relation of cooccurrence. These will be used to project the PHs into the surrounding contexts in order to verify the following research tasks: Do the PHs represent a close set or are they open to innovations? Are the corpus data sufficient for grasping the spectrum of strategies underlying PHs use? Are there significant differences between the British and American usage? Unlike studies primarily focusing on the “therapeutic” effect of PHs (i.e. a self-repair), this paper, taking into consideration contextual settings of the analyzed corpus data, enriches the existing taxonomies by no less important “diplomatic” use of PHs, in which the PHs are used as a “bluff”, a diplomatic withdrawal of the referent. Having quantified and qualified the two basic uses of PHs, i.e. therapeutic and diplomatic, the author identifies five communicative strategies prototypically associated with the use of PHs in general and nominal PHs in particular. All are associated with Goff202 JARMILA TÁRNYIKOVÁ man’s (1955) notion of facework and its elaboration in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Theory and hence their presence in discourse is pragmatically motivated. 1","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Polyphonic resonances of fairy tales and myths : The Magic Toyshop and Life Before Man","authors":"Katarína Labudová","doi":"10.5817/BSE2019-1-10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2019-1-10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nostalgia, Kitsch and the Great Recession in Margaret Atwood's The Heart Goes Last and Westworld (Season 1)","authors":"Ewa A. Kowal","doi":"10.5817/BSE2019-1-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2019-1-9","url":null,"abstract":"The paper is a comparative study of Margaret Atwood’s 2015 dystopian novel The Heart Goes Last and the 2016 HBO science-fiction TV series Westworld (Season 1) created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Drawing upon Susan Faludi’s The Terror Dream and Marita Sturken’s Tourists of History, the paper focuses on the American frontier myth, and the concepts of nostalgia and kitsch (in particular, Sturken’s symbol of the snow globe) to analyse both works as cultural reactions to the recent Great Recession. While both analysed works can be said to reflect an anxiety about the growing class gap and express resentment against the rich, they respond differently to the popular demand for comfort in times of crisis. While Westworld uplifts with a vicarious experience of the underdog’s emancipation, Atwood’s satire ironically withholds a happy ending, providing readers with a lesson and a challenge instead.","PeriodicalId":35227,"journal":{"name":"Brno Studies in English","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71335752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}