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Theories in Practice

Theories in Practice Proceedings of the First International Conference on English and American Studies September 9, 2009 Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic

Edited by Roman Trušník and Katarína Nemčoková

Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlíně 2010

Organizing Commiee:

Anežka Lengálová (air) Hana Čeová Katarína Nemčoková Roman Trušník

Reviewers:

Gregory Jason Bell Ema Jelínková Gabriela Miššíková Ludmila Veselovská

Proofreading:

Gregory Jason Bell

First Edition Arrangement copyright © Roman Trušník, Katarína Nemčoková, 2010. Preface copyright © Roman Trušník, Katarína Nemčoková, 2010. Papers copyright © Blanka Babiá, Ľubica Brenkusová, Šárka Bubíková, Martin Djovčoš, Lenka Drábková, Róbert Gáfrik, Alica Harajová, Mária Hardošová, Eva hom*olová, Ladislav Chaloupský, Martina Jarkovská, Jana Javorčíková, Ema Jelínková, Petra Jesenská, Renata Kameniá, Zuzana Kozáčiková, Jana Kozubíková Šandová, Mark W. Leno, Gabriela Lojová, Josef Nevařil, Gabriela Miššíková, Katarína Nemčoková, Martin Němec, Adriana Pčolinská, Emília Prekopová, Kateřina Řepová, Roman Trušník, Ludmila Veselovská, Gabriela Zapletalová, 2010. All rights revert to the authors upon publication. Published by Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Cze Republic. ISBN 978-80-7318-823-8 (print) ISBN 978-80-7318-914-3 (CD)

Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Roman Trušník and Katarína Nemčoková

Linguistics Politeness Strategies in Mass Media Communication: A Comparative Analysis of Slovak and American Talk Shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Gabriela Miššíková A Structural Approa to the Analysis of the Possessive Idiom have got . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Ludmila Veselovská Subtitling for Home and Abroad: How Discourse Markers Calibrate the Shiing Relationships Between Film and its Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Mark W. Leno Military Language and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Ladislav Chaloupský Collocations and eir Practical Usage in Business English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Lenka Drábková Syntactic Analysis of English Business Leers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Mária Hardošová Positions of –ingly Adverbials Functioning as Manner Adjuncts and their Role in FSP: Contrastive Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Martina Jarkovská e Non-observance of Grice’s Maxims in Political Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Jana Kozubíková Šandová Non-standard Language in Ads Targeting Women. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Katarína Nemčoková

Neologisms of Foreign Origin in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Petra Jesenská Is the Pope a Catholic? Translation of Affirmative Statements from English into Cze in Light of Equivalence eory and Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Martin Němec Chesterman’s Translation Strategies in Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Zuzana Kozáčiková On Right and Wrong Uses of Translation eory: A Case Study and Implications for Resear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Renata Kameniá Sharpening Translating/Interpreting Skills rough the Application of Psyological Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Gabriela Lojová Translator as an Important Part of the Intercultural Communication Process . . . . . . . . 145 Martin Djovčoš Effective Writing: Communication Strategies in Academic Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Gabriela Zapletalová

Literature and Cultural Studies Literary eory and Reading World Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism . . . . . . . 163 Róbert Gáfrik Ethnicity, Individuality and Peer Pressure in Meera Syal’s Anita and Me . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Šárka Bubíková How to Use a Bookworm: Miael Cart’s My Father’s Scar as a Crossover Novel . . . . 177 Roman Trušník “You are safe from me”: Satirical Targets in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Ema Jelínková

Cultural Approa Applied to the Analysis of Donna Tar’s e Lile Friend . . . . . . . 187 Ľubica Brenkusová “Lessening Englishness”: Traditional Values at the Beginning of a New Millenium . . . 195 Jana Javorčíková

ELT Methodology Bringing English as an International Language into the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Kateřina Řepová Development of Communication Strategies in Communicative Language Teaing . . 215 Adriana Pčolinská Collocation Errors in the Wrien Part of Slovak Sool-leaving Exams . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Emília Prekopová Students’ Errors in Word Formation Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Blanka Babiá and Josef Nevařil Motivating Young Learners in Acquiring English through Songs, Poems, Drama and Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Eva hom*olová Intercultural Aspects of Teaing Foreign Language Realia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Alica Harajová

Preface Roman Trušník and Katarína Nemčoková e present volume contains selected papers from eories in Practice: e First International Conference on English and American Studies, whi took place on September 9th, 2009, at the Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Cze Republic. Our conference was primarily an aempt to open an international dialogue among solars from the Cze Republic and Slovakia. In this respect, we made use of the geographical proximity of the city of Zlín to the Slovak border. is intent indeed proved fruitful, as about half of the participants were from ea country. Furthermore, we were also happy to welcome several participants from other countries. Beginnings are never easy; they bring allenge and excitement at the same time. In our aempt to establish a new tradition, this year we wanted to art what resear is currently being carried out at Cze and Slovak universities. As Departments of English and American Studies in the two countries usually focus on three areas of resear (linguistics in the broadest sense of the word, literature and culture of the English speaking world, and the methodology of teaing English), we invited contributions in all three subfields. e conference was divided into three corresponding parts as are the proceedings. e bearing wall of the conference was its broadly formulated theme, the relationship between theories and practice. e range of ideas it covered transformed it into more or less a leitmotif of our debates. Yet, in the lively discussions held both in and outside of the conference rooms we found firm ground for professional dialogue. is seems to be vital not only between the two countries, but also among generations of solars. Renowned experts in the field provided feedba and advice to younger colleagues, and solars at the beginning of their careers offered indispensable new insights and perspectives. When oosing contributions for the first volume of the planned series, we decided, within the framework of our standards of quality, to be as inclusive as possible. As a result, we have assembled quite a representative volume monitoring current themes and trends in resear in the Cze Republic and Slovakia. Yet, in this regard, we as editors had to cope with the relationship between theory and practice. In theory, it is desirable for bibliographical references in a volume to reflect a single norm; in practice, bringing together three sub-fields constitutes a allenge from the formal point of view. e Chicago Manual of Style came to our aid with its two systems of references that respect the common practice in the respective fields: the papers on linguistics and ELT methodology thus use the author-date system, while papers on literature and cultural studies use footnotes. Our determination to call this event a tradition has solid roots. Encouraged by the success of the first conference, preparations for the second year are already under way. We are looking forward to a continuation of the discussions we started in 2009. For the ones we already had, our most sincere thanks go to all the participants who made

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the conference and the present volume possible. Our sincere thanks are also due to the Rector of Tomas Bata University in Zlín and to the Zlín Region for their financial support and encouragement, to the Conference Organizing Commiee for its hard work and determination, to our dedicated students, and to all those who provided additional assistance.

Linguistics

Politeness Strategies in Mass Media Communication: A Comparative Analysis of Slovak and American Talk Shows Gabriela Miššíková Department of English and American Studies, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Mostní 5139, 760 01 Zlín, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected] Abstract: e paper introduces preliminary findings aieved in the resear on politeness strategies in mass media communication. e presented analysis focuses on the positive and negative politeness strategies as employed by the host and other interactants in a talk show. e main assumption whi underlies the analysis is the fact that all participants coming to the show are willing to co-operate. At the same time, the fact that the “nature” of a talk show works against the politeness principle is equally intriguing. e laer assumption enhances the use of particular politeness strategies with specific purposes. e aim is to analyse and illustrate these strategies as related to interaction between all participants of a show. Keywords: talk show; interaction; face; strategy; politeness

1. Introduction e politeness principle and its maxims belong to major concepts discussed in the field of pragmatics. Pragmatics is oen defined as the study of language use and language users. Pragmatic theory helps solars understand what people wish to aieve and how they go about aieving it in using language. Su a theory is clearly relevant to an understanding of language use in practice. is paper will take a closer look at (im)politeness in mass media discourse, the roles of participants in communication, and a variety of communicative strategies used by the host and other participants of a talk show. It will also explore the relevance of the cooperative principle in expressing politeness. A comparative analysis of the communicative strategies used by the speakers in American and Slovak talk shows demonstrates some cross-cultural aspects. As the concept of politeness is based on two principles and their maxims, it is generally desired that speakers follow these maxims. If being polite means to be a considerate conversational partner, is it important to follow basic rules of Cooperative Principle as a part the concept of politeness? And also, the way people see and perceive ea other is very mu dependent on the way language is used in communicating with others. us it follows that the role of politeness markers has to be examined. For instance, what role do hedging expressions play in minimizing FTAs by both the interviewers and the interviewees in view of maintaining the normal flow of the verbal exange? is paper will aempt to answer these and some other questions within the analysis of the empirical study material described below.

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2. Empirical Study Material e analysed materials include transcripts of the most popular American talk shows, namely the Oprah Winfrey Show, Late Show with David Leerman, Larry King Live, and e Tonight Show with Jay Leno. e Slovak material consists of transcripts of Vadkerti talkshow as well as of transcripts of more recent political talk shows entitled deFacto. To provide more examples of structures of linguistic politeness, the speees of two former prime ministers, Tony Blair and Mikuláš Dzurinda, were analysed. As for the spee acts, except the introductory statements providing baground information about the themes of the shows and the invited guests, direct questions and answers on return prevail. In general, the most powerful speaker in the show is the host; s/he opens and closes the talk and s/he also allocates the turns and decides about the ordering and length of the topics discussed. e number of spee turns points out the immediate exange of questions and answers between the hosts and the guests. For instance, in the Oprah Winfrey show, the host has 194 turns and three other guests have altogether 213 turns. e aim is to explore the strategies developed upon the participants’ social distance and closeness. 3. Linguistic and Social Interaction It has been pointed out by the researers in pragmatics and sociolinguistics that the majority of linguistic interactions are socially determined, i.e., they can be viewed as social interactions. In a talk show participants usually interact in the ways whi are determined by their social baground. eir relative social status is based on certain social values recognized by the given social community, su as their professional baground, education, their status or position in a professional field, their age, sex, etc. As pointed out by cross-cultural pragmatics the hierary of these factors is culture-specific. Since all these aspects are given prior to the discourse of a talk show they are considered to be external. However there are also internal factors whi can be negotiated in the flow of communication. ese factors can ange the initial social distance between the speakers whi may, for example, result in switing from a title-plus-last-name to a first-name basis within the talk. is seldom happens in the shows we analysed. e presenters in American talk shows use the first-name address throughout the whole show. As for the Slovak talk shows, Andrea Vadkerti (Vadkerti talkshow) uses a combination of an official address pán/ pani (sir/madam) and the guest’s first name. is has become a common way of addressing in Slovak, especially in situations where the speaker manipulates proximity: s/he is showing respect to an unknown person but at the same time indicates certain closeness and a lower degree of formality in an official and/or public talk. Pragmatically speaking this hybrid expression may cause confusion and is oen despised in a business talk (e.g., a boss talking to his/her employee). Considering the discourse of TV, this has become a common strategy in some “entertaining” talk shows (su as Vadkerti talkshow) unlike political debates and talk shows (su as DeFacto). e status of invited guests in political talk shows is strictly respected. Here the host addresses the guests by the title whi states their political position/function and their family names, for example, pani ministerka (Mrs. Minister) or pani ministerka Tomanová (Mrs. Minister Tomanová). If the

Gabriela Miššíková

15

guest does not hold any (political) position or it appears irrelevant in the given context, the title and the family name are given, for example, pán Mikloš (Mr. Mikloš). As a maer of fact the relationship between the host and the guests in a show is predetermined by several factors, namely the social status of the invited guests, the standardized format and the topic of the show. As for the actual discourse of the show the host functions as its creator and director (s/he knows ahead who the guests are and what was the reason for inviting them) and more or less influences the interaction between the participants and audience of the show. e roles of participants are predetermined: they are expected to share their stories and reveal details from their lives. e discourse of a talk show is typically a dynamic exange of turn-takes. In the analysed show direct questions follow in short sequences and more complex responses (narrations, descriptions and explanations) are oen interrupted by the host. As respected professionals, Oprah Winfrey, Jay Leno, David Leerman but also Andrea Vadkerti and Daniel Krajcer, know how to ask questions about the most unpleasant and embarrassing things, political faux pas, etc. Exploring their communicative strategies can cast light on various aspects of human communication as presented on and through mass media. 4. Main Concepts and Definitions According to Lee politeness principle can be expressed as an effort to “minimize the expression of impolite beliefs” (Lee 1983, 81). A more convenient formulation would be the one suggested by Cruse, who points out that “politeness is a maer of what is said, and not a maer of what is thought or believed” (Cruse 2000, 362). Considering the purpose of our analysis the key word in our understanding of the politeness principle will be a constant need to sear for and “oose su expressions whi minimally belile the hearer’s status” or, in other words, “cause the minimum loss of face to the hearer” (ibid., 362). e purpose of political talk shows and interviews is to demand data, information and (political and personal) responsibility. From this point of view a (non-political) talk show can be regarded as a safer territory. Even though the roles of the above mentioned presenters have been fixed by the “genre,” the aspects they highlight and the methods they use vary from one show to another. As revealed by the analysis, they oen ask direct questions and formulate their opinions openly and oen in an abrupt way. ey also demand detailed descriptions of feelings and explanations of motives whi can create problematic situations. e following demonstrates some of the major politeness strategies used in the analysed shows. 4.1. Positive Politeness Strategies Brown and Levinson observe that strategies form hieraries and thus they refer to the four highest level strategies: bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off record. ere are two general aspects of the use of linguistic means to serve politeness functions whi hold for all these strategies (ibid., 93).

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e first is the fact that selection of a set of strategies to be realized by linguistic means oen involves the organization and ordering of the expression of these wants. For example, the organization of questions in (1) is more polite than in (2): (1) (2)

Winfrey: So tell me what is the real reason now why you want to come out and say these words? What is the real reason? What is your purest intention in being here? Winfrey: What is your purest intention in being here? What is the real reason? So tell me what is the real reason now why you want to come out and say these words?

e second observation is about the outputs of politeness strategies: “the more effort S expends in face-maintaining linguistic behaviour, the more S communicates his sincere desire that H’s face wants be satisfied” (ibid., 93). For negative politeness, for example, the speaker can apologize, express reluctance, give deference or belile own incapacities. Indications of these can be traced in the examples (3)–(4): (3) (4)

Winfrey: OK. Now I didn’t wat the films because I didn’t feel like I needed that for my education to interview you. (Reluctance and deference). Winfrey: Because I’m thinking that would be a traumatic thing. Well, maybe not when you’re your size but I would be, like, howling. (Beliling own incapacities).

Similarly, the following examples illustrate that the desire to satisfy H’s face wants is communicated via enthusiastic expressions of positive politeness: (5)

(6)

Winfrey: Yeah. And the reason you want to tell the story now is because you know that doesn’t have to define your life. Well, I applaud you for taking your pain and turning it into power. Dr. Robin Smith (Psychologist): Hi. Well, a couple of things. One, I am really actually moved by the fact that your heart actually told you not to do it. And that’s a really good, good thing for you to not lose sight of, that you were uncomfortable. When we’re uncomfortable, it is, as Oprah said, our inner voice, our deeper voice, God, whatever we want – something said this isn’t OK.

According to Brown and Levinson positive politeness is “redress directed to the addressee’s positive face” (ibid., 101). eir art of strategies of positive politeness indicates three broad meanisms, labelled as claim “common ground”, convey that S and H are cooperators and fulfil H’s want (for some X). For instance, opening the show the host asks questions in short sequences to aieve dynamism and gradation. At the same time she tries to create a trustful and sharing atmosphere and to establish the common ground. is is usually aieved by showing admiration, aention, interest, understanding and empathy to the guest: (8) (8)

Vadkerti: Dobrý večer, Jozef, tak všetko sa to začalo presýpacími hodinami starej mamy, ako to pokračovalo ďalej? Kedy sa z jedný hodín stala zberateľská vášeň? Vadkerti: Good evening, Jozef, so everything started by your grandmother’s clo, how did it continue? When did it turn into a collector’s passion?

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In the following uerance the hosts (Ss) convey that all participants of the show are cooperators. ey convey that both S and H are included in the activity. Among the strategies the one labelled as “give or ask for reasons” is the most frequent: (9)

Winfrey: OK. I hear the logic, and what’s interesting is that I know a lot of people probably feel as you do, and this is what’s so interesting to me is that how we’ve all become anesthetized by sexual provocativeness and – to the point where you say the stripper taking her clothes off – is no longer a shoing thing. (10) Vadkerti: Povedzme si, čo je to “značné úsilie,” aby ste i získali? (10) Vadkerti: Let’s talk about what is the “great effort” for you to get hold of them? e third meanism labelled as “fulfil H’s want (for some X)” can be aieved by giving gis to H, su as sympathy, understanding, cooperation. e direct questions asked by the hosts appear reproaful on the one hand but can be seen as an aempt at showing understanding and sympathy on the other – they allow the guests to avoid direct answers and/ or provide excuses: (11) King: Were you close to him? Blagojevich: Well, it depends on how you define close. 4.2. Negative Politeness Strategies Brown and Levinson also point out that negative politeness “is the heart of respect behaviour, just as positive politeness is the kernel of ‘familiar’ and ‘joking’ behaviour” and that it is typical behaviour in Western cultures (ibid., 129). eir art of negative politeness strategies involves both on-record delivery (conveyed directly as in bald-onrecord usage) and redress of an FTA. ere is also a clear clash between the two wants – be direct (from do FTA on record) and be indirect (from do not coerce H, i.e., give H option not to do act). In the following part these strategies are studied and demonstrated. e art of negative politeness strategies in Brown and Levinson (ibid., 131) states five supra strategies: be direct, don’t presume/assume, don’t coerce H, communicate S’s want to not impinge on H, redress other wants of H’s. ese can be aieved by certain meanisms and further substrategies. In the analysed talk shows some of them seem to be preferred. In addition to conventional indirectness the aention to hedges plays an important role in a talk show. e host of a talk show sometimes hedges her assumptions (for example that the participant will be willing to do what she asks him to do) whi is a primary and fundamental method of disarming routine interactional threats (ibid., 146). As a maer of fact conversational principles provide strong assumptions about cooperation, informativeness, truthfulness, relevance and clarity, whi on many occasions need to be soened for reasons of face. And the hedges are the most immediate tool for this purpose, in fact, they are used in elaborate ways in (negative) politeness. Hedges on illocutionary force (performative hedges) are the most important linguistic means of satisfying the speaker’s want (don’t assume H is able/willing to do A) and to some extent the want to “make minimal assumptions about H’s wants” (ibid., 146). Su hedges

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are usually expressed by adverbs on performative verbs whi represent the illocutionary force of the sentence. In spontaneous spee performative verbs are oen omied like in: (12) Winfrey: So [I’m] really [asking you] you’re doing this because you needed money? (13) Blagojevich: I actually made appointments on some of his recommendations and – so it was a good relationship and . . . Performative hedges are oen encoded in words or particles whi may also hedge propositional content. Some hedging particles and expressions are viewed as strengtheners (they act as emphatic hedges) others are considered as weakeners (they soen what they modify) or understaters (House and Kasper 1981). e following examples illustrate the soening effect: (14) Letterman: “Now, let’s just say – I’ve heard a lot of these excerpts, these tapes and we have a lile bit of audio tape here, and I think it’s you on the phone talking to your brother who is Rob, is that correct?” (15) Winfrey: But I thought the camera’s just sort of set there and you’re just doing what you want? In the analysed American talk shows the action develops quite fast and more and more details are constantly demanded of the participants. e hosts reformulate questions, summarize answers and eo the guest’s uerances. is enhances mutual interaction and the discourse of the show is dynamic and accelerating. e smoothness of interaction is enhanced also by the informal spokenness. is is oen expressed by the phrase I mean or I think whi imply hesitation, indirectness and a variety of other implications. In the analysed material both expressions were used mainly to express hesitation and unwillingness to say directly the speaker’s opinion. We can observe that deviant or marked sentence paerns are used to reflect emotional expressiveness of the uerance, most typically, anacoluthons: (16) Winfrey: So really this is – I’m fascinated by this because – aractive woman, you – former ild star, and all that that means, and when you think about, ‘Gee, what will I do next?,’ the next that comes into your mind is, ‘I’ll do a p*rn film’? I mean, I would – you know, I’m thinking there’s a world of options. McDonald’s. (17) Ms. Foxworth: I heard of McDonald’s. But it wasn’t – me working at McDonald’s is, like, ‘What? You were making’ . . . Pragmatically, the brief and incomplete responses of the guest (Ms. Foxworth) imply selfdefence and self-protection. When it becomes too hard on the guests, the hosts show understanding and support. e following sequences consist of questions whi are both an open request for more details as well as an expression of understanding and encouragement: (18) Winfrey: But how do people find out about it? Ms. Foxworth: A tabloid called me, three days aer it happened, three days to a week.

Gabriela Miššíková

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Winfrey: And so was it like other people’s tapes, was it, like, out there being played over and over? Ms. Foxworth: It – not only was it being played over and over, it was on Web sites. It’s been duplicated, like, over 100 times. Winfrey: Really? (18) Leno: Was there any hostility in the media? Like that Leerman fallout, was there any hostility there? McCain: You should have seen “e View.” Leno: I saw “e View,” yeah. Example 18 points out another communicative strategy known as flouting the maxim. As an important strategy within the concept of politeness, flouting of maxim will be discussed later on in this study. As illustrated by example 17, some uerances can be regarded as impolite and beliling the guest’s status. Direct questions oen cause embarrassment or pain, especially when the hearer is forced to recall some unpleasant memories or unhappy events. In spite of the openness and/or directness, the analysis has not shown any violations of the politeness principle. e guests of the shows are always treated with understanding and respect. e hosts never express pleasure at their misfortunes, never praise themselves, try to avoid being superior and make no judgements about them. By means of exploiting informal language means they create informal “ay” atmosphere: (19) Winfrey: And I’m not here to beat you up about it. I’m just saying, see the confusion. See the confusion. However at certain point the host expresses disagreement or argues with guests: (20) Mr. Pharris: . . . I guess – I don’t want to say ‘heat of the moment’ because that’s probably not the right words for that but . . . Winfrey: Probably is. (21) Winfrey: No, it sounds to me like it was already lost. Sounds to me like when the boyfriend said whatever he said to you and then you felt like you had to make that oice to go out and sell yourself, basically, that it was lost then. It wasn’t like it got lost aerwards, because you were willing to do it, if I’m hearing you correctly. You were willing to do it, if you thought the rest of us weren’t going to find out about it. at would have been OK? is uerance illustrates the situation where the purpose of politeness, that is to maintain harmonious and smooth social relations, clashes with the nature of reality whi constrains the scope of politeness. In the above listed uerances Oprah Winfrey respects this reality: she has to publicly admit and proclaim that what the guests did was not correct. is is a crucial point in a talk show, its main justification and the main reason for its creation. e show accelerates towards the point when the host (on behalf of the given society) proclaims certain generally acceptable truth and defends the morals. e use of negative politeness can render these uerances polite and mitigate the effects of beliling expressions:

20

Theories in Practice

(22) Winfrey: And you did not think when you made this oice – we all know that every oice has a consequence. You didn’t think that the consequence would be this. Positive politeness provides encouragement and makes people finalize their stories: (23) Winfrey: OK. at’s good because I could tell that you didn’t, and thank you for being honest about it. You regret taking them to the public Photomat or – What was it? Towards the end of the show the hosts use positive politeness to emphasize positive status of the guests regardless what was their “biggest mistake.” is is the moment of general relief, forgiving and learning from mistakes and misfortunes. e following examples illustrate typical closing strategies in talk shows: (24) Winfrey: Well, I applaud you for taking your pain and turning it into power. Ms. Foxworth: ank you. Winfrey: ank you. Ms. Foxworth: Whooo. Winfrey: ank you. Ms. Foxworth: ank you. 5. Structures of Politeness e following part is based on a more recent approa to the study of (im)politeness as introduced by Was (2003); it focuses more on the perceptions of politeness made by interactants in social practice than on (im)politeness as a theoretical term in a universal model of (im)politeness (cf. Brown and Levinson 1978). In the “universal” model, a range of linguistic expressions have been labelled as examples of linguistic politeness. Was suggests that no linguistic structures are taken as inherently polite in the discursive struggle. Assuming that linguistic structures do not in themselves denote politeness, the structures of linguistic politeness in political discourse are open to individual interpretation and shall be analyzed as polite in instances of ongoing verbal interaction. 5.1. Interaction in Political Discourse In the political discourse the speakers use a range of expressions and (hedging) devices whi advise the hearer of the extent to whi the speaker is commied to the wellfoundedness, informativeness and relevance of his talk. ey show speaker viewpoint and advise the hearer how to take what is in focus. In the following extract from the pre-prepared spee of T. Blair several hedging devices (wrien in cursive) are to be considered: (25) And I think within the limits for example of what we could do in relation to the G8, you know I kind of look ba on that and think well we had a summit . . .

Gabriela Miššíková

21

e phrase I think is a hedge indicating that the speaker is providing a personal point of view of the maer. Doing so he is declining responsibility for the truth value of the proposal he is making. is kind of hedge is related to the maxim of quality and thus can be labelled as a quality maxim hedge. e speaker’s awareness of the quality and quantity maxims is also indicated by the expression for example; this expression shows that the speaker is aware of the complexity of the problem he is talking about; he decides to use one example to illustrate what particular case he has in mind. To get the point right he has to consider the truth value of his message. e modal verb could is another hedging device implying the avoidance of the “riskiness” of the statement. Together with the pronoun we it is also open to a polite interpretation: using the pronoun we the speaker (the Prime Minister) gives credit for the aievements to the others as well (the Government). Uering the hedge kind of he gives imprecise propositional content leaving an option for the listeners to impose their own intent. e phrase you know provides ground for certain solidarity and appeals to mutual knowledge shared by the audience of his spee. Similarly, the function of hedging devices can be observed in the Slovak language. In the following extract the speaker uses a variety of hedging devices to create a persuasive and appealing uerance: (26) Prešli sme bezo sporu zložitú cestu [. . .], ale myslím si, že to bola cesta bezo sporu správna a v konečnom dôsledku aj cesta úspešná. e repetitions of an intensifier bezo sporu (no doubt) supported by the hedge myslím si (I think) contribute towards the perception of the truth value of the proposition encoded in the uerance. e adverbial phrase v konečnom dôsledku (literally “in the final consequences”) can be seen as an empty word phrase used for rhetoric purposes; however, it also indicates the effort of the speaker to abide by the maxim of quality and say only things he believes are true. 5.2. Expressions of Linguistic Politeness In political discourse special aention is paid to more or less conventionalised uerances the role of whi is to create a perception of a smooth conversation based on particular well-prepared conversational strategies. e uerances reflect the status of the politicians who oen speak on behalf of particular political parties. What they say can represent the generally accepted view of the maer as agreed upon by the given political spectrum. e uerances employed to enhance an efficient conversation are usually used as the means whi are generally recognizable by all participants; in the majority of cases the speakers are expected to make use of these strategies, for example when opening the spee, introducing their arguments, creating a dynamic exange of opinions or summarising and closing the talk. Highly conventionalised uerances, labelled by Was (2003, 167) as formulaic or ritualised, are used in specific spee act types like thanking or apologising. Another use of conventionalised uerances open to polite interpretation contains addressing the participants of conversation by their names (i.e., first name or/and surname, names with titles or just titles). ere is no direct addressing in the following

22

Theories in Practice

examples; however referring to the preceding speakers by their first names Tony Blair anowledges their contributions and implies collegiality. Considering the context of the situation (the spee was given at the Public Service Reform Conference, Mar 2007) this strategy supports the atmosphere of comradeship and cooperation. (27) Well first of all in response to Charlie, I mean the contribution of public service workers is immense, of course, and the public services depend on those workers. (28) I think I will just come ba to the second question, I think Paul’s question is very mu along the same lines. (29) I mean that is something that is more amenable to seing a target for; and the other point is the point that Geoff was just making. e airman of the conference, on the other hand, has implied a deferential function when using the names of political posts/functions, instead of names: (30) A response from you Home Secretary? (31) OK, well we have got three unky questions there to you Prime Minister, but I guess you could refer them to any of us if you wish. What do you think? In the following uerance various expressions and structures (e.g., the term of address, the hedged phrase I guess, the use of a modal verb, and the use of an intensifier) underline the indirectness of the uerance and as su are open to polite interpretation: (32) So I want to ask the Prime Minister I guess, rumour has it that you might be moving on and I just want to ask you . . . In the next example Tony Blair uses the phrase I think and an embedded proposition whi contains an intensifier/ booster (honestly) to imply his personal beliefs and involvements. ese are emphasised by the use of a modal verb must in parallel sentence paerns. All together these means create a perception of a persuasive and dynamic spee. (33) And that is why I think, let me share that with you honestly, that we must get the best of the public sector ethos, but we must also say that the aspirations and expectations of the public service from today’s ordinary Joe Public are higher than ever and they are higher than the service we are providing. At the end of the conference the airman shows his respect to the Prime Minister and other guest speakers. He seems to combine the spee act of thanking and a closing uerance; however the indirect spee act of thanking (Can I thank) can be considered as less formal than a direct one. e phrase I think functions as a hedge introducing a compliment. (34) ank you very mu. Can I thank the Prime Minister Tony Blair, can I thank the Home Secretary John Reid, can I thank all 19 of our frontline innovators, and I think they have been brilliant.

Gabriela Miššíková

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Avoiding the ritualised expressions of leave-taking, su as Good bye or Bye, bye, implies friendliness and/or informality. e context of the situation (i.e., a specific type of a medium) can determine the uerance in su a way that the speakers become more personal. In the following example Tony Blair took part in a podcast hosted by Bob Geldof (May 2007). e spee act of leave-taking performed by Bob Geldof is informal (wishing good lu) whi makes Tony Blair (at that time the Prime Minister) respond in an informal way too (the act of thanking substitutes for the act of leave-taking). It can be assumed that, into a certain extent, the informality is created by the specific format of a podcast. (35) Bob Geldof: What songs do you know? ey are usually crap songs . . . placard songs. Good lu. Prime Minister: OK, thanks Bob. As pointed out in previous examples, some expressions and structures can be considered as potentially polite. e speees analysed were given by Tony Blair when he was the Prime Minister. In this respect some of the expressions he used seem to be “in excess” of (his) politic behaviour (cf. Was 2003, 169). More specifically, his status did not require of him to be “more polite than expected” in the sense of conventionalised rituals. Similarly, the use of solidarity markers, booster and hedges of all kinds can be observed in the speees of the former Slovak Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda. A profound analysis, based on the complexity of contextual relations, reveals that the pragmatic function of these expressions and structures oen relates them to the Cooperative principle; more specifically to one or more conversational maxims. In this sense the Cooperative and Politeness principle seem to work towards the same conversational strategies. is can be illustrated by the following example: (36) ‘Prešli sme bezo sporu zložitú cestu – cestu, na ktorej boli aj poybnosti, nedôvera alebo obavy a treba otvorene povedať, že aj občasné nedorozumenia, treba povedať, že aj yby – iste aj yby a boli aj emócie, ale myslím si, že to bola cesta bezo sporu správna a v konečnom dôsledku aj cesta úspešná.’ e desire of the speaker to provide an adequately informative, perspicuous and persuasive account of the events is clearly demonstrated. e booster “bezo sporu” (without doubt) indicates that the speaker can guarantee the quality, the truth of his statement. Similarly, the particle “treba” (it is necessary) emphasises his conviction to mention all the data, including those whi might be less favourable for the government. From this point of view these hedges can be seen as related to the quality maxim. Both of them are repeated twice within the uerance for the purpose of emphasis and beer impact on the audience. e speaker shows his personal involvement by uering the phrase “myslím si” (I think) and uses another hedging device, an adverbial phrase “v konečnom dôsledku” (aer all). e verb phrase “myslím si/I think” can either be understood as referential or as a hedge. Based on the assumption that the speaker believes in what he says in the embedded clause (že to bola cesta bezo sporu správna/that it was undoubtedly the right way) the phrase has

24

Theories in Practice

a referential function and at the same time is open to polite interpretation. Similarly, the phrase is open to polite interpretations in the following examples: (37) ‘I think one of the things that most aggravates feelings about the criminal justice system is where the victim of a crime feels that . . .’ (T.B.) (38) ‘akej autorite a povesti sa dnes Slovensko teší vo svete a myslím si, že je to aj vaša zásluha.’ (39) ‘Myslím si, že Slovensko, ak pôjde touto cestou vzdelaný ľudí, že . . .’ (40) ‘Myslím si, že má Slovensko na to, aby . . .’ (M.D.) e sample offers a broad variety of the hedges, solidarity markers, boosters, modal verbs, etc., whi are considered as “semi-formulaic” expressions of politeness (Was 2003, 169). Some of them were discussed above in their interaction with highly conventionalised uerances. In the given context of situation these expressions are not perceived as overtly polite; however, if they are missing in the uerance the conversation may appear to be impolite, rude, or abrupt. In a public, mediated or institutionalised discourse speees follow certain conventions and strategies, and thus the above discussed expressions mostly represent cases of polite/conventionalised behaviour of social interaction. ey are probably not intentional linguistic expressions of politeness. In the next uerance the speaker wants to show his appreciation of the opponent’s effort. He does not want the opponent and the audience to misinterpret his words and thus provides them with a cautious note “without unduly flaering you.” is is a hedged phrase whi relates to the maxim of manner and provides instructions for the recipients how to infer the likeliest meaning in the given context. For the rhetorical reasons the phrase is used twice; it creates the emphasis and provides floor for the opponent to consider potential response: (41) Yes absolutely, but I think without unduly flaering you, I think I am looking at one of the reasons. Similarly, the Slovak phrase “verím” (I believe) can be interpreted as polite. By uering the phrase, the speaker shows his respect towards the opponent and the audience, who can be the representatives and supporters of different political parties. He is being diplomatic and polite when assuming openly that all participants in the communication, regardless of their political affiliation, see the trends in the foreign policy of Slovakia as progressive and good. His uerance “Verím, že ste si všimli” (I believe that you have noticed) provides, on the one hand, implicatures, su as I am sorry to say something so well-known, I know that you know, this was su a big thing, etc., and on the other hand, as a generally recognised solidarity marker, it appeals to mutual knowledge shared by all participants. us the phrase has not only a clear hedging purpose, i.e., to show that the speaker is aware of providing redundant information but also fulfils an important social function in the structuring of the smooth conversation. In the uerances [25] and [26] the hedges (verím/I believe) and solidarity markers (ste si všimli/you have noticed) can be interpreted as means of verbal politeness:

Gabriela Miššíková

25

(42) Verím, že ste si všimli, že sme vlani hostili samit prezidentov Spojený štátov a Ruska. (43) Verím, že ste si všimli, že sme medzi vás odili tak, ako nám to ukladajú predpisy ... 6. Conclusions e analysis has revealed that the roles of the hosts were to establish a sharing atmosphere and demonstrate common ground for all participants. Sometimes the hosts cannot avoid certain impositives in their uerances, but they make sure that, whenever possible, they show support, understanding and encouragement. In this way the most of the harmful and unpleasant effects of impositives are mitigated. It can be concluded that, in spite of their dominant roles in the shows and an open directness in interrogation, the examined hosts are polite speakers. ey are certainly polite enough to avoid saying things that might belile the status of their guests. As has been demonstrated, they ask direct questions and insist on responses, but they never treat their guests as subservient to their will. e analysis of politeness structures has revealed that in the majority of the examples, the structures of linguistic politeness can be considered as conventionalised to a certain extent. e majority of them were enhanced by hedging devices of all kinds; in the context of political discourse, the hedges were mainly concerned with truth telling. is study of linguistic politeness has pointed out the desire of the speakers to use the language in su a way that their uerances can be perceived as relevant, cooperative and polite. Considering a contrastive perspective, the uses of these structures in English and Slovak do not show significant differences in their pragmatic functions. Works Cited Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cruse, D. A. 2000. Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. House, Juliane, and Gabriele Kasper. 1981. Politeness Markers in English and German. In Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Prepaerned Spee, ed. Florian Coulmas, 157–85. e Hague: Mouton. Lee, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Was, Riard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Corpus Aktuálne spravodajstvo. JOJ.sk. hp://televizia.joj.sk/tv-ariv/de-facto. CBS’ Leerman asks Blagojevi, ‘Why exactly are you here?’ Show transcript. 2009. Chicago Sun Times, February 3. hp://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/02/ cbs_leerman_asks_blagojevi.html. Dzurinda, Mikuláš. 2006. Prepis prejavu predsedu vlády SR Mikuláša Dzurindu na Stálej konferencii - Slovenská republika a Slováci žijúci v zahraničí 2006, dňa 12. mája 2006.

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In Úrad vlády Slovenskej republiky. hp://euro.gov.sk/9866/prepis-prejavu-predsedu-vlady-sr-mikulasa-dzurindu-nastalej-konferencii-slovenska-republika-a-slovaci-zijuci-v-zahranici-2006-dna-12maja-2006.php?day=2010-02-01&art_datum_od=&art_datum_do= (accessed January 13, 2010). McCain on Leerman: Full Transcript. 2008. About.com, October 16. hp://politicalhumor.about.com/od/johnmccain/a/mccain-trnscrpt.htm. Number10.gov.uk: e Official Site of the Prime Minister’s Office. hp://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page10688.asp. Oprah.com. hp://www.oprah.com. Ron Paul on Leno. 2008. USA Today, January 7. hp://www.usatoday.com/news/pdf/RonPaulOnLeno-1-7-2008.pdf. Slovenská televízia. hp://www.stv.sk/.

A Structural Approach to the Analysis of the Possessive Idiom have got Ludmila Veselovská Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Mostní 5139, 760 01 Zlín, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: is paper gives a structural description of English predicate structures, focusing on discussing aracteristics of the verb have. More specifically the paper concentrates on the possessive idiom have got, summarising descriptive generalisations from English grammar textbooks and manuals. Using also some data from the British National Corpus the paper demonstrates that the idiom have got has a rather restricted paradigm and is productively used only in a very limited number of semantic and syntactic contexts. Su restrictions are the result of more general aracteristics of the structure proposed for have got. Describing the dislocation of the elements of the complex idiom, two main factors are considered in more detail: the Case assigning ability of the English verb and the semantic feature [+Activity]. e data prove that the position of an element in a syntactic structure predicts its formal (morphological and syntactic) properties as well as its interpretation. Keywords: English predicate; idiom have got; [+Activity]; English Auxiliary

1. Morphological vs. Syntactic Templates In Veselovská (2009) I demonstrated in detail the distinction between the morphological and syntactic templates of the English predicates whi (especially when contrasted with Cze predicates) are called analytic. Because that discussion forms an empirical baground for the topic of this paper, I am going to summarise some of the arguments here, too. irk (1985, 121) describes the forms of English predicates in terms of a “5-slottemplate” whi is sematically described below in (1). e list in (2) provides a traditional classification of the elements in the slots A–E. Notice that although in many frameworks the individual labels tend to be defined semantically, irk relates the terms directly to their position in the template. (1) a. the house b. the rabbit

(2)

A. will must

B. have have

C. been been

D. being being

E. Finished Killed

A. Modal, B. perfective Auxiliary, C. progressive Auxiliary, D. passive Auxiliary E. lexical Verbs

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Theories in Practice

e terminology used in (2) for the elements in a 5-slot-predicate model is relatively fixed in standard grammar manuals for English, and the authors of su manuals also generally agree on the repertoire of elements appearing in ea group. Still, the classification is not well balanced and revealing, because some parts of the English analytic verbal forms are invariant; they cannot alternate with some other forms, while others represent more or less open classes. e vital importance of the first (A) position in the template can be supported by numerous arguments based on the syntactic behaviour of the predicate, most of them summarized in, e.g., Huddleston and Pullum (2002). ese authors use the acronym NICE (Negation, Inversion, Coda, Emphasis) for their diagnostics, whi I repeat in the following paragraphs.¹ (i) Negation: Regarding the distribution of the English particle not in clausal negation (or even beer of n’t, whi cannot be used in phrasal or partial negation), we can see that although any of the non-lexical verbs can carry this negative morpheme, it must follow the first of them only. (e ? in (4) signals a non standard position of not compatible with partial (VP) negation.) (3)

a. b. c. d.

perfective Aux progressive Aux passive Aux lexical Verb

ey haven’t finished their papers. ey aren’t finishing their papers. eir papers weren’t finished. *ey finish(e)n’t their papers.

(4)

a. b. c. d.

ey will not (won’t) have been being finished/killed. ?ey will have not (*haven’t) been being finished/killed. ?ey will have been not (*beenn’t) being finished/killed. ?ey will have been being not (*beingn’t) finished/killed.

(ii) Inversion (question formation). e examples in (5) and (6) repeat the paerns in (3) and (4), showing that though any of the non-lexical verbs can invert, the inverted item must be the first of them only. (5)

a. b. c. d.

perfective Aux progressive Aux passive Aux lexical Verb

Have you finished the paper? Are you finishing the paper? Was the paper finished? *Finished they their papers?

(6)

b. Will they have been being finished/killed? c. *Have they will been being finished/killed?

1. irk (1985, 121), apart from his 5-slot template, also introduces a concept of “operator,” whi he uses for the initial element with the exception of the lexical verb. In this paper I am following the diagnostics used in Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 93).

Ludmila Veselovská

29

d. *Been they will have being finished/killed? e. *Being they will have been being finished/killed? (iii) Coda/Ellipsis: e standard English contexts for ellipsis of the lexical verb include estion Tags (see (7) below), whi demonstrate that all non-lexical verbs appear in the formation of these structures, but only under the condition that they are the first su verb. (e ungrammatical variety is suggested by the (e) example.) (7)

a. b. c. d. e.

perfective Aux ey have finished their papers, haven’t they? progressive Aux ey are finishing their papers, aren’t they? passive Aux eir papers were finished, weren’t they? lexical Verb * ey finish(ed) their papers, finish(ed)n’t they? ey will have been being finished/killed, won’t they?/*haven’t they? /aren’t they? . . .

Other elliptical contexts can be represented by short YES/NO answers in (8a–e), estions of surprise (equivalent to (8) with the speaker–listener’s exange) or VP ellipsis aer so in (8f–h) (8)

a. b. c. d. e.

perfective Aux Have you finished the paper? progressive Aux Are you finishing the paper? passive Aux Was the paper finished? lexical Verb *Finished they their papers? Will they have been being finished?

– Yes, I have. – Yes, I am. – Yes, it was. – *Yes, they finished. – Yes, they will – *Yes,they have/*been. f. ey had been sleeping all the time and so had I/*and so been I. g. My paper will be finished in time and so will his./*and so be his. h. ey will have finished the paper in time and so will I/*and so have I.

e diagnostics in (3)–(8) prove that the template (1) has relatively lile value when discussing the most basic English syntax, and therefore in Veselovská (2009) I proposed a simpler syntactic 2-slot predicate structure distinguishing only two main syntactic positions in the English predicate: the first being the slot (A) in irk’s (1) and the second puing together all the other slots. In most variants of the generative framework the analyticity of the predicate is captured by creating two (or more) distinct positions for the verbal elements. In the tree in (9) the VP constituent (containing the verbal head V⁰) represents the verbal phrase, whi in itself does not qualify as a syntactic predicate. e clausal modality is located in a separate (higher) I⁰ head, whi is related to finiteness. e double arrow is connecting the heads V⁰ and I⁰, suggesting sematically the possible movement of the V⁰ to the position of I⁰.² 2. e label for the finiteness head INFL is distinct from V(Verb), starting with Chomsky (1957). Modals were reanalysed as AUX in Emonds (1976) and INFL in Chomsky (1981). INFL was fully integrated into a system

30

(9)

Theories in Practice

e descriptive tree of the surface structure of English declarative sentence

I. P.

.SPEC(1)

.I’

I. 0

.a. [NP e students] .will b. . [NP e students] .∅ (= do)

.VP

.V⁰

.V-Complement

. nish fi .finish

[. NP their papers]CASE .[NP their papers]CASE

e position of I⁰ in the tree above is clearly distinct for the position of V⁰ (Verb). I⁰ is a unique (“functional”) head position representing a clause, i.e., one clause can host only one I⁰. On the other hand V⁰ is a lexical head whi can assign structural case to its complement and the structure can host a string of more or less lexical V⁰.³ e structure in (9) together with the diagnostics in (3)–(8) provide a structural base for the classification of verbal elements mentioned in (2). e verbal forms occupying the A slot in the 5-slot predicate in (2), i.e., the Modals, always appear in the I⁰ position in (9). e B–D elements (i.e., those labelled Auxiliaries) can occur in I⁰ in the absence of Modals. e lexical Verbs from the slot E never occur in the I⁰ position. e traditional terminology can thus be provided with structural definitions. I. II.

English Modals are those verbs whi are generated in I⁰. Auxiliaries are generated in some lower verbal head position (recall that V⁰ can be multiple) and under some conditions they move to I⁰.⁴

for assigning case in Stowell (1981) and relabeled I in Chomsky (1986). Since then it was oen decomposed into several distinct heads (e.g., “AgrS” and “Tense”); Minimalism prefers the label T (Tense). For simplicity I am using the more vague label I⁰ here with no detailed stipulations about its feature content. 3. Given forms like ey will have been being finished, the structure similar to (9) must contain several layered VPs with several V⁰ of distinct aracteristics (i.e., various subcategorisations and feature contents). 4. Versions of V→I movement for English and Fren are discussed in detail in, e.g., Emonds (1978) and Pollo (1989). e conditions for I→V movement are a topic of mu resear. It is generally assumed that (some kinds o) V⁰ can move to I⁰ iff I⁰ is empty. I will address this topic again later.

Ludmila Veselovská

31

III. Lexical Verbs in English never appear in the position of I⁰ and therefore they never participate in negation, inversion or elliptical contexts.⁵ In Veselovská (2009) I concentrated on the analyses of the English lexical Verbs be (copula) and variants of have because these can appear as Modals, Auxiliaries and lexical Verbs. eir “multifunctionality” is oen given as a reason for their specific behaviour: those verbs, even when lexical, move to the position of I⁰ in the absence of a Modal or another Auxiliary (i.e., they invert and take negation without do-Support).⁶ In particular, I discussed the verb be in more detail suggesting that its specific behaviour can be related to its semantic deficiency. I also mentioned that in many languages the Verb be does not assign a structural Case (Objective, Accusative) to its nominal complement, i.e., Nouns aer a copula tend to appear in the Subject Case or some Oblique Case. Another English Verb whi shows irregular and apparently mixed aracteristics with respect to the diagnostics (3)–(8) is the verb have. However, in Veselovská (2009) I argued that the “irregularity” of have does not mean that its behaviour is random and unpredictable. e two possibilities, i.e., (i) have is in the position of I⁰, or (ii) it is in V⁰, are in fact the only options and the distinction is clear, depending on the function of have. In the following examples I am going to use the estion Tag as the representative diagnostic. I will assume that the presence of the Auxiliary do (i.e., the need of do-Support) signals the position of have in the V⁰ position, and that the possibility of negation with –n’t and inversion shows the position of have in the I⁰ position.⁷ i. e perfective auxiliary have is always an Auxiliary (i.e., it raises to I⁰ if the position is empty). (10) a. ey have finished their papers, – haven’t they?/– *don’t they? b. ey will have finished their papers, – won’t they?/– *haven’t they? ii. e dynamic have: e.g., an agentive (light) verb, or a causative, or the have of concern, etc., is a lexical Verb (i.e., it cannot raise to I⁰ if the position is empty but instead requires do-Support). (11) a. ey have a lot of fun with their toys, – don’t they?/– *havn’t they? b. ey have Mary help them with their homework. – don’t they?/– *havn’t they? c. ey oen have their car repaired. – don’t they?/– *havn’t they? iii. e modal have, in spite of its interpretation, is a lexical Verb (i.e., it cannot raise to I⁰ if the position is empty but instead requires do-Support). 5. If there is no Modal or Auxiliary in the structure, in non-emphatic, declarative contexts, the English position of I⁰ can host a covert (i.e., phonetically unrealized) Auxiliary do, as suggested by the analysis of the example in (9b). 6. Other exceptions include the verbs do, need and dare, whi can be used both as lexical and non-lexical verbs, with all predictable consequences. 7. In Veselovská (2009) I provided a wider range of arguments and a more detailed division.

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(12) ey have to come here immediately. – don’t they?/– *havn’t they? iv. e stative have (i.e., above all the possessive have, and also idioms su as have troubles or have an illness). e stative have presents a sort of problem for the clear cut distinction between the lexical and non-lexical verbs, i.e., between the I⁰ or V⁰ positions in a tree like (9), because its syntax is the most varied. I proposed to distinguish between three usages of stative/possessive have. e first kind is the exceptional paern similar to the English verb be, i.e., the structure in whi the verb have though clearly “lexical” (i.e., the only verb in a structure with a nominal object/complement. is have raises to the position of I⁰ and therefore does not require do-Support to form negations or to invert. (13) He has three books by Hemingway, hasn’t he? – Yes, he has. e structure illustrated by (13) is, however, perceived as araic or slightly deviant and though it cannot be labelled as ungrammatical, it is not the form used frequently in modern English. Using the seme in (9) the regular modern English variety requires the possessive verb have to be analysed as either “lexical Verb” (in V⁰), or as a non-lexical “Auxiliary” (V⁰ with the potential to move to I⁰). Next consider an existing current variation of the possessive verb have as in (14), where do-Support locates the verb have unambiguously in the position of V⁰ in (9) as a lexical Verb. (14) Speaker A: He has three books by Hemingway in his bookcase, doesn’t he? Speaker B: – Yes, he does./*Yes, he has. In another variant (15), on the other hand, the verb have occupies the position of I⁰. e evaluation of the possible response shows, that though an individual speaker may prefer one of the two existing variants, people are aware of the distinction and respect the format of the question they are answering.⁸ (15) Speaker A: He has got three books by Hemingway in his bookcase, hasn’t he? Speaker B: – Yes, he has. /*Yes, he does. To claim that have in the idiomatic have got is in the I-position seems uncontroversial, given the diagnostics I used above. e example (15) shows that this have takes the negative morpheme n’t, inverts in questions and is used in elliptic contexts. Apart from these syntactic aracteristics based on distribution, we can use another argument based on phonetic reduction of the verb following the syntactic subject. 8. Alexander (1988, 199) claims that have got is a preferred alternative in modern British English. In Veselovská (2009) I called the variant (14) with have as a lexical Verb an “American English” variety and (15) a “British” variety. ese labels however do not imply an exclusivity of usage in ea type, since both forms are common on both sides of the Atlantic. In this paper I will call the British variant the “(possessive) idiom have got” following Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 111).

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33

In English some verbs immediately following subjects oen contract, but as mentioned in Emonds (1976), it is not only the surface linear order that allows this contraction. e following examples show, that although there is a morphological form available for contraction and the surface linearity is the same, the contraction is not allowed in the case of question inversion of a modal. In (16a) have is in the I⁰ position as signalled by the estion Tag. In (16b), however, the assumed linear order before the inversion is with could, not have, in the position of I⁰. erefore the element have cannot contract although it follows the subject. Because question inversion represents the movement of I⁰, the data indicate that contraction is restricted only to the elements located in the I⁰ position. (16) a. ey’ve le, haven’t they? b. *Could they’ve le? Swan (2003, 231) discusses the contraction of the verb have giving the following examples. (17) a. I have a car. →I’ve a car. b. I have to go. →*I’ve to go. Swan claims that while the possessive idiom have got can always contract, the verb have contracts only when followed by nouns with determiners like a/an, some, any, no, every. Consider, however, the following examples in (18). (18) a. I have a shower every day. b. I have got a car.

→ * I’ve a shower every day. → I’ve got a car.

e ungrammaticality of (18a) suggests that it is beer to reformulate Swan’s restriction on contraction in terms of position, i.e., as suggested in (16). e contraction in (b) signals the I⁰ position of have in the idiom have got.⁹ Assuming the classification of have given in (10)–(12), we can argue that only the have whi appears in I⁰ contracts. In this analysis, the behaviour of the verb have can be perceived as a variety of the unique regular paern of the English predicate structure. In the following section I will look more closely at the format and usage of the idiom have got describing it in terms of a tree given in (9). 2. Semantic and formal restrictions on use of the idiom have got e idiom have got can be compared with two existing English structures: with respect to its similarity to the perfective form of the verb get, and with respect to the similarity to the possessive verb have. e form of the idiom have got looks like the combination of the perfective auxiliary have and the participle got, i.e., like the perfective form of a morphologically irregular lexical verb get. e formal similarity is mentioned in all grammar manuals; see, e.g., 9. e example (17a) can be analysed as the exceptional, araic variety of the possessive have also illustrated in (13).

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Theories in Practice

irk (1985, 38).¹⁰ e formal similarity is supported by the semantic closeness of the two expressions. e meaning of the verb get in standard English is essentially receive or obtain, but get also represents the “inoative” version of both have (19a) and be (19b) in most contexts including passives.¹¹ (19) a. He has obtained/got two books for my birthday. b. e house was/got built. Although it is not always easy to distinguish between the meanings have obtained and possess of an uerance, if we do so, we can see that the forms are in fact not formally identical, and in the following paragraphs I will provide several diagnostics whi make them distinct. One example is given already in (20a), whi demonstrates that the possessive idiom have got is not compatible with any modal verb. Su a restriction does not apply on the perfective forms of lexical Verbs including get as in (20b), nor does it apply to simple forms of have as in (20c). (20) a. In London, you ⁇will/* can have got a lot of friends. b. He will/must have got several leers next/last week. c. I will/can have a lot of friends/showers during the summer. As for the complementarity of the idiom have got and its apparent synonym, the stative possessive have, Huddleston and Pullum (2006) claim that the idiom have got is restricted in use with respect to style and paradigmatic forms. Alexander (1988, 200–201) demonstrates that the idiom have got can substitute for the form have in a range of situations. e semantic/pragmatic classification in (21) uses the authors’ examples. Notice that all occurrences of have got are of a kind discussed in (13)–(15), i.e., with the [+Stative] verbs. (21) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. l.

“own” or “possess” “be able to provide” Have (got) + number/quantity Possession of physical aracteristics Possession of mental/emotional qualities Family relationships Contacts with other people In the sense of “wear” Illnesses Arrangements Opinions In the sense of “there is”

I have (got) a new briefcase. Do you have (got) any ink? I have (got) fourteen pencils. He has (got) big brown eyes. She has (got) nice manners. I have (got) two sisters. I have (got) a good dentist. at’s a nice dress you have (got). e baby has (got) measles. Sally has (got) an interview today. I have (got) an idea! You have (got) a stain on your tie.

10. Huddleston and Pullum (2006) notice that in contrast to modern British English, some varieties of modern American English distinguish the two form because of the existence of the variant goen (perfective participle of get). us they differentiate the possessive have got from the perfective have goen. 11. Kimball (1973) and Roberts (1993) discuss the phenomena in more detail, including diarony.

Ludmila Veselovská

35

Most authors explicitly state that have got can never replace have in dynamic contexts; in other words it cannot express a habit or repetition. e examples in (22a) are interpreted as habitual, while those in (22b) can only be non-habitual.¹² (22) a. Do you have bad headaes? We don’t usually have beer in the house. I oen have a toothae. b. Have you got a bad headae? Sorry, I haven’t got any beer. I’ve got a toothae. Using a slightly distinct terminology, the authors claim that a dynamic have (i.e., the have interpreted as receive, take, experience) as in (23a/b), cannot be replaced by the idiom have got. e parallel structures in (23c/d) can therefore be understood only as pure possession, i.e., [+Stative]. (23) a. I have a drink every evening before dinner. b. Did she have a baby at the clinic? c. I have (got) a drink, thanks. d. Had she got her baby at the clinic? One of the signals of dynamicity, i.e., of the presence of a plausible feature [+Activity], is the ability of the verbal form to create imperatives. Considering this diagnostics, notice that Alexander (1988, 199) explicitly claims that the imperative form of the idiom have got are ungrammatical. (24) a. Have patience! b. *Have got patience! Apart from imperatives, the following paragraphs show that the idiom have got is also restricted with respect to tense forms, infinitives and –ing forms. English textbooks introduce the idiom have got only in present simple form, and the use of the idiom in past and future tenses is mu less frequent.¹³ In fact, the examples 12. See, e.g., Alexander (1988), Swan (2003), irk (1985). Some apparent counterexamples taken from the BNC can be plausibly interpreted as the perfect of get with an idiomatic reading. i. ii. iii. iv.

He wondered suddenly if she had got any fun out of her marriage to Peter Dawson. I’ve normally got telly on in the evenings. I don’t think anybody in this country has got control over it. Mary had got three hour’s sleep before they came ba.

e examples from BNC in this study are mostly cited from Drmolová (2009). e author lists the restriction on the use of the idiom have got in a rather descriptive framework, and I do not always accept her analysis here. 13. E.g., Doff and Jones (2000; 2001) and Alexander (1988, 200).

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Theories in Practice

in the textbooks as well as those found in the BNC marked as past or future, are usually interpretable as the past or future perfect of the standard verb get. (25) a. She had got a lover! b. Or if your mother had got a say she made you. c. Well, of course, there was, they got no methods of keeping it you see. (26) a. By May I will have got a new car. b. One sees the pleasure Bill Deedes will have got. c. You will have got ornamental wrought iron leading to first floor arway. According to Alexander (1988) the present tense restriction is especially significant in interrogative sentences, above all in Wh-questions, where in fact no example unambiguously represents the idiom have got. (27) a. Had you got an appointment? Had he got time to get a cup of tea? b. When had you got an appointment? What had I got in mind? It is therefore fair to conclude that the idiom have got has a quite restricted tense paradigm. Recalling the infelicitous co-occurrence with Modals illustrated in (20d), it seems that the have in the idiom have got shows more signals of Modals than those of Auxiliaries. e similarity can be supported also by data concerning non-finite forms. e la of infinitive (and of past tense morphology) is typical for Modals generated in the position I⁰. Swan (2003, 230) states that the idiom have got does not generally produce non-finite forms; thus the infinitive, progressive form and participles of the idiom have got are ungrammatical. For to-infinitives and participles he gives the examples in (28). (28) * to have got a headae * having got a brother e examples of the form to have got in (29) were found in the BNC and they are never unambiguous; they plausibly represent the past to-infinitive of get. (29) a. e monastic ronicler . . . seems to have got his dates wrong; recent solars have suggested he might have been a quarter of century too late. b. Hillary seemed to have got the reaction he wanted and, looking pleased, he went over to the window. c. Surely it was enough to have got as mu as he had. As for the bare infinitives, e.g., those following (epistemic) modals, the frequency in the BNC of have got is higher. Notice, however, that all the examples in (30), can again plausibly be interpreted as the (bare) past infinitive of the verb get.

Ludmila Veselovská

(30) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

37

She must have got a new boyfriend. You must have got something you wear to parties. e sink must have got a leak in it. I couldn’t have got the same effect if I’d fictionalised them. I should have got that on tape. You must have got the wrong person. You may have got the wrong number.

Looking more closely at the –ing forms, the progressive constructions (31) can be found in the BNC. e situation is the same, i.e., the examples found are more likely the forms of the verb get than of the idiom have got. (31) a. She never used it, having got some of the plumbing details wrong. b. Having got the a rough dra of a solution, now write it out neatly. . . c. Now that’s due to having got a good result and performance. It was wrong to define wealth-producing as only having got to do with manufacturing. d. Having got the equations, what shall we do with them? Having demonstrated the restrictions on paradigmatic forms of the idiom have got, I am going to look at the idiom have got from the perspective of the structure suggested in (9) and the processes typical for the elements occupying the heads V⁰ and I⁰. 3. The Presence of get and the Feature [+Activity] With respect to interpretation, the possessive idiom have got is used as an alternative to a lexical possessive [-Activity/+Stative] verb have. As for its syntactic behaviour, however, the idiom have got is more close to the perfect form of the verb get: In both constructions the tests used in (3)–(8) suggest that the position of the have element is not in V⁰ but in I⁰. In the section above I mentioned the similarity of have in the idiom have got to English Modals (tense deficiency, no infinitives, uniqueness). On the other hand, primary Modals (must, can, may) do not take the 3ʳ singular present agreement morpheme –s, while have got/has got does show this agreement. Given the space limits, I am not going to try to sort out the precise classification of have (in the idiom have got). Either as an Auxiliary or as a Modal, it is not a regular English lexical Verb and it can appear in the position of I⁰. I will assume it is generated below I⁰ and moves to I⁰ in a way comparable with other Auxiliaries. Recall that I suggested two possible conditions whi may conspire to allow a “lexical verb” to move from V⁰ to I⁰. One was the la of semantic specificity and the second was the need for strict adjacency required for the Case assignment to an object in English. e Case adjacency requirement for modern English Case is proposed and discussed in detail in Stowell (1981), and is used also in Pollo (1989) to explain a distinction between the position of a Verb in English and Fren. e principle states that in modern English, a structural Case can be assigned only to the complement of a lexical head in a close relation of adjacent sisterhood. Consider (32), whi repeats the three varieties of the possessive [+Stative] have.

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Theories in Practice

(32) a. He has three books by Hemingway in his bookcase, doesn’t he? – Yes, he does. b. He has got three books by Hemingway in his bookcase, hasn’t he? – Yes, he has. c. He has three books by Hemingway, hasn’t he? – Yes, he has. In the American variety given in (32a) the need of do-Support signals the position of have in V⁰. In the tree like (9) above, the Structural Case of three books by Hemingway could therefore be licensed in the adjacent head-complement relation between V⁰ and its right hand sister object. In (32b), whi shows the British variant with have moved from (some intermediate) V⁰ to I⁰, the have is separated from its nominal complement requiring a Structural Case. On the other hand, this variety contains the lexical element got occupying plausibly the position of V⁰, and su an element can assign Structural Case. As for (32c), the have appears in I⁰ (it inverts and precedes the negation n’t), but the V⁰ position remains empty (there is no other verb whi could plausibly occupy the V⁰ position). Although su structures are standard in languages with rier verbal morphology, they are not typical for modern English. It is therefore unsurprising that modern English has a tendency to avoid (32c) and prefer the variants (32a) and (32b), because these laer are synronically regular and transparent. Apart from Case assignment, in the previous section I discussed the broad range of semantics of the idiom have got, and I proposed to relate the [+Stative] meanings to the position I⁰ whi is the position of have in the idiom have got. It is in some sense assumed that Modals and Auxiliaries, whi (can) appear in the position of I⁰, are less semantically loaded than (most) lexical Verbs, although there is no generally accepted and exact method for how to state the distinction in terms of semantics. Still, assuming that the feature content influences the derivations, the most canonical feature of the category of Verb, the la of the feature [+Activity], whi I repeatedly referred to in this and the previous section, demonstrates that the idiom have got is always [–Activity, +Stative]. I have already mentioned that the presence of the feature of [+Activity] can be tested using the imperative and progressive forms, and in (24) I demonstrated that the possessive idiom have got cannot form the imperative. In the following examples I am demonstrating the same for all the kinds of the verbs have discussed in (15)–(17). In the braets I give their position suggested by the tests based on inversion with the subject and the location of negation (i.e., their ability to appear in the position I⁰), and then the feature content signalled by the availability of the imperatives and progressive forms. (33) e perfective have (I-position): [+Stative] a. *Have fixed the toy during her nap! b. *Her father is having fixed her toy. (34) e dynamic have (V-position): [+Activity] a. Have a shower immediately! b. Mary is having a shower. (35) e modal have (V-position): [+Stative]

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a. *Please don’t have to wake up early! b. ⁇Emma is having to nap two hours. (36) e stative/possessive have (movement from V⁰ to I⁰ position): [+Stative] a. *Have two types of cars! b. *Emma is having many kinds of toys. e claim that the la of the feature [+Activity] results in the moving of the verb have to the I⁰ position is supported by the examples in (33), because the [+Stative] perfective have is clearly in I⁰ (it precedes negation and inverts). Example (34) also supports this, because a dynamic have is generally [+Active] and in the position of V⁰ (it requires do-Support). On the other hand, in (35) the modal have is [–Active], and it does not move to I⁰ (though its true Modal counterpart must appears in I⁰). Because of modal have, an absolute correlation between the feature [+Activity] and location in the V⁰ position cannot be maintained. Of course, many other lexical Verbs can be [+Stative] (need, own, la, owe, like, etc.), and the la of the [+Activity] feature does not force all of them to appear in I⁰ (i.e., to appear without do-Support). us, the la of [+Activity] cannot be a sufficient condition for a lexical Verb to move from V⁰ to I⁰. On the other hand, as far as the data discussed here goes, the la of the feature [+Activity] is a necessary condition for the movement, because no [+Activity] verb moves to I⁰. is principle can explain all the variants in semantic interpretation discussed in (22) and (23), namely that using the idiom have got, with the initial element have moved to I⁰, it is the resulting structure itself what forces the non-habitual and non-dynamic interpretations. 4. Conclusion Referring to the 2-slot syntactic structure of the English predicate from Veselovská (2009), I have provided a more structural (generative) description of the phenomena involving English verbs. I have argued that in the English predicate (at least) two positions are to be distinguished (I⁰ and V⁰), whi allow us to propose a syntactic classification of English Verbs. e position of V⁰ is typically occupied by lexical Verbs and the position of I⁰ is the place where Modals in modern English are generated. As for the English Auxiliaries, those are generated as V⁰ and move to I⁰ (iff I⁰ is otherwise empty). I have used the proposed predicate structure to discuss the varieties of the English verb have, concentrating on the idiom have got. I have summarised a descriptive generalisation appearing in some English grammar textbooks and manuals and provided examples from the British National Corpus to demonstrate that the idiom have got is used only in a limited number of contexts. I argued that with respect to its syntactic aracteristics the element have in the possessive idiom have got is clearly located in the position of the functional verb I⁰. I listed several aracteristics whi closely relate it to the aracteristics of Modals (tense restrictions and the la of non-finite forms), but given its agreement morphology I have concluded it is an Auxiliary, i.e., it moves to I⁰ from some lower VP domain. Looking for the motivation of the assumed V→I movement, I suggested two main factors: the Case assigning ability of the English verb, whi forces the presence of the non-interpreted got

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in V in the possessive idiom have got, and the semantic feature [+Activity] whi is a property only of V⁰; its presence therefore prevents V→I movement. is property of the English I⁰ forces the [+Stative] interpretation, i.e., non-habitual and non-dynamic, on the English idiom have got. In more general terms, this paper demonstrates that the position of an element in a syntactic structure is closely related to its interpretation, and the data from syntax can therefore be used as evidence in semantics and vice versa. Works Cited Alexander, L. G. 1988. Longman English Grammar. London: Longman. Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. e Hague: Mouton. Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordret: Foris. Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Doff, Adrian, and Christopher Jones. 2000. Language in Use: Pre-intermediate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doff, Adrian, and Christopher Jones. 2001. Language in Use: Intermediate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drmolová, Lenka. 2009. Idioms have got and have got to. BA thesis, Palaý University, Olomouc. Emonds, Joseph E. 1976. A Transformational Approa to English Syntax: Root, Structure-Preserving and Local Transformations. New York: Academic Press. Emonds, Joseph E. 1978. e Verbal Complex V’-V in Fren. Linguistic Inquiry 9: 151–75. Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. e Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2006. A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kimball, John. 1973. Get. In Syntax and Semantics 1, ed. John Kimball, 48–75. New York: Seminar Press. Pollo, Jean-Yves, 1989. Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the Structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20: 365–424. irk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Lee, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Roberts, Ian G. 1993. Verbs and Diaronic Syntax: A Comparative History of English and Fren. Dordret: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Stowell, Timothy. 1981. Origins of Phrase Structure. PhD diss., MIT, Cambridge, MA. Swan, Miael. 2003. Practical English Usage. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press. Veselovská, Ludmila. 2009. English Analytic Predicates and the Apparent Specificity of Have. In Anglica III Linguistica, ed. Jarmila Tárnyiková and Markéta Janebová, 133–52. Olomouc: Univerzita Palaého v Olomouci. Corpus e British National Corpus. 2007. Distributed by Oxford University Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. hp://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/.

Subtitling for Home and Abroad: How Discourse Markers Calibrate the Shifting Relationships Between Film and its Audience Mark W. Lencho Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI 53190, USA. Email: len[emailprotected] Abstract: A fundamental insight of pragmatics is that the context of language – where and when it finds its expression, to whom is it directed, and under what circ*mstances and with what intention – not only helps determine meaning and use, but also what forms are osen for the communication. So-called “discourse markers” (not an especially well-defined term) primarily aend to the contextual dimension. In the largest sense, discourse markers constitute all elements that contribute to anoring the diectic center or “origio” in the web of spatio-temporal-interpersonal interrelationships in whi the propositional content of an expression is situated. Looking at Slovak films subtitled in both English and Slovak reveals the distinct relationship the films have for their home audience in contrast to their international audience. English subtitles are decontextualized to a degree that goes beyond Slovak subtitles. is is despite the industry standards that conspire to make subtitled versions of a film look on the surface more like one another than like the spoken version of the films. Keywords: subtitling; cultural translation; pragmatics of subtitling; sociolinguistics of subtitling; Slovak films; discourse markers; deixis

1. Introduction e practice of subtitling to globalize the audience for serious films marks a kind of linguistic frontier. Unlike the translator of serious literature, who may consciously aend to the full range of linguistic dimensions in order to capture the substance, flavor, intentions and effect of a source text, the professional subtitler is guided by principles in the industry that are largely tenical and not linguistic in nature.¹ Yet there is room within these tenical constraints for subtle modulations in the communicative effect. Comparing Slovak subtitles of some classic Slovak movies with the spoken language on the screen and with the English subtitles of their remastered release reveals differences, not only in how the subtitler conceives the relationship between the film and its audience, but also in how the subtitler views overall geography of the communication. I wish to show that subtitles in Slovak, the original language of the film, are more strongly deictically anored than their diectically de-centered English language counterparts, according to three dimensions of deictic anoring: temporal, spatial, and social. Noting this may have the practical effect of motivating an investigation into its desirability or necessity, according to the model of best practices whi views the subtitler as a reflective practitioner. 1. According to Pollard , subtitling has yet to be professionalized to the same degree as translation (2002, 25).

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Theories in Practice

2. Technicalities of Subtitling A professional translator of a literary text embraces a daunting but single minded task, to render the text in form, substance, and effect into a different language. ality of translation is entirely determined within the linguistic domain. By contrast, for the subtitler there are many other concerns of an entirely tenical, non-linguistic nature that compete for aention. Subtitling, by its very nature, is more highly interpretive than translation, involving at least a ange of medium as well as a ange of code (Rosa 2001). Among the many constraints imposed by the visual medium, some of the more important are the following: a) a subtitle can take up no more than two lines, no line consisting of more than 40 aracters, and should remain on the screen at least three seconds in the case of a single full line and at least five seconds for two full lines; b) no subtitle, however short, should occur for less than one second on the screen, and the maximum amount of time a subtitle may appear no maer how long is seven seconds; c) subtitles must maintain a consistent reading speed, as rapid anges in tempo cause deterioration in reading proficiency; d) ea line of a subtitle must be a discrete semantico-syntactic unit, predicates not separated from their complements, nouns not separated from their modifiers, prepostions not separated from their objects, etc.; e) cue-in and cue-out times should be synronized with the expressions in the film, so as to cover all words in the soundtra with text in the subtitle; ) subtitles should not cross hard cuts, involving a ange of time and/or place, nor infringe on sound bridges. Some professional subtitlers go so far as to assert that the constraints listed above actually have priority over the adequacy of translation (Wildblood 2002). Space and time concerns lead to discussions about strategies for paraphrase, summarizing, omiing and, conversely padding out the lines delivered verbally on the screen.² As a result, when we look at the triad consisting of a film’s spoken lines, the subtitles in the same language that the aracters speak, and the subtitles in a different language, there is likely to be more of an affinity between the sets of subtitles than between the spoken words and their rendering in same language subtitles. 3. Linguistic Aspects of Subtitling In general, subtitling standards reflect an overaring interest in concision. ough the conventions of screenplay writing cause most filmic spee to be slower than normal conversational spee, the spoken language in films still tends to outpace timing allowances for subtitling (Remael 2001, 16). In order to maintain the proper pacing, 2. Ivarsson and Carroll list 32 guidelines for good subtitling practice, only one of whi addresses the quality of translation (1998, 157–59). ese guidelines are the same as those endorsed by the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST) (European Association for Studies in Screen Translation 2005).

Mark W. Lencho

43

interpersonal dimensions of the spoken language are aenuated or le out of the subtitles,³ as, for instance, indicators of orality (Rosa 2001, 216). At the extreme, eliding the interpersonal dimension of language, whi does not advance the plot of the story, and whi is derivable from images on the screen, can lead to complete disruption in the rendering of spee. e decisions leading to the absence of subtitles during the initial interactions of the two aracters in Stanislav Párniý’s Južná pošta (1987) are arguably entirely tenical in nature. e content of the exange between Ján Jurkovič and Miael Mandarin is entirely interpersonal, the establishing of an acquaintanceship. Additionally, the information is repeated in the scene, and as the repetitions show spee, the subtitles are reserved for the later point. Additionally, there are pragmatic considerations, su as the subtitler’s conception of his or her audience, whi influence the handling of material. In the Slovak Film Institute’s recent project (from whi we have access to Južná pošta), involving the re-mastering and re-marketing of Slovak films from the last three decades of production under the socialist regime Koliba Film Studio (films of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s), we can compare these Slovak films’ Slovak subtitles with their English subtitles. One of the most noticeable differences is in how languages other than Slovak are handled. English subtitles are uniformly rendered in English, as might be expected. However, Slovak subtitles not only contain Slovak, but also other Slavic languages. Hence, in Martin Hollý’s Noční jazdci (1981), Marek Orban, a Slovak Jánošík-like aracter played by Mial Dočolomanský, discusses his relationship to the newly formed Czeoslovak state with Halva, a Cze military official played by Radoslav Brzobohatý, who has come to the High Tatra border region in order to enforce the (elusive) national border between Poland. Subtitles are rendered in Slovak or Cze depending on the speaker, not only intimating that the subtitler assumes audience proficiency in both languages, but also underscoring the film’s themes regarding the fight over whether the locus of political power should be national or local, and how to privilege the interests of the state and respect local autonomy. Some of Halva’s men are Cze and some are Slovak. Followers of the English language subtitles are unable to tra the status of Halva’s men as insiders or outsiders in the locality of the film (so as to understand their underlying loyalities and their comfort level in their new home), information that is straightforwardly indicated by the code-switing in the Slovak subtitled version. In Miloslav Luther’s 1989 film Chodník cez Dunaj, set during the First Slovak Republic at the outbreak of World War II, the two main aracters, Viki (Roman Luknár) and Tiáček (Vladimír Hajdu) are Slovak and Cze respectively, both languages faithfully rendered in the Slovak subtitles. Viki and Tiáček, an ethnic Jew, are fleeing the German Gestapo through Slovakia and into Hungary, and when they enounter a Polish Jewish family in their escape, the Slovak subtitles even include Polish, switing now among 3. A representative list of language susceptable to omission would include phatic expressions, question tags, emphatic markers, overlaps, repetitions, hesitations, reformulations, expletives, ellipsis and emphasis markers, interjections, incomplete sentences, forms of address, reference to mental processes, distancing from the direct spee acts, for, e.g., politeness effects, etc. (Rosa 2001).

44

Theories in Practice

three different codes. German and Hungarian languages make appearances in this film, but always are le as unsubtitled segments. is Pan-Slavic solidarity, an important motif in the film, is given no formal or linguistic support in the English subtitles, where all the dialogue is uniformly represented in English. e subtitler’s decision not to subtitle segments in German and Hungarian is carried out throughout the Slovak Film Institute’s collection. e subtitled version makes it clear in a way that goes beyond the non-subtitled version that the audience is not intended to understand these languages. In Zoro Záhon’s Pomocník (1981), Slovak farmer, Štefan Riečan (Elo Romančík), who fought against the Germans as part of the National Slovak Uprising towards the end of World War II, is awarded a buter shop expropriated from a Nazi collaborator near the border with Hungary. When Riečan is introduced to the former shopkeeper’s ethnic Hungarian assistant, Volent Lančarič (Gábor Koncz), the untranslated Hungarian reinforces the alienation that the new arrival must feel and also foreshadows the assistant’s propensity to make arrangements for himself and Riečan’s business and family without consulting with Riečan. In the musical Fontána pre Zuzanu (Dušan Rapoš 1985), songs convey extensive commentary on the motivations of the aracters, their importance aested by the decision to subtitle the lyrics in the English subtitled version. at the lyrics are not subtitled in the Slovak subtitled version may reflect the subtitler’s assumption that these songs represent a recognizable part of the Slovak cultural landscape. In any event, they make clear that the intended audience for the Slovak subtitles is not the hearing-impaired. 4. Deixis Pragmatic investigations in deixis are concerned with, among other things, the web of connections that locate the speaker, audience, and content of an expression in time and space (temporal and spatial deixis). To the degree that time and space have psyological correlates (e.g., politeness as a distancing meanism) deixis also reflects the relationship of interlocutors to ea other (social deixis). Late in Noční jazdci, a group of various functionaries are gathered to commemorate the opening of a new customs house on the Czeoslovak Polish border in the Tatra mountain region. ese officials bring news that the border has been anged due to negotiations at Trianon. at the specific geographic location of Trianon is outside the frame of reference for the audience of all versions of the film is revealed by the aracters’ discussion, whi makes clear that they have only a vague idea of where the city is located. But for a contemporary Slovak audience, Trianon would certainly be recognized as marking a time, namely 1920, aer World War I, when the border with Hungary was expanded and established more according to political than ethnic lines. us the specific temporal present of the film is given, but only indirectly, presumably shared by the audience of the Slovak subtitles, leaving the audience of the English subtitles somewhat temporally disconnected. Comparing English and Slovak subtitles reveals differences in how the subtitlers conceive the relationship between reference points in the film and their audiences’

Mark W. Lencho

45

location. Unlike the example of Trianon, cities that are referenced in the Slovak subtitles are generally either elided or reinterpreted in terms of what the subtitler may deem as their significance to the story line in the English subtitled version. e result is that the symbolism is flaened as the audience is placed outside the deictic reference points that locate the audience with respect to the action on the screen, and the deictic cohesiveness of the the film is loosened. e audience exclusively dependent on English language subtitles inhabits a curiously ephemeral cinematic world, only vaguely anored in time and place. Interestingly, these disconnections arise even in the domain of social deixis, concerning the relationship between aracters and ea other. Discourse markers, pared down in Slovak subtitles, are even more radically excised in English subtitles. Subtitles do not consistently aend to the distribution of information between aracters. In the artful film Ja milujem, ty miluješ (Dušan Hanák 1981), the main aracter, Pišta (Roman Klosowski) is repeatedly identified with bees. Where this association has symbolic overtones, it is certainly significant whether this identification is one that Pišta asserts through his own agency (he sees himself as a bee) or something projected on him by others (others see him as a bee). However, whether this is how other’s see him or how he sees himself is fudged in the subtitles. 5. Case Study We can exemplify many of the aforementioned issues by taking a closer look at a more expansive excerpt: 127 subtitles comprising most of the climactic wedding scene in Štefan Uher’s 1982 film Pásla kone na betóne. Johanka (Emília Zimková) has raised a daughter as a single mother, and in the process has been subjected to all the humiliations of a society that refuses to anowledge the legitimacy of motherhood outside of marriage. e father of her daughter, an itinerant well builder, was a momentary indiscretion, but a local handyman has been steadfast in his love and support of Johanka. She, however, has always had higher aspirations for herself. e village teaer would make a good mat, as he is educated and a model of grace, but he is married, albeit to an absentee wife. When Johanka discovers that her teenage daughter, Pavlínka, is pregnant, as the result of an episode with a wayward soldier, she tries to get her married off. Answering a wedding advertisem*nt is goofy but goodhearted Štefan. e wedding is planned, and the ceremony commences, though the groom is a noshow and the bride becomes si. It is a scene that is not going anywhere, distinguished by the la of plot advancement. It reveals its arm as the aracters refine and redefine their relationships with one another. Comparing the English and Slovak subtitles to the spoken version of this scene, where there are divergences, more oen than not, the Slovak and English subtitled versions are closer to ea other than to the spoken lines.⁴ Even the distinctive Eastern dialect of Slovak pervasive in this film is entirely unrepresented in the subtitles. Most peculiarly, there are 4. Maybe the most substantive distinction between the two sets of subtitles is that the English subtitles fail to tra the motif of the expenditure of money as indicative of the goodness of things (see, for instance, (4) below where “najdrahší” is rendered as “fanciest” rather than “most expensive”).

46

Theories in Practice

several lines like 6, 18, and 20 below where the Slovak titles, rather than transcribing straightforwardly the spoken Slovak, are instead calques of the English subtitles, as if the Slovak subtitle source were the English subtitles rather than the conversation in the film.⁵ Table 1 Spoken 6. Johanka Neboj še, Berty, dam tsi 18. pani učiteľka Prosim? 20. pani učiteľka Ten je ešte v posteli

Slovak Subtitles

English Subtitles

Samozrejme.

Of course!

Kto je tam?

Who is it?

Ten ešte spí.

He’s still asleep.

Despite modifications in the direction of the English subtitles, there are important divergences between the English and Slovak versions. References on the screen to place names, usually excised in the English subtitles, are included in the Slovak subtitles, as we can see with the references to the mining town Karviná in subtitles 49 and 58 (table 2): Table 2 Spoken

Slovak Subtitles

English Subtitles

49. Štefanova krstná mama Keď v tej Karvinej platí na dve dzetci.

Keď v Karvinej platí na dve deti.

He already has two ildren.

Veď on platí v Karvinej na dve deti

He pays ild support aer two kids

58. Johanka Však on v Karvinej platcí na dve dzetci.

Unelaborated references to towns suggests that the subtitler presumes local geographic knowledge in his Slovak readers, but not the English readers. Hence the Slovak subtitles are more strongly deictically anored for location. ough many of the terms of address used on the screen are omied from both subtitled versions, the Slovak subtitles retain these more oen than the English. Neither Katarína nor Berty are referred to by name in the English version, though they play important roles in organizing the wedding proceedings. us, the English language viewer is excluded from the wedding party’s social circle in a way the Slovak viewer is not. In the case of subtitle 103, we are dealing with a central aracter whose name is known to all viewers. Hence, its appearance in the Slovak subtitles has the effect of soening the expression, of re-inforcing the tenderness and commiseration that Johanka has for her daughter. e abruptness of the English subtitle is somewhat at variance with the images on the screen (Table 3): 5. Ideally, according to Jorge Díaz Cintas (2001), the foreign language subtitler is working from a so-called “Standard List,” whi contains the spoken lines of the film, cue-in and cue-out times, and master subtitles, whi are original language variants of the screenplay whi conform to spoing times. I am not sure if the subtitlers of these remastered Slovak movies had these resources. If so, it appears that the Slovak master subtitles were composed with an eye to how they would be presented in English.

Mark W. Lencho

47

Table 3 Spoken

Slovak Subtitles

English Subtitles

54. Berty Ale nenašôu som takú krčmu ako u Katarínky je

Ale takú som nenašiel, ako je u Katarínky.

and yours is the best!

85. opitá hosťka/Berty – Berty – Čo je?

– Berty – Čo je?

What’s the maer?

103. Johanka Neplač, Pavlínko! Neplač, Pavlí

Neplač, Pavlínko!

Don’t cry.

Relatedly, viewers not limited to the English version learn through the Slovak subtitles more about the people in the story, for instance, that Johanka’s uncle is the first guest at the scene (10). e telegraphic communication in the English subtitles is rendered with more interconnectivity in the Slovak version, where tag questions are found that instigate turn taking (5, 16, and 73), or forays into the performative framework in whi the proposition is situated (28). Table 4 Spoken

Slovak Subtitles

English Subtitles

Postav na stôl najdrahší alkohol.

Give us the fanciest drink you have,

Zaslúžime si to, nie?

we deserve it.

Všade dávaj kvietky, dobre?

Put flowers everywhere.

73. Teča Jednu si dáme, čo povieš?

Dáme si, dobre?

Let’s have a drink.

28. pani učiteľka No ale ja mu v tom nebránim veď je to neškodná zábava.

Nebránim mu v tom, je to neškodná zábava.

It’s a harmless hobby.

4. Berty Johanko, postav na stôl tuzeksovku, ale to tu najdhrahšiu 5. Berty Šak sebe zaslúžime, ne? 16. Johanka Jozeu, len davaj, šadze davaj kvítky

In a scene where the focus of interest is not so mu on an advancing plot line, but on the aracters’ level of psyic homeostasis, it is interesting to note that discourse markers – constituting part of the interaction between speakers that monitors their sense of what is going on at the moment – occur most oen in the Slovak subtitles: there is the affiliatory “vieš,” (‘You know’) with whi Johanka’s uncle greets her (2). Similarly, the teaer’s wife greets Johanka with the more socially distant forms in the TV distinction available to Slovak speakers, while the presence of discourse markers like “Viete” (‘You know’) reveal a presumption towards familiarity that does not make it into the English version (24). Another discourse marker appearing in the Slovak subtitles that is glossed over in the English is the confidential “veď” (2, 58) meant to reveal the thinking behind the associated

48

Theories in Practice

proposition. So Johanka’s uncle is not only telling Johanka that he will not die until he plays at her wedding, but he also lets it be known that she knows this, and so it is an opportunity to underscore his commitment to her, Table 5 Spoken

Slovak Subtitles

English Subtitles

2. Imrich Johanko, Ty dobre znaš, že ja neumriem

Veď vieš, že neumriem,

I won’t die

24. pani učiteľka Viete ako je to, keď je lap sám

Viete, keď je lap sám . . .

A baelor flat . . .

58. Johanka Však on v Karvinej platcí na dve dzetci.

Veď on platí v Karvinej na dve deti

He pays ild support aer two kids

e Slovak discourse marker “no” almost never gets translated into English. It is omnipresent in Slovak spee, and can run the gamut of meanings. ere is no single English translation whi covers its breath of meanings. ough it is frequently omied in Slovak subtitles, it does make occasional appearances, su as in Jozea’s inquiries aer the teaer: Jozea asks Johanka: “Učiteľa si zavolala?” (Have you talked to him?) Johanka nods affirmatively, and Jozea responds “No a čo?.” Jozea’s “No” has overtones of an evaluation of her friends response, along the lines of “I register what you say, but it is an insufficient answer, requiring further explanation.” e corresponding English subtitle (“And? ”) leaves out the anowledging and evaluating part of the Slovak subtitle, conveying only a request for more information. 6. Conclusion In a cross section of high quality Slovak films, whether the subtitles are in English or Slovak reflects the degree to whi the action of the film is contextualized. e viewer limited to the English subtitles experiences the spee acts of these films as hovering somewhat outside of space and time. Likewise, social and emotional relationships among the aracters of the film are less defined. Only a certain amount of this decontextualization appears to be required by the tenical constraints on subtitling, as evidenced by the fact that English subtitles are more decontexualized than Slovak ones. Whether or not this decontexualization is desireable is outside of the scope of the paper, but may be taken into consideration as the practice of subtitling becomes more self-informed. Acknowledgement I wish to express my gratitude to Katarína Fišerová and Martin Mačura for their assistance with some translation. Also thanks goes to Shiela Turek, who shared with me her work in progress on subtitling and who pointed in the direction of some important resource material. Finally, thanks to my wife Betsy and our dear daughter Žofia for their indulgence and inspiration.

Mark W. Lencho

49

Works Cited Cintas, Jorge Díaz. 2001. Striving for ality in Subtitling: e Role of a Good Dialogue List. In (Multi) Media Translation, ed. Yves Gambier and Henrik Golieb, 199–212. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. European Association for Studies in Screen Translation. 2005. Code of Good Subtitling Practice. hp://www.esist.org/Code.pdf (accessed August 31, 2009). Ivarsson, Jan, and Mary Carroll. 1998. Subtitling. Simrishamn: TransEdit HB. Pollard, Chris. 2002. e Art and Science of Subtitling: A Close Look at How It’s Done. Language International 14, no. 2: 24–27. Remael, Aline. 2001. Some oughts on the Study of Multimodal and Multimedia Translation. In (Multi) Media Translation, ed. Yves Gambier and Henrik Golieb, 13–22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Rosa, Alexandra Assis. 2001. Features of Oral and Wrien Communication in Subtitling. In (Multi) Media Translation, ed. Yves Gambier and Henrik Golieb, 213–21. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wildblood, Alan. 2002. A Subtitle is Not a Translation: A Day in the Life of a Subtitler. Language International 14, no. 2: 40–43. Corpus Chodník cez Dunaj [A Path Across the Danube]. 1989. Directed by Miloslav Luther. DVD. Slovak Film Institute, 2006. Fontána pre Zuzanu [e Fountain for Suzanne]. 1985. Directed by Dušan Rapoš. DVD. Slovak Film Institute, 2006. Ja milujem, ty miluješ [I Love, You Love]. 1980. Directed by Dušan Hanák. DVD. Slovak Film Institute, 2006. Južná pošta [e Southern Mail]. 1987. Directed by Stanislav Párniý. DVD. Slovak Film Institute, 2006. Noční jazdci [Night Riders]. 1981. Directed by Martin Hollý. DVD. Slovak Film Institute, 2006. Pásla kone na betóne [A Tiet to the Heaven]. 1982. Directed by Štefan Uher. DVD. Slovak Film Institute, 2006. Pomocník [e Assistant]. 1981. Directed by Zoro Záhon. DVD. Slovak Film Institute, 2006.

Military Language and Culture Ladislav Chaloupský Defense Language Institute, sídl. Víta Nejedlého, 682 03 Vyškov, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected] Abstract: is paper deals with aspects of military language and culture. It briefly explains NATO language descriptors according to STANAG 6001. e connection of cultural events and the origin of new lexical units are depicted in tables. An example of new military abbreviations shows how military language reflects culture. Difficulties in how some lexical units are perceived by different nationalities are shown as well as the factors that have an influence on the social role of military personnel. Keywords: military language; cultural awareness; communication; military abbreviations; denotation; connotation; social role

Language is not primarily a means of communication but a means of communion. —R. B. Le Page (1964, 9)

As with civilizations and dynasties, languages live and die and, as su, can be seen as direct reflections of the societies in whi humans live; indeed they are the cultural thread that make it possible for people to communicate, and the most widely spread of these today (geographically), is that of the English language. From a military perspective, therefore, it is unique in terms of its communion (as a culture) with the world. McCrum, Cran and MacNeil (1986, 19) describe the expansion of English in the following way: “e rise of English is a remarkable success story. When Julius Caesar landed in Britain nearly two thousand years ago, it did not exist. Nearly a thousand years later, at the end of the 16th century, when William Shakespeare was in his prime, English was the native spee of between five and seven million Englishmen and it was, in the words of a contemporary, ‘small reat, it streteth no further than this iland of ours, naie not there over all.’” Just four centuries years later, however, the contrast is remarkable; English has arguably become the most predominant culture in the world and, from every corner of the globe, the gravestones of its adherents cry out at us, bequeathing to us a language that has not only been the epitaph of print and business for fiy generations, but the blood of poetry and politics; the heart of religion and science, the mathematics of profiteering and engineering, and the vernacular of peace and war. In the year 2000 there were approximately 400 million native speakers of English in the world but, if we add the half a billion or so who (pending various levels of mastery) use English as a second language or third language, it can be seen that English has become the language of the world and it is for this reason that we must invest in it. However, to invest in just the syntax of the language alone, in order to communicate with this world is but half the game for, equally important, is our ability to reason within the semantics of its communal aspects or what I have termed the ability to empathize with a language’s alien environments (that are inherent – to differing degrees – within every language).

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e reason for this, especially with English (given its ability to grow and adapt compared to other languages), is that these environments are saturated in traits that do not transpose across cultures. In short, although we all may well be able to communicate with ea other in English, this is not to say that we will understand ea other. Equally, the consequences of misunderstanding language as the somatic thread that holds a culture together can be disastrous, and the following demonstrates the seriousness of this issue – that language, especially Military Language, predetermines what we see in this world from the context of our culture. Military Language is a ri, visual lyric of ancient symbols and insignia that denotes everything from unit and command affiliations to departments su as the DLI (Defense Language Institute) itself. As a demonstration, one need only think of what are commonly referred to today as Bla Ops – that world of activities that are officially unanowledged – for how can a language represent that whi, by definition, is unrepresentable? Indeed to see this language, one need only to look about themselves today: at the array of ranks on show; at the wrien orders and verbal commands that passed one’s desk to even get here; of all the salutes and I.D. (identification) cards that were taken; to all that would mean gobbledygook to everyone but a soldier – to anyone alien to the culture. And this is where the irony of Military Language lies, not in the visual riness of this language but, like English, in its extension to the unseen: to the nuances of the culture in whi it was born and now operates: from everything in the subtleties of our uniforms, to the files marked secret in the briefcases of those around us! To understand this, is to understand that – it is not just the language and culture of our allies that we hence need to study and study hard if we are to reason with them, but that of our enemies. erefore, in terms of its complexity and importance, the phenomenon of Military Culture and Language is unique to our societies and a subject that goes far beyond merely learning English. Indeed learning English is but the beginning. e purpose of this presentation is hence two-fold: to state the importance of understanding Military Culture and Language in the current (English) environment and to show how the Cze Army is not only taking this seriously but dealing with it effectively. Next, I consider how vital this subject is as a military discipline and how knowing and not knowing our enemy in the past has affected us. From the outset, I briefly define culture and discuss the complexities of language as a subject. e subsequent section takes an extensive look at how cultural awareness and language education and language training initiatives can deliver this. To conclude, I briefly discuss the reason why long-term cultural and language training is necessary, given our expeditionary nature today. Many factors form and influence culture and language and this is why there are scores of definitions, concepts and theories related to the subject. Out of them, however, the following two quotes should suffice: Language is the indispensable meanism of human life – of life su as ours that is molded, guided, enried, and made possible by the accumulation of the past experience of members of our own species. Dogs and cats and impanzees do not, so far as we can tell, increase their wisdom, their information, or their control over their environment from one generation to the next. But human

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beings do. e cultural accomplishments of the ages, the invention of cooking, of weapons, of writing, of printing, of methods of building of games and amusem*nts of means of transportation, and the discoveries of all the arts and sciences come to us as free gis from the dead. ese gis, whi none of us have done anything to earn, offer us not only the opportunity for a rier life than our forebears enjoyed but also the opportunity to add to the sum total of human aievement by our own contributions, however small they may be. (Hayakawa 1972, 13) Culture can be generally defined as the set of values and beliefs whi are prevalent within a given society or section of a society. is refers to the most prestigious artistic aievements of a society: its art, music, theatre and, especially, its literature, to the habits, customs, social behaviour and assumptions about the world of a group of people and to the social knowledge and interactive skills whi are required in addition to knowledge of the language system. (McCarthy and Carter 1994, 150–51)

To sum up the above we can say that culture is the intangible framework of both implicit and explicit meanings, beliefs, aitudes, values, rules, artistic and tenical aievements in whi a group of people (in this case military) operate. Culture determines the way we behave, the manner in whi we relate to others, and the way that we think about and interpret events happening around us. In order to communicate effectively not only during political sessions but during joint maneuvers and exercises, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) adopted English as an official NATO language. In addition, it made a good command of the English language an operational requirement of NATO. For this reason, the NATO language subcommiee, BILC (Bureau for International Language Co-operation) was established in 1976. It adopted American language descriptors ILR (Inter-agency Roundtable) for language assessment under the name of STANAG 6001 (Standardized Agreement) with six levels of language comprehension for ea of the four language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing. ese skills are graded from 0 to 5 and are known as SLP’s (Standardized Language Profile) with Level 5 being a fully educated native speaker. In NATO countries, English is tested according to these descriptors and level three (a person with SLP 3 should be familiar with basic military colloquial and slang expressions) is the most widespread degree of aainment. e higher the SLP, the more of these expressions he or she should know. e majority of military personnel who work or is assigned to work in NATO must qualify with an SLP of 3, 3, 3, 3. At this level, a professional level in all four skills, language is culturally bound. A good example of how military language is tied with culture may be demonstrated with abbreviations whi have been recently introduced into military English and whi originated in Iraq and Afghanistan. ey are used to describe different types of explosive devices and how and where these explosives are used. In addition, many of them clearly reflect the situation and culture in whi they have been used. VBIED TBIED HBIED DBIED SVBIED STBIED

Vehicle borne improvised explosive device Tru borne improvised explosive device House borne improvised explosive device Donkey borne improvised explosive device Suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device Suicide tru borne improvised explosive device

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AAIED Anti-armor improvised explosive device RCIED Remote controlled improvised explosive device VOIED Victim operated improvised explosive device It is also obvious from the above examples that a person unfamiliar with the abbreviations will have difficulties in decoding them. Even a soldier without any international experience would have difficulties in decoding the abbreviations found in Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War. e book was published in 1996 and, although fiction, is based on real events in Vietnam: Enemy sit. Aggressor forces in div strength holding MLR Hill 820 complex gc AT 940713–951716 w/fwd elements est. bn strength junction at gc AT 948715 (See Annex A, COMPHIBPAC intell summary period ending 25 June) . . . Mission: BLT 1/7 seize, hold and defend obj. A gc 948715. . . Execution: BLT 1/7 land LZ X-RAY AT 946710 at H-Hour 310600 . . . A co. GSF estab. LZ security LZ X-Ray H minus 10 . . . B co. advance axis BLUE H plus 5 estab. bloing pos. vic gs¹ AT 948710 . . . A, C, D cos. Maneuver element commence advance axis Brown H plus 10 . . . Bn tacnet freq 52.9 . . . shale code² HAZTRCEGBD . . . div tacair dir. Air spt callsign PLAYBOY . . . Mark friendly pos w/air panels or green smoke. Mark tgt. w/WP ³

Another aspect when speaking about culture and language relates to the knowledge of different connotations. For example the Fren word “contribuable” and the English word “taxpayer” denote the same thing, but connote something else. “Taxpayer” is a word descriptive of physical action, of something whi might have been seen with the eyes. It evokes the image of a man paying money at, for example, a teller’s window. “Contribuable,” however, embodies an abstract principle. It evokes not just an image, but a thought, the thought that all citizens must contribute to the welfare of the nation of whi they are a part. Let us consider the connotations of these two words in the context of NATO. e reaction from an American would be: Does the man who pays get a fair return on his money? Or, in other words, is the Mutual Assistance Program really the best way of geing 1. gs is a misprint. e correct abbreviation is gc. 2. A “shale code” was an alpha-numeric message system passed by voice over talk between ships (TBS). Since TBS transmissions were passed in the clear, encodement was crucial to keep the enemy unaware of task unit intentions. Shale codes were oen used to relay course anges or any other message whi called for the use of numbers, su as when to execute a timed event, etc. In all entries, the crucial data contained within the shale code is contained in between the words “SHACKLE” and “UNSHACKLE.” 3. Enemy situation. Aggressor forces in division strength are holding the main line of resistance at the Hill 820 complex located at grid coordinates 940713–951716 with forward elements estimated in baalion strength at the road junction located at grid coordinates 948715 (See Annex A, Pacific Amphibious Command intelligence summary for the period ending 25 June). Mission: Baalion Landing Team 1/7 will seize, hold and defend objective A at grid coordinates 948715. Execution: Baalion Landing Team 1/7 land at Landing Zone X-RAY at grid coordinates 946710 at H-Hour (whi is 06:00 on 31 June). A company of the ground support force will establish landing zone security at landing zone X-Ray at 05:50 on 31 June. B Company will advance along axis Blue at 06:05 on 31 June to establish bloing positions in the vicinity of grid coordinates 948710. A, C, and D Companies: e maneuver element commence its advance along axis Brown at 06:10 on 31 June. e baalion tactical network frequency is 52.9. Radio shale code will be HAZTRCEGBD. e division tactical air direction and air support call sign will be PLAYBOY. Mark all friendly position with air panels or green smoke. Mark targets (enemy positions) with white phosphorus.” (Caputo 1996, 14)

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the most security for the least cost? But for the Fren, it would be quite different: Does everyone contribute equally to the common cause? An analogy of denoting the same thing, would be the American military order “Secure the building” as it could be interpreted in a myriad of ways: – Army personnel, for example, would go into the building, lo the windows and doors, and put a guard in front whilst Marine personnel would aa the building and take prisoners and Navy personnel would just lo the building and leave. And Air Force personnel? Well, Air Force personnel would merely ask the owner of the building about the price with a view to renting it. Su miscommunications are extremely dangerous in combat scenarios: imagine three of our soldiers in Afghanistan, an American, a Brit and a Cze, ea of them covering a given arc of fire (by ea of them concentrating on a particular field of fire, the tactic enables them to cover a mu wider arc than would have otherwise been possible). And then, when all of a sudden, the Brit suddenly shouts “stoppage” (by shouting stoppage he is indicating his inability to fire due to a jammed weapon and is basically informing his colleagues that his arc is now vulnerable and needs cover)! e problem is that, despite all of them being able to communicate in English, only the Brit is aware of what “stoppage” means (to him), and his good intentions lead to the Cze ceasing fire and, bar an element of curiosity from the American, no compensatory action there whatsoever. Hence, the result is that all three of them, with two fields of fire now uncovered, are unable to operate as a team and could well end up outgunned and puing themselves and possibly others in mortal danger. Moreover, as with English, cultural knowledge is subject to constant ange. For example, certain categories of artifacts su as guns or tanks have anged so mu that people of, say, two generations ba, would be unable to recognize them today. And to further complicate this, whilst the cultural categories have shied, e.g., with the invention of the ain gun or the turret-less tank, we do not however feel that the words gun and tank have actually anged in their meaning. An example related to the ange of cultural knowledge and lexicon is semantic shi. Peicoat, for example, the word for a woman’s underskirt was originally a military term – a padded garment that provided additional protection for men beneath their armor. A similar example is the word baery that Benjamin Franklin used to describe what we now call a capacitor due to its resemblance to a baery of guns (several artillery pieces together). e word itself, however, came from the Latin bauere meaning to beat, whi in turn the Fren adopted as bare, “to beat or baer” and from whi the English borrowed baerie “a beating or baering, a set of cannons.” Another example is the word tampion. It was a piece of cloth or a wooden plug in the muzzle of a gun to keep the inside of the barrel dry. It was borrowed from Fren tampon in 1430. e word tampon in the sense of absorbent material (today, it is a feminine hygiene product) entered English from the same Fren word tampon in 1848. However, the spelling and the pronunciation of these two words were oen swited during the U.S. Civil War.

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As we can see, not only does language ange over time, it also has different forms that exist simultaneously and ea speaker learns a version that is distinctive to his or her particular social, regional, or cultural baground. Language is constantly anging, not only from region to region and from social group to social group, but also from person to person. In addition, it reflects the context of the situation and the context of the culture at a moment in time (see Table 1). Table 1: Examples of some Military Words that are tied to the Military-Political Events of the Twentieth Century (Parry, Anderson and McGovern 2002, 193–94; Ayto 1999) Date

Event

1899–1902

1919 1936–1939 1938 1939–1945

Great Boer War (Boers v. British, 1900 Bale of Mafeking and Bale of Ladysmith) World War I (1915 Gallipoli campaign, Zeppelin raids on Britain, Bale of Ypres; 1916 Bales of Verdun – the tank first used; 1918 Bale of Somme) Treaty of Versailles Spanish Civil War Munich Agreement World War II

1946–

Cold War begins

1950–1953 1955 1956–1975

Korean War Warsaw Pact formed Vietnam War (1964 US enters Vietnam War) Gulf War Civil War in Yugoslavia (Conflict in former Yugoslavia begins)

1914–1918

1991 1991–1995

Examples of Some Military Terms that Originated at That Time surprise aa, concentration camp, hangar, pacifism air-raid, atomic bomb, Anzac, gas aa, gas mask, tank, air force, flame-thrower, dogfight, peace offensive P.O.W. (prisoner-of-war) fih column escalation, evacuate, germ warfare Blitzkrieg, civil defence, G. I. government-issue, Partisan, World War I (Previously referred to as the Great War), collaboration, counter-intelligence, jeep, bazooka, superpower, A-bomb, atom bomb, air-li, guided missile biological warfare, ground zero, hydrogen bomb, heliport brain-washing disinformation Medevac (a blend of medical and evac[uation]), cluster bomb, gunship safe haven ethnic cleansing

Imagine a student, a beginner, who needs to get an SLP 3 in line with Stanag 6001, to rea a certain level of competency that enables him to perform his job to the same level of proficiency in English as in Cze, and realize this – that the military student’s goal is far more complicated than that of the average student for, amidst the obstacles that every student of a foreign language has to negotiate, are the military intangibles that he must manage and conquer in order to engage in two-way communication: the environment, fatigue, stress, and culture that not only compound the difficulties in communication but, in fact, lie at the heart of them.

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On top of having to manage the lexicon and syntax for that level, he is also burdened with the semantics and pragmatics. He has to know when to say what and to whom and he must be able to communicate effectively on both a personal and professional level. Society is intertwined with language to su an extent that it is impossible to understand one without the other. Hence, the military is considered as one social group with different sub-groups both of whi have their own tenical vocabulary, jargon and slang. Effective communication with people of different cultures is allenging. Cultures provide people with ways of thinking, ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting the world. us the same words can mean different things to people from different cultures, even when they talk the same language. Furthermore, when the languages are different, and translation has to be used to communicate, the potential for misunderstandings increases. To say that culture is communication means to see it as a system of signs. is is the semiotic theory of culture. In its most basic version, this view holds that culture is a representation of the world, a way of making sense of reality by objectifying it in stories, myths, descriptions, theories, proverbs, artistic products and performances. In this perspective, people’s cultural products, e.g. myths, rituals, classification of the natural and social world, can also be seen as examples of the appropriation of nature by humans through their ability to establish symbolic relationships among individuals, groups, or species. (Duranti 1997, 33)

Indeed, from the very moment a soldier enters the armed forces, this environment of special customs and traditions become a part of his life; the ain of command (status of superiority) and leadership, the ranks, the uniforms, how soldiers address one another, the courtesies rendered to the national flag and superiors, and customs and traditions that go ba to ancient times. e social role of military personnel is influenced by factors su as: 1. Bran of Service (Air Force, Army, Navy, etc.). Within these branes there are special sub-categories su as Green Berets,⁴ 720th STG,⁵ SEALS,⁶ Delta Force, Rangers, Medical Corps, Judge Advocate General Corps, Chaplain Corps, etc. Although NCOs,⁷ Officers, and Generals in ea of these sub-categories have differing personnel and communication skills, they share the same group identity and thereby use similar expressions (see Table 2).

4. “e distinctive headgear worn by members of the Army’s Special Forces. e forest-green colored, wool beret (aka, blanket) with the insignia of the Special Forces on its peak, was authorized as a part of the uniform by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. e Special Forces were initially the only Army unit allowed to wear a beret. Today, several military units are authorized to wear berets as part of their uniform, but they are of different colors (e.g. red, maroon, bla).” (Tomajczyk 1996, 282) 5. Special Tactics Group. 6. “(Sea-Air-Land, Bla Berets) e Navy’s elite unconventional warfare teams. Supposedly in SEAL slang, the acronym also stands for ‘Sleep, Eat, And Live it up.” (Tomajczyk 1996, 487) 7. Non-commissioned officer.

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Theories in Practice Table 2: Military Sub-categories

Army

Air Force Navy Special Forces Green Berets – STG – SEALS NCOs

Military Air Force Navy Special Forces Green Berets – STG – SEALS Officers Army

Army

Air Force Navy Special Forces Green Berets – STG – SEALS Generals

2. Military field of expertise: Military Police, Aviation, Artillery, etc. 3. Motivation to serve (economic reasons – education, ethical reasons, etc.). 4. Gender and military service (number of women integrated in regular armed structures has been increasing every year). 5. Race, ethnicity (the U.S. is a multi-ethnic society. Racial and ethnic integration in the armed forces is high), and military families (e U.S. military has increased its responsibility to the families of their personnel and tries to ease the impact of frequent movements and disruption to a spouse’s career). 6. Education (Civilian and Military). Generally, civilian and military education also has an impact on spee behavior. Yule (2001, 240) writes that: “it has been found that, among those leaving the educational system at an early age, there is a greater tendency to use forms whi are relatively infrequent in the spee of those who go on to college.” Usually the higher the rank, the higher the education, completed courses and experience with other nationalities, or the more responsible the job and the higher the rank, the higher the military education is required. In other words, higher ranks, su as senior NCOs, Officers and Generals, have a tendency to speak more intelligently. ey also possess higher degrees of cross-cultural awareness. e higher ranks also stay longer in the military and hence, usually have more international experience. Level of Education and Cultural Awareness (Chaloupský 2005) . enerals G . .Officers .NCOs

. Cross-cultural Awareness

7. Work under stress (wars, emergency situations). e status of superiority and work under stress has an impact on the selection of vocabulary. To observe status superiority

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during everyday conversation is therefore a must for the military. However, there is a difference in spee during peacetime and wartime or work under stress. For example Spolsky (1998, 22) writes about differences in addressing superiors or subordinates during peacetime and war conditions: “Military usage related to address systems shows special paerns. Peacetime armies with strict discipline and emphasis on ceremonial duties are likely to have strict rules for addressing superiors. In the U.S. Marine Corps, senior officers were addressed in the third person (‘Would the General like me to bring him a cup of coffee?’) and other officers received ‘sir’ from their inferiors. Noncommissioned officers were addressed by rank (‘Yes, sergeant.’). In a different seing, su as under bale conditions, things anged. An officer was addressed directly, oen by a regular niname. Company commanders, for instance, were addressed as ‘Skipper’ and sergeant-majors as ‘Gunny.’ More democratic armies oen make a point of dropping special address rules along with saluting.” 8. Social distance (Military hierary). e social distance is closely connected with the status of superiority. e aim is to find out to whi extent the social distance had an impact on code oice. “Many factors may contribute in determining the degree of social distance or solidarity between people – relative age, sex, social roles, whether people work together, or are part of the same family, and so on. ese factors may also be relevant to people’s relative social status” (Holmes 1992, 247). In addition to the above, the social distance is also determined by the military hierary. e military as a social group works in a particular environment and is organized into hierary. To illustrate military hierary from a lexical point of view: A lexical hierary is a graded series of lexemes in whi ea item holds a particular rank, being ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ than adjacent items. e sequence corporal-sergeant-lieutenant is part of one su hierary. e relationship between corporal and sergeant is not one of synonymy (they are not the same in meaning), nor antonymy (they are not opposites), nor hyponymy (a corporal is not a kind of sergeant, or vice versa). It is really one of incompatibility, but of a rather special kind: the relationship between corporal and sergeant is not like that between clarinet and oboe. Sergeant is ‘higher’ than corporal, whereas neither of the instruments can be said to outrank the other (though soloists of either instrument might disagree). (Crystal 1995, 168)

— Language is more than our means of communication; it is the means by whi we explain what we experience and the vehicle for our culture. To know another man’s language is to know something of his soul. —e Diplomat’s Dictionary e field of combat was a long, narrow, green-baize covered table. e weapons were words. —Admiral C. Turner Joy, USN (on a year of truce negotiations in Korea, December 31, 1952)

Understanding the enemy and effective communication is key to every military campaign but knowing the words and grammar itself, however, is not enough. In other words, if we are to be successful in our military efforts, we must understand not only the language of the enemy but also his culture, as these two aspects are intricately connected and the consequences of doing anything less, of relying on the Cold War maines and philosophies of yesterday, can be disastrous.

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During the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, who served as Defense Secretary for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, openly admied that he had never visited Indoina and did not understand or appreciate the history, language, culture, or values of the region. Now, whilst this is not to say that this led directly to the withdrawal of the U.S. troops, it does shed some light on the value expended on cultural awareness training in the U.S. Army today. It is also worth pointing out that, whilst the Americans lost Vietnam, the British won a similar war in Malaya a decade earlier, in a very different fashion and predominantly on the experience of having dominated cultures for so many years across the Empire. In fact, since the massive loss of Islandhwana in 1879 (it was not until the Somme with 60000 British casualties in a single day that their defeat at the hands of the Zulus was mated in terms of casualties) the British rarely fielded an army per se. Two prime examples of this type of warfare (known today as the so-hat approa or winning hearts and minds) are T.E. Lawrence of Arabia and Alois Musil, both of whom won the hearts of local Arabs. In Lawrence’s “Twenty-seven Articles,” he clearly states that it was only by studying the principles of the local culture that he was able to succeed. e experience of waging colonial wars and quelling uprisings however has largely been lost. Indeed how the British held su vast tracts of land with comparatively so few administrative staff and soldiers to protect them is a mystery today – oen put down to contemporary values that would be unacceptable now. But, given the insurgencies now faced and the nature of alliances, perhaps these should be re-addressed. Whatever the case, the ethnocentric assumptions of many wars in the past, must, today, be seen as our lesson in political ignorance and cross-cultural apathy. Familiarity with the indigenous cultures of allies and potential enemies alongside those of poorer nations is simply vital for our operations as an expeditionary force today of peacekeepers, instructors and NGOs⁸. Providing both the language and the cultural traits that soldiers need to do their jobs and function effectively goes hand in hand today with contracting interpreters and developing local assets and the language capability to deploy. Without it, success is limited and alienation is likely. Ensuring a definitive focus on realizing the mistakes of the past and striving to meet the requirements of the future with regards to regional expertise is of paramount importance to the ACR⁹ in dispelling the myth of universal values and providing soldiers with the education that they need to cope with foreign perceptions. Iraqis, for example must perceive democracy through their own conception of what it is if it is to work, and we must take into account the demographics, logistics and cultural perspectives involved for them to do so. In 2005, a Roadmap was laid down by the US Department of Defense to address these issues and was based around four main points: the need for foreign languages, the ange to the international world order, the increasing expeditionary nature of our armed forces and the ange in the home front: 8. Non-governmental organization. 9. Armáda České republiky.

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— Conflict against enemies speaking less-commonly-taught languages, and thus the need for foreign language capability will not abate. Robust foreign language and foreign area expertise are critical to sustaining coalitions, pursuing regional stability, and conducting multi-national missions, especially in post-conflict and other than combat, security, humanitarian, nation building, and stability operations. — Changes in the international security environment and in the nature of threats to US national security have increased the range of potential conflict zones and expanded the number of likely coalition partners with whom the US forces will work. — Establishing a new ‘global footprint’ for DoD [Department of Defense], and transitioning to a more expeditionary force, will bring increased requirements for language and regional knowledge to work with new coalition partners in a wide variety of activities, oen with lile or no notice. is new approa to warfighting in the 21st century will require forces that have foreign language capabilities beyond those generally available in today’s force. — Adversaries will aempt to manipulate the media and leverage sympathetic elements of the population and ‘opposition’ politicians to divide international coalitions. (US Department of Defense, 5)

So, does Military Culture maer? Yes. In fact, it may be one of the most important factors in determining a society, not only in the results of its effectiveness on the balefield, but in the role it plays during times of peace. Stated simply, military culture comprises the ethos and professional aributes derived from both experience and intellectual study that contribute to a society’s common understanding of the nature of war. Less easily studied than defined, its influence on culture and language however, is almost always the result of long-term factors, rarely measurable and oen obscure both to historians and to those in uniform . . . obscure, that is, until a war begins. Acknowledgement I would like to express appreciation to Mr. C. McKeating (ex-military officer), for proofreading this work. Works Cited Ayto, John. 1999. Twentieth Century Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crystal, David. 1995. e Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Caputo, Philip. 1996. A Rumor of War. New York: Henry Holt. Chaloupský, Ladislav. 2005. Sociolinguistic Interpretation of Military Slang and Vernacular Expressions. PhD diss., Brno: Masaryk University. Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hayakawa, Samuel Iiye. 1972. Language in ought and Action. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovi. Holmes, Janet. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman. LePage, R. B. 1964. e National Language estion: Linguistic Problem of Newly Independent States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. 1986. e Story of English. London: Faber. McCarthy, Miael, and Ronald Carter. 1994. Language as Discourse. London: Longman.

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Parry, Melanie, Trevor Anderson, and Una McGovern, eds. 2002. Chambers Book of Facts. Edinburgh: Chambers. Spolsky, Bernard. 1998. Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. US Department of Defense. 2005. Defense Language Transformation Roadmap. Washington, DC: US Department of Defense. hp://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2005/d20050330roadmap.pdf Yule, George. 2001. e Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dictionaries Consulted e American Heritage Dictionary: Second College Edition. 1985. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Collins Dictionary of the English Language. 1986. London: Collins. e Concise Oxford Dictionary. 1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press. A Dictionary of United States Military Terms. 1963. Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press. Dictionary of Weapons and Military Terms. 1973. New York: McGraw-Hill. e Diplomat’s Dictionary. 2006. Washington, DC: National Defence University Press. e Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tomajczyk, Steve. 1996. Dictionary of the Modern United States Military. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Collocations and Their Practical Usage in Business English Lenka Drábková Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Mostní 5139, 760 01 Zlín, Cze Republic. Email: drabkova@s.utb.cz

Abstract: e world of business toues upon almost every single facet of the modern world, and thus knowledge regarding the operational aspects of business has become a phenomenon of basic education. Precise understanding and command of the language of business, its terminology and its combinations of collocations, is crucial for an adequate degree of communication in this era of globalization and competition. Collocation, despite its relatively long standing as a concept in linguistic theory, has been treated with considerable neglect. is paper deals the term of collocation and its aracteristics. e aim is to demonstrate to what extent the terminologies of English and Cze, as they are used in selected collocations from the sphere of business, correspond to ea other, especially from the perspective of their formation and inner structure. Keywords: corpus; collocation; collocate; node; lexis; lemma; Business English

1. Introduction ere is no general consensus on what the term collocation stands for in phraseology, nor is there any universal classification in the relevant literature and practice. Despite its relatively long standing as a concept in linguistic theory, collocation has been treated with considerable neglect. e negligent treatment of collocations in linguistics is due to the fact that this phenomenon ranges on the borderline between grammar and lexicon. According to Barts (2004) the la of more systematic, empirical treatments of collocations can be aributed to the difficulty of identifying instances of collocations in corpora and can be traced to the confused state of the definition of collocations whi should provide criteria for the identification of collocations. e term collocation covers a wide variety of structurally diverse co-occurrences of lexical items. Most lexical items in the vast lexicon of English enter into their own aracteristic set of collocations. Aimer and Altenberg (1991) claim that recurrent combinations, among others collocations, are very common in English and that roughly 70% of the running words in a corpus form part of recurrent word combinations of some kind. Collocations play an important role in the resolution of polysemy and in making appropriate selections among synonymous lexical items by providing contextual clues to the meaning and aracteristic context of occurrence of lexical items (Barts 2004). ey are aracterised by two main features. First they are primarily syntagmatic lexical relations whi are not filled by grammatical rules alone. e second aracteristic feature of collocations is that they are very oen non-reciprocal, whi means that one part of

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the collocation may collocate with many different words, while the other part may appear only with a very limited set of collocates. 2. Definitions of Collocations For many linguists, collocations are related to a range of commonly recognized multiword phrases, whi comprise fixed expressions, catphrases, formulae, free and bound collocations, idioms, lexical phrases etc. Collocations are also defined as a subcategory of other items whi are known as set phrases. While Firth considered collocations as the mere accompaniment, the other work material in whi they are most commonly or most aracteristically embedded (in Palmer 1968, 180), five years later Halliday and Kirkwood (1961) defined collocation as the syntagmatic association of lexical items, quantifiable textually as the probability that there will occur at a distance of n lexical items from an item x, the items a, b, c. Other linguists dealing with collocations provided similar definitions, saying that collocations are groupings of words whi appear repeatedly. A clear and comprehensive definition of collocations was provided by Kjellmer (1987) who considers collocations as a sequence of words whi occurs more than once in identical form and whi is grammatically well structured. Some definitions of collocations also specify the number of words whi make the collocations. While, e.g., Sinclair et al. (2004) say that collocation is the co-occurrence of two items in a text within a specified environment, Stubbs (2001) does not limit collocations to only two words, but says that collocation is a lexical relation between two or more words whi have a tendency to co-occur within a few words of ea other in a running text. Collocations are both lexical and grammatical. A clear difference between grammatical and lexical collocations was provided by Bahns (1993). According to him, grammatical collocations consist of a noun, an adjective or a verb plus a preposition or grammatical structure, su as an infinitive or a clause (e.g., account for, adjacent to, advantage over, by accident, to be afraid that). On the other hand, lexical collocations do not contain prepositions, infinitives or clauses, but consist of various combinations of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Lexical collocations were also defined by Lewis and Hill (1998) as having five main categories: adjective/noun, verb/noun, noun/verb, adverb/adjective and verb/adverb. ey also defined three types of collocations: strong collocations (e.g., avid reader, budding author), common words that collocate widely (e.g., fast car, have dinner) and medium strength collocations (e.g., magnificent house, significantly different, relatively strong) whi they say make up the majority of collocations. Since the early 1990s there has been a revolutionary ange in the possibilities of obtaining information on collocations. Huge collections of texts in electronic form (corpora) can provide authentic information on word combinations and specialised computer programmes can sear for word combinations in texts automatically and with a high level of reliability.

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e computational approa to collocation is an elaborated, frequency-based methodology in collocational studies. e most distinguished personalities in the computational approa are John Sinclair, the follower of Firth’s traditions, and Miael Stubbs. Sinclair consolidated the use of special terminology in collocation resear whi is widely used today. According to his definitions, the node is the word under study, the collocate is the word whi enters into collocation with it and the span is the distance between the words. e set of all collocates that can enter into collocation with the node is called the collocational range of the particular word. In compliance with the Firthian tradition whi differentiates between “habitual” and “unique” collocations, Sinclair et al. distinguish between significant and casual collocations (2004, 10). Sinclair also claims that in corpus analysis one form of a lemma is usually mu more common than others, and that different word forms can have quite different collocates (1991, 68–69). Stubbs follows different aspects of lexis in his linguistic resear, including traditional lexical semantics, lexical fields and collocations. He says that meanings are conveyed directly, by the oice of particular words, but they are also conveyed indirectly by paerns of co-occurrence: whi words collocate, and whi words occur in whi grammatical constructions. 3. Collocations in Business e world of business toues upon every facet of the modern world, and thus knowledge of business rules and operations has become a part of elementary education. Today’s era of globalization and competition calls for a precise understanding and command of the language of business, its terminology and its combination in collocations to ensure an adequate degree of communication. e primary concern of the follow-up analysis is business lexis whi is typical of the sphere of business and exploration to what extent the terminologies in English and in Cze, as they are used in collocations, correspond to ea other. A aracteristic feature of business lexis is a wide appearance and usage of terminology. Lexis used in business is divided into three groups: 1. General lexis, whi is typical of general English, but can be met in business language as well, especially for indicating the occurrence or performance of an action, existence of a state or condition (verbs), for connecting ideas (prepositions, conjunctions) or for pre-modifying nouns (adjectives). 2. Business lexis common for and understandable in all business branes. Examples of su lexis might be company, profit and money etc. 3. Lexis typical of the specific field of business, e.g., homebanking (banking), billboard (marketing), outsourcing (management), current assets (accounting), etc. ese are special terms that in most cases are not replaceable, and when used in languages other than English they are, as a rule, used as loanwords, possibly only adapted in spelling. e general findings on collocations as they are used in business texts are provided at the end of the article and are based on the analysis of 75 business lemmas typical for the

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sphere of banking and finance. For the purpose of this article two business English lemmas, namely bank and money and their Cze counterparts banka and peníze have been osen as examples for collocability analysis in English and in Cze. e collocations are retrieved from the Business English corpus (BEC) and the Business Cze corpus (BCC), created for the purpose of business collocations analysis (Drábková 2008). e corpora are comparable in size (about 1 million tokens). e BEC includes articles from business sections of e Daily Telegraph Online (62%) and e Guardian (38%). Articles creating the Business Cze corpus (BCC) are retrieved from business sections of the leading Cze business newspaper Hospodářské noviny (51%) and economic journals Ekonom (27%) and Bankovnictví (22%). Texts with similar topics are included in order to aieve a contrastive picture of usage in both languages. e corpora are lexically compared by an integrated suite of WordSmith Tools, Version 4.0 (Sco 2004–2005), using its tools WordLister and Concord. Only collocations with single nominal and adjectival collocates le and right of the node are studied and compared. 4. The Lemma Bank / Banka e singular bank was the 44th most frequent business lemma in the word list, the plural banks held the 104th position in the word list. e lemma bank appeared 3,871 times in the corpus. With 2,609 hits (67% of all the occurrences) the singular form was more than twice as frequent as the plural banks (1,262 hits, i.e., 33%). 4.1. Single Left Collocates + Bank(-s)/Banka(-y) e lemma bank / banka combined with the following single nominal and adjectival le collocates in the corpora: noun – Barclays B.; Britain’s b.; Buerfield B.; China’s b.; community b.; development b.; Europe’s b.; Halifax B.; Iceland b.; Iceland’s b.; ICICI B.; internet b.; investment b.; lender b.; market b.; merant b.; Moneyba B.; mortgage b.; offshore b.; overseas b.; phone b.; piggy b.; retail b.; rival b.; Sainsbury’s B.; UK B.; world’s b.; Yorkshire B. noun – adresa b.; akcie b.; aktiva b.; aktivity b.; analytička b.; analytik b.; aval b.; bonita b.; debet od b.; dividendy b.; divize b.; efektivnost b.; Expandia b.; financování b.; historie u b.; infolinka b.; klienti b.; kód b.; konkurencesopnost b.; konsolidace b.; konsorcium b.; management b.; mluvčí b.; neklienti b.; peníze u b.; pobočka b.; podnikání b.; poplatky b.; půjčka od b.; rekapitalizace b.; restrukturalizace b.; účet u b.; Union b.; Universal b.; úvěr od b.; výběr b.; výnos b. adj. – American b.; Asian b.; Australian b.; big b.; biggest b.; British b.; central b.; commercial b.; co-operative b.; ethical b.; European b.; foreign b.; German b.; global b.; heavyweight b.; Icelandic b.; individual b.; international b.; Irish b.; Islamic b.; Italian b.; leading b.; lending b.; local b.; mainstream b.; major b.; mobile b.; Northern b.; online b.; ordinary b.; private b.; profiteering b.; royal b.; strong b.; Swiss b.; the largest b.; traditional b.; transferring b.; western b.

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adj. – ameriá b. (Citigroup/Goldman Sas); britská b. (Abbey National/HSBC); cedulová b.; centrální b.; domácí b.; dominující b.; družstevní b.; elektroniá b.; emisní b.; Evropská b.; financující b.; globální b.; hypoteční b.; internetová b.; investiční b.; islámská b.; italská b.; kapitalizovaná b.; Komerční b.; Kreditní b.; kvalitní b.; licencovaná b.; mezinárodní b.; místní b.; mobilní b.; největší b.; nemovitostní b.; obodní b.; partnerská b.; Poštovní b.; prodávající b.; profitabilní b.; přeshraniční b.; referenční b.; regionální b.; renomované b.; retailová b.; sesterská b.; soukromá b.; Světová b.; transferová b.; tuzemské b.; univerzální b.; ústřední b.; úvěrová b.; věřitelská b.; vystavující b.; zahraniční b.; zpracovatelská b.; zprostředkující b.; Živnostenská b. 4.2. Bank(-s)/Banka(-y) + Single Right Collocates e lemma bank / banka combined with the following right collocates: noun – no collocations of this type were recorded in English noun – banka HSBC; banka Citigroup; banka Goldman Sas adj. – b. account; b. auditors; b. balance; b. basher; b. card; b. certificates; b. arges; b. credits; b. customers; b. deposits; b. employee; b. fees; b. lending; b. loan; b. manager; the Bank of England; b. official; b. overdra; b. products; b. protocol; b. securities; b. shareholders; b. shares; b. spokesman; b. statement; b. subsidiary; b. website; b. waters; bank’s profitability adj. – no collocations of this type were recorded in Cze 4.3. Comparison of English and Czech Collocations Retrieved As the lemma bank ranged among the most frequent lemmas in the corpus, also the number of collocations whi were recorded with it was high. e prevailing pre-modifiers in both languages were adjectives. Collocations with nominal pre-modifiers use adjectives as pre-modifiers in Cze (e.g., Britain’s bank x britská banka; development bank x rozvojová banka; internet bank x internetová banka; investment bank x investiční banka; mortgage bank x hypoteční banka; overseas bank x zahraniční banka; world’s bank x světová banka). English collocations combining the lemma bank with adjectival pre-modifiers use the same structure in Cze, i.e., an adjectival pre-modifier followed by the node (e.g., central bank x ústřední/centrální banka; European bank x Evropská banka; global bank x globální banka; private bank x soukromá banka). Names of banking institutions are mostly two-word expressions in Cze, with the word banka post-modifying the name of the institution (e.g., Centrální banka, Komerční banka, Poštovní banka, Živnostenská banka, Expandia banka, Union Banka). Su a construction is used for domestic banks or banks whi are the top banking institutions on European or world-wide scale (e.g., Evropská banka, Centrální banka, Světová banka). In the case of foreign banks Cze oen mentions the country of origin of the bank in front of its name (ameriá banka Citigroup, ameriá banka Goldman Sas, britská banka HSBC). Cze also uses banka followed by its name (e.g., banka Citigroup; banka Goldman Sas; banka Abbey National; banka HSBC). ere are two possibilities how the

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names of banks are expressed in English. e first corresponds to the paern used in the Cze language, i.e., the noun bank pre-modified by the name of the bank (e.g., Moneyba Bank, Yorkshire Bank, Russian Central Bank, Private Investment Bank). e second way is post-modifying the lemma bank with a noun preceded by the preposition of (e Bank of England, e Royal Bank of Scotland, e People’s Bank of China). is type of naming is used in connection with the top banking institutions abroad. e names of foreign banks, especially of English or American provenance, are used in their original form in Cze. In the cases where the place of origin is not clear from the bank’s name, both English and Cze use a geographical identification in connection with the corresponding bank (Asian banks, American banks, British banks / ameriá banka . . . , britská banka . . . ), however English also uses the country of origin in its possessive case (China’s banks, Iceland’s banks, Britain’s banks) or names of concrete cities (Copenhagen-based banks, Frankfurt-based banks, London-based banks). e last two cases mentioned are not used in Cze. Collocations consisting of the lemma bank / banka and right collocates are less frequent. All English collocations use only the singular form bank in aributive meaning, followed by nouns only. Nominal collocates are used predominantly in plural forms (e.g., bank customers, bank transfers, bank transactions, bank products, bank shareholders, bank shares, etc.). Table 1 shows collocations with single modifiers with the corresponding or nearly corresponding meanings recorded in the corpora. Out of 26 collocations with corresponding or nearly corresponding meanings, 11 collocations use the same structure in both languages, i.e., an adjectival pre-modifier followed by the node (e.g., American bank x ameriá banka; British bank x britská banka; Central bank x Centrální banka; European bank x Evropská banka; foreign banks x zahraniční banky; global bank x globální banka; international bank x mezinárodní banka; Islamic bank x islámská banka; Italian bank x italská banka; the largest bank x největší banka). 5 English collocations use a nominal pre-modifier in adjectival meaning followed by the node, while Cze uses an adjectival pre-modifier and the node (e.g., internet bank x internetová banka; investment bank x investiční banka; mobile bank x mobilní banka; mortgage bank x hypoteční banka; retail bank x retailová banka). In 9 English collocations bank is followed by a noun, while Cze uses a nominal pre-modifier and the lemma banka in the same collocations (e.g., bank account x účet u banky; bank arges x poplatky banky; bank customers x klienti banky; bank shares x akcie banky; bank spokesman x mluvčí banky; bank subsidiary x pobočka banky) Some Cze collocations use the adjective bankovní followed by a noun (e.g., bank account x bankovní účet; bank credit x bankovní úvěr; bank shares x bankovní akcie; bank subsidiary x bankovní pobočka). e most frequent collocations combining the form bank / banka with single modifiers recorded in English and in Cze with the lowest limit of 5 hits are displayed in Table 2. e most frequent English collocation was Royal Bank (123 hits). In Cze, the most frequent collocation appeared 401 times (Centrální banka). e frequency of the two collocations was so high because both the collocations are the top banking institutions,

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Table 1: Corresponding Collocations with the Lemma Bank / Banka English American bank British bank Central bank European bank foreign banks global bank international bank internet bank investment bank Islamic bank Italian bank mobile bank mortgage bank private bank retail bank the largest bank bank account bank card bank arges/fees bank credit bank customers bank lending/loan bank products bank shares bank spokesman bank subsidiary

Czech ameriá banka britská banka Centrální banka Evropská banka zahraniční banky globální banka mezinárodní banka internetová banka investiční banka islámská banka italská banka mobilní banka hypoteční banka soukromá banka retailová banka největší banka účet u banky/bankovní účet bankovní karta poplatky banky úvěr od banky/bankovní úvěr klienti banky půjčka od banky bankovní produkty akcie banky/bankovní akcie mluvčí banky pobočka banky / bankovní pobočka

Table 2: Frequency of Collocations with Bank / Banka and Single Left Collocates English Royal bank investment bank world bank internet bank private bank Barclays bank online bank the biggest bank UK bank Australian bank Halifax bank Sainsbury’s bank people’s bank British bank Irish bank Scoish bank Icelandic bank Spanish bank local bank retail bank

Occurrences 123 89 39 35 24 21 18 14 16 13 12 10 9 9 8 7 6 6 5 5

Czech Centrální banka Komerční banka Národní banka Živnostenská banka hypoteční banka investiční banka světová banka britská banka rozvojová banka obodní banka exportní banka španělská banka tuzemská banka němeá banka domácí banka Poštovní banka Union banka

Occurrences 401 124 124 65 30 30 15 12 12 12 11 11 8 7 5 5 5

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in Britain in the first case and in the Cze Republic in the second case. e frequency of the collocations was higher in Cze where 3 collocations exceeded 100 hits. Only 2 corresponding collocations were found among the most frequent collocations, their frequency being higher in English (investment bank (89 hits) x investiční banka (30 hits); world bank (39 hits) x světová banka (15 hits)). No collocations combining the singular bank / banka and single right collocates exceeded 5 hits in either language. e most frequent collocations combining the form banks / banky with single le collocates recorded in English and in Cze with the lowest limit of 5 hits are displayed in Table 3. Table 3: Frequency of Collocations with Banks / Banky and Single Left Collocates English central banks internet banks big banks street banks private banks British banks offshore banks online banks international banks Britain’s banks clearing banks Irish banks

Occurrences 42 37 25 22 19 13 9 9 7 6 5 5

Czech hypoteční banky tuzemské banky zahraniční banky britské banky čínské banky pobočka banky soukromé banky retailové banky místní banky zdroj banky domácí banky malé banky závazek banky zisk banky vedení banky požadavky banky

Occurrences 37 37 29 24 23 20 17 15 11 11 10 10 10 10 8 5

12 collocations combining banks and single pre-modifiers were used at least 5 times in English. eir frequency ranged between 42 hits (central banks) and 5 hits (clearing banks; Irish banks). Combinations of the word form banky and single pre-modifiers were slightly more frequent in Cze (16 collocations). e most frequent collocation, hypoteční banky, was recorded 37 times. Only one collocation corresponded in English and in Cze (private banks (19 hits) x soukromé banky (17 hits), its frequency being slightly higher in English. 6 Cze collocations exceeding 5 hits used banky in singular genitive (pobočka banky; zdroj banky; závazek banky; zisk banky; vedení banky; požadavky banky). No collocations combining the form banks / banky and single right collocates were recorded. 5. The lemma Money / Peníze e uncountable English lemma money was the 55th most frequent word in the corpus with its 2,118 hits. e Cze lemma peníze is used as plurale tantum. With 850 occurrences it occupied the 123rd position in the corpus. 5.1. Single Left Collocates + Money / Peníze e lemma money / peníze combined with the following single nominal and adjectival le collocates in the corpora:

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noun – bond m.; bonus m.; client m.; clients’ m.; cost of m.; draining of m.; EU money; float m.; holiday m.; homebuyers m.; husband’s m.; internet m.; investors’ m.; lender’s m.; lending m.; making m.; oil m.; people’s m.; piling m.; plenty of m.; poet m.; prize m.; public m.; raising m.; sending m.; shareholders’ m.; surplus m.; taxpayers’ m.; tenants’ m.; transfer of m.; travel m.; value for m.; withdrawing m. noun – no collocations of this type were recorded in Cze adj. – eap m.; easy m.; ethical m.; extra m.; fast m.; free m.; good m.; hot m.; inflated m.; occupational m.; outstanding m.; real m. adj. – cizí p.; čerpané p.; čerstvé p.; další p.; elektronié p.; evropské p.; horké p.; hotové p.; hypoteční p.; ytré p.; investované p.; krátkodobé p.; likvidní p.; menší p.; mrtvé p.; naspořené p.; nastřádané p.; našetřené p.; nejlevnější p.; nepřihlášené p.; obrovské p.; odcizené p.; papírové p.; pěkné p.; plastové p.; potřebné p.; půjčené p.; rozumnější p.; snadné p.; splácené p.; stejné p.; špinavé p.; uložené p.; unijní p.; velké p.; veškeré p.; vlastní p.; vložené p.; volné p.; vyčerpané p.; vydělané p.; vynaložené p.; vyplacené p.; zapůjčené p.; získané p.; značné p. 5.2. Money / Peníze + Single Right Collocates e following combinations of money / peníze and single nominal and adjectival right collocates appeared in the corpora: noun – m. account; m. advice; m. boxes; m. broker; m. business; m. credit; m. growth; m. issues; m. laundering; m. lenders; m. makers; m. making; m. management; m. market; m. on demand; m. on deposit; m. problems; m. purase; m. spinner; m. transactions; m. transfer noun – p. banky; p. firmy; p. investorů; p. klienta; p. podílníků adj. – m. allocated; m. borrowed; m. deposited; m. earned; m. floating (into); m. handed (over); m. invested; m. lost; m. paid; m. poured (into); m. raised; m. spent; m. withdrawn (past participle used in adjectival meaning) adj. – p. odkládané; p. odváděné; p. snížené; p. uložené; p. vázané; p. získané; p. zpronevěřené 5.3. Comparison of English and Czech Collocations Retrieved Collocations combining the lemma money / peníze with single le collocates appear in similar proportions in both languages. e prevailing pre-modifiers are nouns in English; in Cze adjectives prevail as pre-modifiers. English collocations with nominal pre-modifiers use peníze followed by a nominal right collocate in Cze (e.g., clients’ money x peníze klientů; EU money x peníze EU; investors’ money x peníze investorů) or a nominal pre-modifier followed by peníze (e.g., piling money x hromadění peněz; sending money x zaslání peněz; withdrawing money x vybrání peněz) and possibly an adjectival pre-modifier followed by peníze (e.g., bond money x dluhopisové peníze; bonus money x bonusové peníze). English collocations with adjectival pre-modifiers use the same structure in Cze (e.g., easy money x snadné peníze; free money x volné peníze; hot money x horké peníze).

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Collocations combining the lemma money / peníze and single right collocates are less frequent than collocations combining money / peníze and le collocates. Nominal and adjectival pre-modifiers appear in similar proportions in both languages. English collocations with money and a nominal post-modifier use the adjective peněžní and a noun in Cze (e.g., money account x peněžní účet; money advice x peněžní rada; money broker x peněžní makléř; money transactions x peněžní transakce) or a nominal premodifier followed by peníze in genitive (money laundering x praní peněz; money purase x nákup peněz; money transfer x převod peněz). English collocations in whi money is followed by a past participle used in adjectival meaning use the same construction in Cze (e.g., money invested x peníze investované; money paid x peníze zaplacené; money spent x peníze utracené; money withdrawn x peníze vybrané). Table 4 shows collocations with single modifiers with the corresponding or nearly corresponding meanings recorded in both corpora. Table 4: Corresponding Collocations with the Lemma Money / Peníze English client money easy money hot money investors’ money shareholders’ money

Czech peníze klienta snadné peníze horké peníze peníze investorů peníze podílníků

5 collocations with corresponding or nearly corresponding meanings were recorded. 2 collocations used the same structure in both languages, i.e., an adjectival pre-modifier followed by the lemma money / peníze (easy money x snadné peníze; hot money x horké peníze), 3 collocations combined the nominal pre-modifier with the node money in English, in Cze peníze was followed by a nominal collocate in genitive (client money x peníze klienta; investors’ money x peníze investorů; shareholders’ money x peníze podílníků). e most frequent collocations using money / peníze with single le collocates in English and in Cze with the lowest limit of 5 hits are provided in Table 5. Table 5 Frequency of Collocations with Money / Peníze and Single Left Collocates English making money poet money easy money extra money raising money real money lending money public money withdrawing money

Occurrences 24 13 10 10 6 6 5 5 5

Czech hotové peníze vložené peníze půjčené peníze volné peníze špinavé peníze vlastní peníze elektronié peníze velké peníze

Occurrences 15 13 11 11 9 8 5 5

e frequency of English collocations with single le collocates ranged between 24 occurrences (poet money) and 5 occurrences (lending money; public money; withdrawing

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money). e frequency of Cze collocations was even lower, hotové peníze being the most frequent collocation. (15 occurrences). No corresponding collocations were recorded. e most frequent collocations combining money / peníze and single right collocates in English and in Cze with the lowest limit of 5 hits are provided in Table 6. Table 6: Frequency of Collocations with Money / Peníze and Single Right Collocates English money laundering money market money markets money supply money advice money management money purase money invested money raised money growth money business money making money spent

Occurrences 33 29 20 14 13 12 11 8 8 7 6 6 6

Czech peníze získané peníze podílové peníze firmy peníze banky

Occurrences 10 8 6 5

13 collocations combining money / peníze and single right collocates appeared more than 5 times in English. e most frequent collocations were money laundering (33 hits) and money market (29 hits). Other collocations reaed the frequency between 20 hits (money markets) and 6 hits (money business; money making; money spent). Peníze získané was the most frequent collocation in Cze with 10 hits. No corresponding collocations were recorded. 6. Conclusions On the basis of a similar analysis of 75 English and Cze lemmas from the sphere of banking and finance and their use in collocations, the following general conclusions can be made: 1. Business Cze lexis is predominantly of domestic origin. e most frequent English borrowings used in Cze in the sphere of business and finance are analytik, bilance, bonus, byznys, kapitál, klient, deficit, dividenda, finance, investor, management, manažer, portfolio, produkt. When English borrowings appear they are mostly adapted in spelling. English borrowings using the original English spelling are rare because this indicates a low degree of adaptation to the Cze language. e fact that the number of English borrowings in the Cze banking and financial sphere is so low is a surprise because today’s Cze banking system is dominated by globally operating European or American banks having a majority share in Cze banking houses or owning them. Most banking and financial institutions use English as the corporate language, whi indicates that English terms should also largely influence the Cze environment. is, however, was not the case in the texts used in the Cze corpus. Lower borrowing from English in the sphere of banking and finance terminology might be caused by the fact

74

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

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that baking has had a long tradition in the Cze Republic dating ba to 1930s and thus the terminology has been seled, and by the fact that the number of new and modern services or banking products for whi Cze has no terms is not high. e Cze business collocations use prevailingly lexis of domestic origin. Collocations with English borrowings as collocates are insignificant. When English borrowings are used as collocates in Cze collocations, they are adapted phonetically, phonologically and morphologically. Lexis used in business texts, both English and Cze, has a high tendency to appear in nominal and adjectival collocations. Business English and Business Cze are considered loaded styles, their core being lexical words, prevailingly specific terms whi have a tendency to combine in larger units (collocations, phrases or idioms). Collocations with nouns as le collocates are more frequent in English (40%; 20% in Cze). Collocations with adjectival pre-modifiers prevail in both languages, although they are more frequent in English. Collocations in whi the lemmas are followed by single right collocates are recorded in similar proportions in both languages (29% of collocations in English, 25% of collocations in Cze). Collocations with nouns as right collocates prevailed in both languages. Adjectives as right collocates were rare in both languages. Single terms are considerably more frequent than collocations. is might be caused by the fact that the lemmas are oen preceded by articles, prepositions and by conjunctions, whi were not considered parts of collocations and also by the fact that there is a high tendency towards language simplification, whi also influences the multi-word phrases, including collocations. Business English and Business Cze collocations correspond in usage only in about 13%. e majority of the collocations found in both languages differ in their meanings and in use. e disproportion between the oice and use of the collocations might be caused by the fact that the two languages differ in their nature (English being an analytic language while Cze is a synthetic language). Another reason why the lexis and its combination in collocations differs so mu in English and in Cze could be the fact that the economic and banking realities of the two countries differ considerably and the articles osen for the analysis, although concentrating on similar spheres, solve different problems.

To conclude, collocations as one of the forms of lexis combination have an enormous impact on business language. Business professionalism also reflects familiarity with business collocations and their proper usage, both in English and in Cze. Works Cited Aijmer, Karin, and Bengt Altenberg. 1991. English Corpus Linguistics. London: Longman. Bahns, Jens. 1993. Lexical Collocations: A Contrastive View. ELT Journal 47, no. 1: 56–63 Barts, Sabine. 2004. Structural and Functional Properties of Collocations in English. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.

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Drábková, Lenka. 2008. A Corporeal Analysis of English and Cze Nominal Business Collocations. PhD diss., Masaryk University, Brno. Halliday, Miael, and Alexander Kirkwood. 1961. Categories of the eory of Grammar. Word 17: 241–92. Kjellmer, Goran. 1987. Aspects of English Collocations. In Corpus Linguistics and Beyond: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on English Language Resear on Computerized Corpora, ed. Willem Meijs, 133–40. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Lewis, Miael, and Jimmie Hill. 1998. What is Collocation? Hove: Language Teaing Publications. Palmer, Frank Robert, ed. 1968. Selected Papers of J. R. Firth, 1952–59. London: Longmans. Sco, Miael. 2005. Oxford WordSmith Tools 4.0. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, John. 1991. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, John, Susan Jones, and Robert Daley. 2004. English Collocation Studies. London: Continuum. Stubbs, Miael. 2001. Words and Phrases: Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Blawell. Corpus Daily Telegraph Online. hp://telegraph.co.uk. Hospodářské noviny. hp://ihned.cz. Mladá fronta dnes. hp://idnes.cz. Ekonom. hp://ekonom.ihned.cz. Bankovnictví. hp://bankovnictvi.ihned.cz.

Syntactic Analysis of English Business Letters Mária Hardošová Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Matej Bel University, Tajovského 52, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic. Email: hardosova.maria@v.umb.sk

Abstract: is paper gives a brief syntactic analysis of English business leers. e aim is to prove that the style of official documents differs from other styles not only in lexical but also in syntactic means. As can be seen, long, complex and compound-complex sentences highly prevail over simple ones. A high occurrence of non-finite clauses, as well as other syntactic devices commonly used in official documents, also contribute to the different nature of business writing. e resear reveals that business leers use more non-finite structures than can be encountered in other discourse types. Infinitive clauses, –ing clauses and –ed clauses serve as other means of text condensation. Infinitive clauses appear mainly in the role of adverbial clauses of purpose and nominal clauses: –ed participle clauses instead of finite relative clauses and –ing participle clauses in the role of nominal clauses and finite relative clauses. Keywords: business correspondence; syntactic means; compound and complex sentences; embedded clauses; non-finite clauses; condensation

Wrien communication is inevitable in the modern business and professional world, it is the most frequent form of business communication. Nowadays, most business transactions in foreign trade are being handled by means of the wrien English language, as everything agreed upon orally has to be confirmed and submied in writing. erefore communicating through wrien discourse in the forms of contracts and business leers is an essential aspect of doing business. is paper demonstrates the most frequent syntactic structures used in the discourse of business correspondence. For this purpose, forty sample business leers from a web site called Business in a Box, whi serve as templates of business contracts and leers, have been analysed in order to illustrate specific features of business writing. Previous experience with English business correspondence leads to the assumption that the style will be more conventional, containing certain set expressions and terms typical of business, that the syntactic features of these documents will be different from those used for non-business purposes in several aspects, that syntax will be more complex with a high number of multiple sentences and the way of communication will be more distant and polite than in informal discourse. e English business language has the aracteristics of a formal style and according to I. R. Galperin (1971), business correspondence is classified into the style of official documents. When writing for business purposes those dealing with foreign correspondence have to bear in mind that a more rigid structure is required compared with personal correspondence. Business writing, whatever form it takes, has to meet certain standards. Breaking with the accepted standards signifies a la of professionalism and competence and portrays a certain unpleasant image of the company. A leer for business

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reasons, whether sent by post or e-mail, has to be wrien following certain norms and conventions as they “contribute to creating the distinctive and recognisable features of a genre, whi users recognize” (Coulthard and Johnson 2007, 15). Business writings differ from personal leers in style, form and structure. ere are many types of business leers divided into groups on the basis of their purpose, su as an enquiry leer, order leer, anowledgement leer, complaint leer, adjustment leer, to mention just a few. Resear into business leers suggests that simple sentences occurred rarely (21.5%). ey were observed only in few cases, represented either by declarative or interrogative sentences, e.g. May we please have your latest instructions on this account? Several of our major suppliers have announced planned price increases. Instead, multiple sentences formed the overwhelming majority of all the sentences. In fact, the frequency of occurrence of multiple sentences in the business leers seared, reaed 78.5%. is may be due to the rules of politeness whi operate in business communication as products of social relations. e more polite business parties communicate in writing, the more complicated linguistic structures are and therefore the more types of compound, complex or compound-complex sentences are used in business leers. In those business leers analysed, compound sentences were the sentences with the lowest frequency of occurrence, at only 9.5%. e number of complex sentences approaed 76.3%, while compound-complex sentences comprised 14.2% of the sample. I. Compound Sentences Compound sentences “consist of two or more coordinated main clauses, they provide classic instances of a paratactic relationship” (irk et al. 1985, 987). If separated, they can mostly function on their own as simple sentences. e majority of the compound sentences in our corpus consisted of two independent clauses coordinated by and: Please accept our apology for this delay and thank you for your understanding. I just returned from vacation this week and found your file in my in-basket. However, we have also found syndetic coordination containing other conjunctions expressing contrast or oice: Perhaps this was an oversight on your part, or perhaps your payment is in the mail. We appreciate your past custom but on this occasion we must decline your order. II. Complex Sentences As given by Berk (1999, 226), “While coordination involves placing structures side by side, embedding is accomplished by placing one structure inside another.” Many examples of complex sentences have been found. Some of them consisted of one main and one embedded (dependent) clause, but the majority was made up of one main clause and two

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or more embedded (dependent) clauses. From nominal clauses the most common types were that clauses, e.g.: During our initial conference, he informed me that he had osen our firm based upon your recommendation. and non-finite clauses: Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Adverbial clauses covered the clauses of purpose, reason, time and condition. — Clauses of purpose: Please let us know if any payments have been made so that we can update our files accordingly. I am writing this leer to complain in the strongest terms about the poor service that I have received from your company. — Conditional clause: If seller should regard its prospect of receiving the last payment insecure, it may demand payment prior to delivery. — Clause of reason: We ask this because collection has been deferred at your request. — Clause of time: e risk of loss from any casualty to the goods, regardless of the cause, shall be on seller until the goods have been accepted by buyer. Relative clauses were mostly represented by defining relative clauses, e.g.: I was particularly impressed with the procedure you have implemented to monitor quality control. III. Complex-Compound Sentences Complex-compound sentences, whi consist of two or more main (matrix) clauses and one or more dependent clauses, were used less frequently (14.2%), e.g.: I shall be presenting my findings to my associates on the DATE, and will let you know what develops. IV. Non-Finite Clauses Since business leers conveying the most important information have to be as concise and clear as possible, they make use of non-finite structures whi serve as a device of “syntactic reduction” to condense the text of leers. e issue is discussed in more detail by Aarts (1997, 227–35).

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e non-finite clauses in verb complementation whi were found in the sample were mostly infinitive clauses functioning mainly as adverbial clauses of purpose: To prevent us from taking the final step of turning this maer over to a collection agency . . . To ensure the lowest prices, place your order now. Apart from adverbial clauses of purpose, infinitive clauses appeared frequently in the role of nominal clauses, either in positive or in negative form: Buyer agrees to pay for the goods as follows: Nevertheless, we would be pleased to accept your idea or proposal for review . . . ough we were impressed with the quality of your product, our marketing review commiee has made the decision not to distribute products of this type at the present time. e sample also included some relative clause realized by an infinitive clause: We truly appreciate your business and know our working relationship will continue to be successful in years to come. In order to refer to the future and express that an action should be performed, the passive infinitive form was used: We are sending you one hundred of our pamphlets to be distributed to your personnel. Seller shall within [NUMBER] days of inspection cause the goods to be appropriately paaged and shipped to . . . Participle clauses with –ing appeared in the following cases: 1. Instead of finite relative clauses: Alterations or revisions of above specifications involving extra costs will be executed only upon additional wrien orders. If you have any questions regarding our credit policy, please contact me. In addition to present active –ing participle clauses, present passive –ing participle clauses were also found: Your input is needed on a new product now being developed. e only possible explanation I can give is that we have recently had a number of key staff anges whi might have resulted in your letter being overlooked. 2. Non-finite -ing participle clauses in the role of nominal clauses having the structure of present as well as perfect –ing form. Our business is a source of pride to us, and with customers like you, we find going to work ea day a rewarding experience. (23)

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. . . and we appreciate having had the opportunity to clarify our policy with you. Many nominal –ing clauses followed a preposition: I really want to thank you for having taken the time to fill out our questionnaire. e first and the second usages of the –ing clauses were the most common, but this type of clause was also found in adverbial clauses: 3. Non finite –ing clauses in the role of adverbial clauses of time and manner: Aer answering the questions, simply return this survey using the pre-addressed stamped envelope. Perfect passive –ing participle clause was rarely used but can be seen in the following adverbial clause of reason: Having been guided on a tour of your [CITY] plant by [NAME], I must say that I am thoroughly impressed with your operations and personnel. Non-finite –ed participle clauses appeared mainly instead of finite relative clauses where the instances of ellipsis applied: Upon the execution and delivery of this contract, properly signed and executed, . . . All the stipulations, agreements and conditions contained in this contract . . . . . . or to su other destination specified by buyer. Some examples of adverbial –ed participle clauses confirm the formal language still preserved in official documents. e examples below demonstrate non-finite adverbial clauses of reason and place: Based on the information we have at the moment . . . If these terms are acceptable to you, please sign where indicated below . . . V. Verbless Clauses Apart from non-finite clauses as means of syntactic reduction, verbless clauses were also utilized. Although these clauses were not as frequent as non-finite clauses, several examples were found: I wanted to inform you of this delay as soon as I was advised to give you as mu time as possible to make alternate arrangements, if necessary. . . . we suggest that you visit the bank as soon as possible . . . Does this reflect everything we discussed, and what you expected? If not, let us know, and we can quily revise the quotation to reflect your needs. If you think you might want a different [PRODUCT/SERVICE] than is described in our quotation, no problem. is brief syntactic analysis of English business leers has proven that the style of official documents differs from other styles not only in lexical but also in syntactic means. As

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demonstrated, long, complex and compound-complex sentences highly prevailed over the simple ones. Moreover, there was a common use of passive constructions whi are typical of formal style and whi are not used so frequently in casual discourse. A high occurrence of non-finite clauses, another syntactic device commonly used in official documents, also contributed to the different nature of business writing. Furthermore, business writing uses more non-finite structures than are encountered in other discourse types. Infinitive clauses, –ing clauses and –ed clauses serve as other means of a text condensation. Infinitive clauses appear mainly in the role of adverbial clauses of purpose, and nominal clauses; –ed participle clauses instead of finite relative clauses and ing participle clauses in the role of nominal clauses and finite relative clauses. Syntactic reduction is also gained by the use of verbless clauses, although this phenomenon is not as common as non-finite clauses. Works Cited Aarts, Bas. 1997. English Syntax and Argumentation. London: Macmillan. Berk, Lynn M. 1999. English Syntax: From Word to Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press. Coulthard, Malcolm, and Alison Johnson. 2007. An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence. Oxon: Routledge. Galperin, Ilja Romanovi. 1971. Stylistics. Moscow: Higher Sool. irk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Lee, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Corpus Business-in-a-Box. hp://www.envision-sbs.com/ (accessed May 13, 2009).

Positions of –ingly Adverbials Functioning as Manner Adjuncts and their Role in FSP: Contrastive Analysis Martina Jarkovská Department of Languages, Faculty of Economics and Management, Cze University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýá 129, 165 21 Praha 6-Sudol, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: is paper deals with the findings based on the resear of ing participle based adverbials functioning as manner adjuncts and their Cze adverbial counterparts. Adverbials derived from adjectives by the suffix –ly are considered to be primary formal means of manner adverbial realization. Adverbials derived from present participles (–ingly adverbials) fall into this group. e end position in the sentence signals the integrated aracter of the manner adverbial functioning either as an optional or obligatory complement of the verbal predication. When translating –ingly manner adverbials into Cze, the oice from semantically more or less fiing Cze adverbials does not seem to be a problem. However, there can be observed differences between Cze and English adverbials in their placement. e author of the paper focuses on the positions of English –ingly manner adverbials and compares them with their Cze counterparts in respect to their different roles in the Functional Service Perspective (FSP). Keywords: ing participle based adverbial; manner adjunct; integrated into the clause structure; Functional Sentence Perspective; contrastive analysis; end position; medial position; initial position; end focus

Adverbials derived from adjectives by the suffix –ly are considered to be primary formal means of manner adverbial realization, with adverbials derived from present participles falling into this group. Greenbaum (1969, 227) considers –ingly adverbials to be an open class of content disjuncts. Correspondingly, –ingly adverbials can be considered an open class of manner adjuncts, since, generally speaking, any participial adjective that on the deep level of the syntactic structure describes some quality assigned to the subject or object can form an –ingly manner adjunct (Daneš, Grepl, Hlavsa 1987, 116). In principle, manner adjuncts can answer the question How? and most of them allow the adjective paraphrase in an adjective manner/way. Manner adjuncts with this paraphrase can be replaced by either a definite proform in this way, so, thus or indefinite somehow, some way (Dušková 1994, 454; irk et al 1985, 670). Manner adjuncts may function either as optional or obligatory complements of the verbal predication and as su are placed aer or before the verbal predicate. e unmarked position for manner adjunct, either optional or obligatory, is the end position in the sentence. If obligatory verbal complements, no other placement is likely. –ingly adverbials – and –ly adverbials in general – are more or less optional complements of verbal predication:

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Vi tried to smile [[convincingly]], but his mind was still on everything Robbins had told him.¹ However, even as optional verbal complements, they are by far most frequently placed aer the verb (cf. Table below). Positions of manner –ingly adverbials

Manner adjuncts Total

initial abs. % 5 1.1

positions medial end abs. % abs. % 37 8.2 409 90.7 451 = 100%

e end position more or less excludes other adverbial functions, and in the case of –ingly adverbials, it can be considered manner adjunct-specific. In case of the placement of non-integrated sentence adverbials, i.e., disjuncts and conjuncts, and also subject subjuncts in the end position, the non-integrated aracter is indicated by the use of punctuation. However, punctuation cannot be regarded as a decisive factor, since any clause element may be separated from the clause as peripheral. What is more, many authors tend to separate the manner adjunct from the rest of the clause as a peripheral or parenthetic element, expressing accompanying circ*mstances of the act conveyed by the verbal predicate: He probably wouldn’t but would pretend, [[unconvincingly]], that he did.² Manner adjuncts in the initial position are rare, and if they do occur initially, they are detaed by punctuation from the rest of the clause: Very calculatingly, we wrote a play that was at once “socialist-realist.”³ As regards the medial position, it is an alternative to the end position when the adverbial is an optional complement of the verb, provided the adverbial has a lower degree of communicative dynamism than other complements of the verb and adds lile or no information load to the sentence (Dušková 1994, 456): In other words, he painstakingly thought up a supernatural structure that seemed to him to explain the relation between the material world and the spiritual one.⁴ e translation of the integrated adverbials does not present a major problem for translators since in most dictionaries the equivalents of manner adverbials are listed. However, as Biber et al. (1999, 541) mention, –ingly manner adverbials are more or less an open class and many su newly formed or infrequent items may not be included. 1. Sandra Brown, e Crush, CNCCOL. 2. Niolas Evans, e Divide, CNCCOL. 3. Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala, trans. Paul Wilson (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 38. 4. Morton Hunt, e Story of Psyology (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 43.

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Moreover, it is also the structural form of –ingly manner adjuncts, i.e., their derivation from present participles, that may prevent a translator from the use of a corresponding adverbial equivalent, and he or she has to apply another formal realization in the translation: She told me [[reprovingly]] to give a serious answer.⁵ Napomenula mne, ať mluvím vážně.⁶ She awoke coughing, and coughed frighteningly before going to sleep.⁷ S kašlem se budila a s děsivým kašláním usínala.⁸ However, the occurrences mentioned are, all in all, in a minority in comparison to the number of manner adjuncts that were translated into Cze by adverbials (320 occurrences = 71% of the total of 451 English manner adjuncts). If English –ingly manner adjuncts by far prevailed in the end position, in Cze we can observe the opposite tendency, i.e., the manner adverbial is placed in the pre-verbal position (192 occurrences = 60% of the total 320 occurrences translated into Cze by adverbials). Povzbudivě na ni mrkl a dřepl si na rozviklanou židličku.⁹ He winked [[encouragingly]] and squaed on the riety air.¹⁰ Ještě odmítavěji se vyjádřila o mém servisu.¹¹ She spoke even more [[disapprovingly]] on the subject of my service.¹² As regards the FSP function of manner adjuncts, in the end position they receive endfocus and they are (part o) the theme. As Firbas (1992, 52, 53) argues, -ly manner adjuncts are context-independent and their FSP function is that of a specification. As su they exceed the verb in a degree of communicative dynamism irrespective of their position. Firbas (1992, 52) further argues that the function of specification is not solely restricted to obligatory complementation of the verb, and that even the context-independent adverbial, whi is an optional verbal complement, may function as a specification. According to Firbas (1992, 52–53) –ly manner adverbs are practically always contextindependent, and they significantly amplify the information conveyed by the verb. ey function as specification irrespective of their position: Onward: across the park and out into Fih Avenue: stampeding against the noonday traffic, taxis, buses that [[screeingly]] swerved.¹³

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Mial Vievegh, Bringing up Girls in Bohemia, CNCCOL. Mial Vievegh, Výova dívek v Čeá, CNCCOL. Salman Rushdie, e Moor’s Last Sigh (New York: Random House, 1995), 49. Salman Rushdie, Maurův poslední vzde, trans. Pavel Dominik (Praha: Mladá fronta, 1999), 56. Jan Otčenášek, Romeo, Julie a tma, CNCCOL. Jan Otčenášek, Romeo and Juliet and the Darkness, CNCCOL. Zdeněk Jirotka, Saturnin, CNCCOL. Zdeněk Jirotka, Saturnin, CNCCOL. Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, CNCCOL.

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Dál, kupředu: střemhlavý úprk přes park do Páté avenue v polední frekvenci, mezi taxíky a autobusy, které nám skřípavě uhýbaly.¹⁴ However, in correspondence with the principle of linear modification (Firbas 1992, Bolinger 1965) the adverbial carries a higher degree of communicative dynamism when occurring aer the verb than when occurring before it. Besides the placement of the adverbial in postposition, there is a tendency in Cze to place the adverbial before the verb. In general, the manner adverbial in the pre-verbal position has a lower degree of communicative dynamism if there are other successful competitors of the verb: Amanda looks [[imploringly]] at Ben.¹⁵ Amanda se úpěnlivě zadívala na Bena.¹⁶ e FSP function of the adverbial thus anges from that of the rheme in the end position to that of transition-proper oriented element. To conclude, while English manner adjuncts mostly occupy the end position (cf. 90.7% to 8.2% in the medial position), there is a tendency to place the Cze manner adverbial in the medial position or, if the nonexpressed subject is disregarded, in the beginning of the sentence (60%). is has an important impact on the field of the FSP. Moreover, in Cze, whi has a word order primarily governed by the FSP principle, the end of the sentence is associated with the rheme. If the adverbial stands in a position other than at the end, its FSP function is either that of a theme, diatheme or a transition-proper oriented element. is analysis of –ingly manner adverbials and their Cze equivalents contributes at to the description of stylistic, semantic and syntactic differences between the two languages, English and Cze. e results of the resear cannot be regarded as conclusive since the resear was limited by the sample size. Hopefully, however, this paper will encourage further resear of –ingly manner adverbials and/or of –ly adverbials in general. Works Cited Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Lee, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Wrien English. Harlow: Longman. Bolinger, Dwight Le Merton. 1965. Linear Modification. In Forms of English, 279–307. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Daneš, František, Miroslav Grepl, and Zdeněk Hlavsa, eds. 1987. Mluvnice češtiny (3) – Skladba. Praha: Academia. Dušková, Libuše, et al. 1994. Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. 2nd ed. Praha: Academia. Firbas, Jan. 1992. Functional Sentence Perspective in Wrien and Spoken Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 14. Truman Capote, Snídaně u Tiffanyho, CNCCOL. 15. Joy Fielding, Puppet, CNCCOL. 16. Joy Fielding, Panenka, CNCCOL.

Martina Jarkovská

Greenbaum, Sidney. 1969. Studies in English Adverbial Usage. London: Longman. irk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Lee, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Corpus Cze National Corpus and Corpora of Other Languages [CNCCOL]. e English Section, VZ 002160823. Praha: Institute of the Cze National Corpus. hp://ucnk.ff.cuni.cz. Havel, Václav. 1990. Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala. Trans. Paul Wilson. New York: Vintage Books. Hunt, Morton. 1993. e Story of Psyology. New York: Doubleday. Rushdie, Salman. 1995. e Moor’s Last Sigh. New York: Random House. Rushdie, Salman. 1999. Maurův poslední vzde. Trans. Pavel Dominik. Praha: Mladá fronta.

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The Non-observance of Grice’s Maxims in Political Interviews Jana Kozubíková Šandová Department of English, Pedagogical Faculty, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Jeronýmova 10, 371 15 České Budějovice, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected] Abstract: In his theory of the Cooperative Principle, H. P. Grice (1989) proposed a set of maxims that ensure that the right amount of information is supplied in a conversational exange. At the same time, he was very well conscious of the fact that discourse participants do not always fully cooperate in the flow of interaction and fail to observe the maxims. is paper examines the most frequent ways of non-observance of conversational maxims in the genre of political interview and tries to reveal gender differences. Several interviews with Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice have been osen for this analysis and compared from the point of view of these maxims. Keywords: the Cooperative Principle; implicature; conversational maxims; non-observance; political interview

Introduction An analysis of the ways of breaking the conversational maxims in the genre of political interview indicates that when communicating, speakers oen say mu less than they actually mean. In some cases, speakers mean the opposite or something different from what they are saying. e hearer has to interpret the message that is not explicitly expressed in the assertion of the speaker. Hearers are frequently faced with uerances that are ambiguous or misleading when taken out of context. However, when they are put in the right context, they are able to decode the intended meaning of the speaker. e reason why people manage to understand ea other in different situations without major difficulties is that they assume that their conversational partner is concerned with a smooth course of interaction and that he has a particular means by whi to aieve his aims in the conversational exange. In other words, speakers cooperate and show their good intentions during the conversational exange. Furthermore, as Mey states: “Communication [. . .] requires people to cooperate; the ‘bare facts’ of conversation come alive only in a mutually accepted, pragmatically determined context” (Mey 2001, 71). Cooperation is one of the ief concepts in the work of the American philosopher H. P. Grice. In his theory of the Cooperative Principle, he proposed a set of maxims that should ensure that the right amount of information is supplied in a conversational exange. At the same time, H. P. Grice was conscious of the fact that discourse participants do not always fully cooperate in the flow of interaction and fail to observe the maxims. e first part of this paper includes a basic outline of Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP) and its maxims and the most frequent ways of their non-observance. e second part concentrates on the examination of flouting and violating as two of the most frequent ways

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of non-observance of the conversational maxims in the genre of political interview. For analysis, 4 interviews with Tony Blair totaling 46 pages and 5 interviews with Condoleezza Rice totaling 54 pages will be compared from the point of view of the CP maxims. All the selected interviews deal with the same topics (the Second Iraq War, domestic politics and the EU), were conducted over the same time period, and were carried out in the middle of the time in office of these two top politicians. Theoretical Framework of the Study Implicature Before examining the CP and the maxims, it is necessary to mention the basic theories whi lie behind this principle and have given rise to it. H. P. Grice belonged to the group of so called “ordinary language philosophers,” whi was a group of philosophers that worked at Oxford University in the post-war period. One of the most influential members of this group was J. L. Austin whose main concern was to study everyday language with all its irregularities, ambiguities and imperfections, contrary to other philosophers, su as Bertrand Russell, whose aim was to “refine language, removing its perceived imperfections and illogicalities, and to create an ideal language” (omas 1995, 29). e base of Austin’s analysis was the spee act whi enabled him to describe language not only on the level of words themselves but also on the level of a speaker’s intentions in an interaction. As Davies (2000) points out, Austin’s (1962) and Searle’s (1969) work had concentrated on the relationship “between direct and indirect spee acts, and the concept that you could ‘do’ things with words” (Davies 2000, 1). Moreover, the meaning of uerances rather than sentences were explored. In addition, it was an important aievement in the discourse study, as Davies correctly emphasizes, that “at the discourse level there is no one-to-one mapping between linguistic form and uerance meaning” (Davies 2000, 2). From this it follows that a certain intended meaning whi may be produced via a direct spee act can be communicated by any number of indirect spee acts (Davies 2000, 2). Grice was primarily interested in the difference between what is said and what is meant; in other words, his theory aims at explaining how the recipient gets “from the level of expressed meaning to the level of implied meaning” (omas 1995, 56). An implicature is “a meaning that is conveyed but not explicitly stated” (Grundy 2008, 92). Grice classifies implicatures into two types: “particularized conversational implicature” and “generalized conversational implicature” (1989: 37). Particularized types of implicatures are: — Cases in whi an implicature is carried by saying that p on a particular occasion in virtue of special features of the context, cases in whi there is no room for the idea that an implicature of this sort is normally carried by saying that p (Grice 1989, 37). — Generalized types of implicatures appear “when one can say that the use of a certain form in an uerance would normally (in the absence of special circ*mstances) carry su-and-su an implicature or type of implicature” (Grice 1989, 37). ese explanations can be simplified by saying that particularized conversational implicatures are restricted to a specific context, i.e., they are context-dependent, whereas

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generalized implicatures do not require any particular context. What they have in common is the feature that both “convey an additional level of meaning, beyond the semantic meaning of the words uered” (omas 1995, 57). In the relevant literature one can encounter the terms “conventional implicature” and “conversational implicature,” the first term is identical with “generalized conversational implicature,” the laer with “particularized conversational implicature”. Grice’s Cooperative Principle Grice introduced the Cooperative Principle and its four maxims to show and clarify how implicatures function and how people understand them in an interaction. e Cooperative Principle: “Make your conversational contribution su as required, at the stage at whi it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exange in whi you are engaged” (Grice 1989, 26). e Maxims of the CP: antity:

ality:

Relation: Manner:

Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exange). Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Try to make your contribution one that is true. Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for whi you la adequate evidence Be relevant. Be perspicuous. Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). Be orderly. (Grice 1989, 26–27)

In the CP, Grice suggested that in a conversational exange “people work on the assumption that a certain set of rules is in operation, unless they receive indications to the contrary” (omas 1995, 62). e four proposed maxims of the CP instruct speakers to give a sufficient amount of information (antity), to be truthful (ality), to speak to the point (Relevance) and to speak clearly (Manner). “Because these maxims are mutually known to speakers and addressees, addressees infer meanings that are conveyed but not stated” (Grundy 2008, 97). When defining the maxims of the CP, Grice was conscious of the fact that participants in a conversation may fail to observe the maxims in a variety of ways. at is why he defined these cases of non-observance of a maxim: — — — — —

flouting violating infringing opting out suspending

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is paper will concentrate on the cases of flouting and violating a maxim. ese two types are quite frequent in political discourse, in contrast to infringing and suspending a maxim, whi do not appear in this genre. Opting out has occurred in the corpus only in four cases, whi is an insignificant number if one takes into account the extent of the whole corpus. Furthermore, limitations of space forced me to pay aention to the two ways of breaking the maxims mentioned above. Flouting a Maxim Flouting a maxim is the case in whi “a speaker blatantly fails to observe a maxim, not with any intention of deceiving or misleading, but because the speaker wishes to prompt the hearer to look for a meaning whi is different from, or in addition to, the expressed meaning” (omas 1995, 65). In other words, a speaker gets a hearer to make an inference and consequently recover an implicature. In the example below, Rice flouted the maxim of quantity because she did not mention the precise date of a meeting. She did not intend to mislead her hearers by giving too lile information but in this particular case it was not necessary to mention the exact date: Blitzer: When did these – when did that happen? Rice: It was several months ago, but we will see when it is desirable to do so again. (Rice 2006) Violating a Maxim Grice describes violating as “quiet and unostentatious” non-observance of a maxim. If a participant violates a maxim, “he will be liable to mislead” (Grice 1989, 49). us, the difference between flouting a maxim and violating it is that in the case of violation the speaker intentionally deceives the hearer, whi is not the case of flouting. However, in some situations it is difficult to judge if it is a violation or a flout of a maxim. As Sweetser (1990) or Kudrnáčová (2008) have demonstrated, this potentiality of interpretation asserts itself in the relatedness of semantic values and their application in different pragmatic contexts. In the following example, Tony Blair intentionally tries to mislead the audience by giving wrong information about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: Tony Blair: Well what there was, was evidence, I mean this is what our intelligence services are telling us and it’s difficult because, you know, either they’re simply making the whole thing up or this is what they are telling me, as the Prime Minister, and I’ve no doubt what the American Intelligence are telling President Bush as well. And that is that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we know they were there before, but the Iraqis are now trying to conceal those. (Blair 2003) Infringing a Maxim is type of non-observance is caused by a speaker’s insufficient knowledge of language rather than by his/her intention to mislead the addressee or recover an implicature. omas (1995, 74) states that this may be due to not being familiar enough with a language

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(a foreign learner, a ild), because of nervousness, excitement, drunkenness, or because the speaker is inherently incapable of speaking clearly and in a relevant way. Opting out of a Maxim e main cause of speakers opting out of a maxim is that he/she shows unwillingness to cooperate in the way the maxim requires. Opting out is usually linguistically explicit, i.e., the speaker says directly, for example: “Unfortunately I cannot say more to this topic because the information is confidential” (my example). As Holmes (1995, 74) adds this kind of non-observance occurs frequently in public life (e.g., politics, religion, health service, etc.) when the speaker cannot reply “in the way normally expected” (Holmes 1995, 74) because of governmental interests, legal, or ethical reasons. I have found several examples of opting out in my corpus. Here is one from an interview with Blair: Jon Sopel: Okay. Well let’s talk about one police investigation that I don’t think you will be able to stop, the cash for peerages enquiry. I know you won’t talk about the detailed investigation, but what did it feel like to be the first Prime Minister to be questioned as part of a criminal enquiry. Tony Blair: It’s not just that I won’t talk about the investigation. I just won’t talk about it full stop, ‘cause anyway, in the weeks to come it will finish as an enquiry and why don’t we just wait for that time. (Blair 2007) Suspending a Maxim is type of non-observance seems to be a form of opting out, but at the same time it is contingent on cultural norms or particular events. omas (1995, 77) gives an example about the acting community in Britain that refers to Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” as “e Scoish Play” because they believe that uering “Macbeth” brings bad lu. (For more examples see omas 1995, 76–78). Methods Corpus Description and Aims of the Study is study is based on the analysis of transcribed political interviews with the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. e transcripts were downloaded from various web sites su as the CNN web site, ABC news, BBC news website etc. All interviews were released between years 2003 and 2008. e topics discussed range from home politic issues and the EU to foreign affairs su as the Second Iraq War. e primary aim was to examine if these two top politicians fail to observe the conversational maxims as defined by Grice. is analysis concentrates on two types of non-fulfillment, namely, flouting and violating a maxim. In addition, this paper looks into the gender-specificity of the non-observance of maxims. Quantitative Analysis All the interviews have been divided into particular turns because they may indicate the dynamic nature of the discourse beer than individual uerances. e total number of

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turns in the interviews with Tony Blair was 201, while with Condoleezza Rice it was 214. en certain turns were identified in whi one or more maxims were breaed, and ea turn was studies to see if the particular maxim in question was violated or flouted. However, in some cases this procedure was somewhat problematic because several turns were rather lengthy. e results of the quantitative analysis are summarized in Table 1 below: Table 1 Total number of turns Observed Non-observed Violated Flouted Maxim of quantity Maxim of quality Maxim of relation Maxim of manner

Condoleezza Rice 214 89 162 24 138 84 (51.85%) 22 (13.58%) 14 (8.64%) 42 (25.93%)

Tony Blair 201 75 188 27 161 81 (64.29%) 19 (15.08%) 14 (11.11%) 74 (58.73%)

Out of 214 turns, Condoleezza Rice broke a maxim in 162 turns and in 89 she did not break any. Similar results can be observed by Tony Blair, who broke a maxim in 188 turns out of 201. In comparing the frequency of occurrence of non-observance in all turns by these two politicians, the number is slightly higher by Blair, 0.935, while by Rice it is 0.757. As demonstrated in the table above, the number of non-observed turns does not correspond to the subtraction of the total number of turns from the observed ones. e reason is that there are cases in whi several maxims were breaed at the same time. e most frequent non-observed maxim by both speakers is the maxim of quantity (in 84 cases by Rice, in 81 cases by Blair), followed by the maxim of manner. What is interesting is the number of non-observances with this maxim. Rice broke the maxim of manner in 42 turns while Blair in 74 turns. en, the results by both speakers are very similar: maxim of quality was not observed in 22 cases by Rice and in 19 cases by Blair, and the maxim of relation was failed to observe by both politicians identically in 14 cases. In Table 2 I have divided the cases of non-observance of maxims have been divided from the point of view of violating and flouting. As demonstrated, the instances of violating are not so frequent. In many cases, however, it is very difficult to decide if a particular turn is flouting or violating, especially when one does not know the exact baground of the events. To illustrate: Jeremy Paxman: Hans Blix said he saw no evidence, either of weapons manufacture, or that they had been concealed. Tony Blair: No, I don’t think again that is right. I think what he said was that the evidence that he had indicated that the Iraqis were not cooperating properly and that, for example, he thought that the nerve agent VX may have been weaponised. (Blair 2003)

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Table 2 Maxim Maxim of antity Maxim of ality Maxim of Relation Maxim of Manner

Rice Flouting 76 18 9 35

Rice Violating 8 4 5 7

Blair Flouting 75 13 7 66

Blair Violating 6 6 7 8

Results Discussion of the Results As mentioned above, the maxim of quantity is the most frequent non-observed maxim in this study. If a speaker flouts or violates this maxim it means that he/she gives more or less information than required. In the context of political discourse it can be explained by the fact that he/she takes into consideration his/her audience and that is why he/she explains everything in a more detailed way and in a wider context. ere is yet another factor that may play a role, namely, the fact that he/she wants to influence and persuade his/her audience (in fact potential voters) that he/she is the right person at the right place. On the contrary, if he/she gives less information than required it means that he/she wants to withhold information. Withholding information is connected with violating the maxim of quantity because it is intentional misleading of the hearers. Here are some examples of flouting the maxim of quantity: Blitzer: So you can assure us that there was no guarantee to release those five Iranians? Rice: No, there wasn’t. Blitzer: . . . in exange for the Iranians agreeing to come to Sharm el-Sheikh? Rice: ere was no guarantee. We’ve talked to the Iraqi government and informed them that the detainees will be dealt with in the normal course. (Rice 2007a) Rice’s first turn is too brief, suggesting she does not intend to give a more detailed answer. e interviewer adds the second part of the question in order to get more precise information. In the example below, Blair breaks two maxims in one turn. He violates the maxim of quantity by withholding information about the inspectors working in Iraq and he flouts the maxim of quality because he claims something for whi he las adequate evidence (these facts are more evident in the context of the whole interview): Jeremy Paxman: at wasn’t what you said, you said they [inspectors] were thrown out of Iraq – Tony Blair: Well they were effectively because they couldn’t do the work they were supposed to do Jeremy Paxman: No, effectively they were not thrown out of Iraq, they withdrew. Tony Blair: No I am sorry Jeremy, I’m not allowing you away with that, that is completely wrong. Let me just explain to you what happened. (Blair 2003)

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e second most frequent maxim whi was flouted or violated is the maxim of manner. Speakers break it in cases in whi their uerances are ambiguous, unclear, not orderly and too lengthy. Politicians break it if they intend to avoid answering the question directly and in a perspicuous way. is strategy may be labelled as evasiveness. As I have already mentioned, it is interesting that the number of non-observances of this maxim is mu higher by Tony Blair. It can be explained by the fact that Condoleezza Rice as a female politician has a more difficult position that Tony Blair as a man, and that is why she tries to speak more clearly and orderly to defend her position as a Secretary of State. In the following example of flouting the maxim of manner, Blair’s answer is not clear and orderly. What he actually wanted to say remains unclear: Jon Sopel: But you get then the Paris based organisation, the organisation for economic co-operation and development, who are the wat dogs in these sort of things, talking about this might have been a brea of the anti bribery convention, that Britain, supposedly leading this. Tony Blair: Yeah. I don’t think the – it wasn’t quite like that. Look, in the end you’ve got to have a. . . Jon Sopel: I mean there was a serious point they made. ey said it was, it could have been in brea of the anti bribery convention. (Blair 2007) e number of nonfulfillments of the maxim of quality is roughly the same by both politicians. If this maxim is breaed it means that the speaker says something whi is not true or something for whi he/she does not have enough evidence. If a politician violates this maxim he/she is deliberately telling a lie. Sometimes it may be a face-saving strategy because if he/she told the truth, he/she could be unpopular with his/her voters. It can happen that the topic discussed is too sensitive and because of governmental interests the information cannot be revealed to the public. In the example below Blair violates the maxim of quality by claiming something for whi he does not have enough evidence, or he may just be lying. is reply also flouts the maxim of manner because it is rather unclear: Jeremy Paxman: You produced a dossier last September in whi you outlined Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. All the sites in that report were visited by UN inspectors who found no evidence of the weapons or no evidence of there having been hidden. Tony Blair: I’m sorry, it is absolutely clear what has been happening over the past few months, whi is of course, I mean the moment we mentioned those in our intelligence reports we were aware of the fact that the Iraqis would then have a significant period of time in whi they could conceal these weapons. But, you know, if this were some country that we had no history of this problem with and this was the first time anyone had ever raised the issue, there might be a point in what you’re saying. It is absurd in the case – Jeremy Paxman: But you concede it’s true –

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Tony Blair: I don’t concede it’s true at all. It is absurd. Jeremy Paxman: Well, your own foreign minister Mike O’Brian said it is true. (Blair 2003) e least frequent non-observed maxim in this study is the maxim of relation. e number of breakings of this maxim is similar by both politicians, whi is quite surprising as it was expected that the uerances of Rice are more to the point than that of Blair, again in connection with the defense of her position. However, the maxims of relation and manner are difficult to distinguish in many cases, especially when the uerance is both unclear and irrelevant. e reason why the maxim of relation is broken in political discourse may be sought in the fact that the politicians intend to divert aention from the topic discussed because they want to withhold information or do not want to lose face in case they would have to say something unpopular in front of their audience. In the following example Rice flouts the maxim of relation because she does not mention any exact date of the meeting discussed. She just sums up what has to be done before the meeting takes place. We can also say that she breaks the maxim of manner because of this vague reply: Question: When is the next meeting then? Secretary Rice: Well, there will be working groups that are going to at the officials level work on border security, work on refugees and work on energy supply. And I think we’ll look to when it makes sense to have another ministerial. But it’s extremely important to have this framework in whi Iraq’s neighbors and the Iraqi Government can undertake reciprocal responsibilities. (Rice 2007b)

Conclusion e aim of this study was to shed light on the two ways of non-observance of conversational maxims in the genre of political interview, namely, flouting and violating. Additionally, the study aims to clarify differences between male and female top politicians, in other words, if the non-observance of Gricean maxims is gender-specific. While examining these issues several problems were encountered. ey were connected predominantly with the classification of particular maxims. In many cases it is not possible to distinguish if a given case is, for example, the non-observance of the maxim of relation or of manner. If the uerance is ambiguous or obscure, it frequently happens that at the same time it is irrelevant in the given context. Or, if the speaker gives a lengthy answer, he breaks the maxim of quantity by giving too mu information, and at the same time he breaks the maxim of manner because his uerances are not brief and orderly. In addition, there are examples in whi the two maxims are broken in one turn. is finding can, however, be regarded as a feature of natural language: not everything is clear and has clear-cut boundaries. In a language there are many phenomena that cannot be defined and classified precisely.

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As the results show, the most frequent non-observed maxim was that of quantity by both politicians. is finding can be explained by the fact that politicians realize that their audience is not informed about the issues discussed in su detail and that is why they concentrate more on a detailed explanation in a wider context. However, it can also be regarded as a persuasive strategy. e politician wants to impress the audience. Conversely, if a politician gives less information than required, he withholds information. Since the results are similar in interviews by both politicians, it cannot be maintained that the cases of non-observance are gender-specific. ere is only one major difference, namely, a higher number of the non-observances of the maxim of manner by Tony Blair. However, in this case Blair’s strategy should be ascribed to the individual aracteristic of his expression. Furthermore, it is interesting to observe if the topic discussed in interviews plays a role in breaking the maxims. In the corpus, both the politicians concentrated on the Second Iraq War. When dealing with this theme, they both broke the maxims more frequently than when discussing a common topic su as domestic affairs. is fact should be taken as evidence of the importance that both the politicians, as representatives of states actively engaged in this conflict, aa to this issue. e maxims whi were broken most frequently when the Second Iraq War was discussed were the maxims of quality and of quantity. However, this tendency cannot be generalized and requires further resear. e present study of the non-observance of Gricean maxims in political discourse has proven that more comprehensive resear in this field needs to be conducted, because only in this way can one arrive at more relevant conclusions. In addition, it would be interesting and useful to compare the genre of political discourse with the genre of informal spoken conversation. e reasons and motivations for the breaking of conversational maxims in different genres and by different speakers may vary substantially. Works Cited Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do ings With Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Davies, Bethan. 2000. Grice’s Cooperative Principle: Geing the Meaning Across. In Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics 8, ed. Diane Nelson and Paul Foulkes, 1–26. Leeds: University of Leeds. Grice, H. P. 1989. Logic and Conversation. In Studies in the Way of Words, 1–143. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Grundy, Peter. 2008. Doing Pragmatics. London: Hodder Education. Holmes, Janet. 1995. Women, Men and Politeness. Harlow: Longman. Kudrnáčová, Naděžda. 2008. Directed Motion at the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Brno: Masaryk University. Mey, Jacob L. 2001. Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford: Blawell Publishing. Searle, J. R. 1969. Spee Acts. London: Cambridge University Press. Sweetser, Eve E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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omas, Jenny. 1995. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman. Corpus Blair, Tony. 2003 Transcript of Blair’s Iraq interview. ursday, 6 February, 2003. BBC NEWS. hp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/2732979.stm. Blair, Tony. 2006a. Al-Jazeera-English; Blair/Frost Iraq ‘Disaster’ Interview: e Full Transcript. November 18, 2006. How this Old Brit Sees It . . . hp://riwrites.blogspot.com/2006/11/al-jazeera-english-blairfrost-iraq.html. Blair, Tony. 2006b. Tony Blair Interview: Complete Transcript George Stephanopoulos’ Exclusive Interview with British Prime Minister. Dec. 10, 2006. ABC News. hp://abcnews.go.com/isWeek/Politics/Story?id=2720220&page=1. Blair, Tony. 2007. Blair: ‘I’m going to finish what I started.’ On the Politics Show, Sunday 28 January 2007, Jon Sopel interviewed the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. BBC NEWS. hp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/politics_show/6293605.stm. Rice, Condoleezza. 2006. CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: Interview With Condoleezza Rice; Interview With bad Talabany. Aired Mar 26, 2006 – 11:00 ET. CNN.com. hp://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/26/le.01.html. Rice, Condoleezza. 2007a. CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: Interview With Condoleezza Rice; Interview With Hoshyar Zebari. Aired April 29, 2007 – 11:00 ET. CNN.com. hp://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/29/le.01.html. Rice, Condoleezza. 2007b. Interview on the Charlie Rose Show. Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Washington, DC, May 7, 2007. U.S. Department of State. hp://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2007/may/84460.htm (accessed June 29, 2008). Rice, Condoleezza. 2007c. Transcript: Cynthia’s McFadden’s Interview With Condoleezza Rice. e Secretary of State Says Israeli-Palestinian Compromise Is Necessary. Nov. 28, 2007. ABC News. hp://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id=3927548&page=1 Rice, Condoleezza. 2008. Interview With e Washington Times Editorial Board. Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Washington, DC, Mar 27, 2008. U.S. Department of State. hp://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2008/03/102757.htm (accessed June 13, 2008).

Non-standard Language in Ads Targeting Women Katarína Nemčoková Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Mostní 5139, 760 01 Zlín, Cze Republic. Email: nemco*kova@s.utb.cz Abstract: is paper aempts to ascertain whether ads targeting women confirm theoretical claims about the discourse of women. It also offers a viewpoint on whether or not the generally observed facts about women’s discourse relate to advertising discourse. Printed ads appearing in American female-oriented magazines were collected and analyzed to find out how language featured in them corresponds to women’s language in general. e paper takes a closer look at the irregularities and exceptions found in the language use and tries to ascertain reasons for these irregularities. Keywords: advertising discourse; discourse of women; sex-preferential spee; target group; standard language; correct forms; synonyms; positive connotations

Sociolinguists have long observed the differences in language use related to gender, age, social status, etc. It is a well-recognized fact that through their use of language women tend to be more polite, tend to use standard forms, avoid vernacular, and break linguistic rules with rather low frequency. e gender-related differences vary among spee communities and cultures. However, even in the Western society (whi is here understood as the one with European origins), where gender roles appear to be fairly equal, the linguistic oices vary among men and women. Advertising discourse is undoubtedly a part of general language use; as su it should reflect the variations in the use of language among target groups at whi the ads are aimed. is paper is not a comparative study of language used in ads targeting women and men separately. Its objective is to support claims made about general language use of women viewed through the filter of advertising discourse. For that purpose, a corpus of 50 printed ads was collected and analyzed. All ads targeting women and promoting skin products were included from 14 randomly osen issues of various American womenoriented magazines. e products promoted in the osen ads are used for body care as well as facial care; they range from body lotions to facial creams, make ups to lipstis and mascaras. Even though Coulmas (2005, 45) claims that “simple correlations between a single independent social variable, su as gender, and dependent linguistic variables . . . are always problematic,” in accordance with Holmes (1992, 164–80) some basic features that seem to be aracteristic for women’s language use in general can be pointed out in the collected adverts. Women seem to be using standard language forms more frequently than men. Linguistic forms observable in the printed ads (lexical expressions and grammar forms) confirm this notion. From all 50 ads only 4 exhibit a certain kind of departure from the

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standard use. To refer to the skin problems, Nature’s Cure tagline uses a rather colloquial expression zits in “Lose your zits. Find yourself.” Other ads promoting similar skincare products prefer the stylistically neutral breakouts (Clinique, Physicians’ Formula), impurities (Olay) or blaheads (Noxzema Purifying Blahead Cleanser). Some use rather euphemistic blemishes (Neutrogena), or go as far as avoiding the direct mention of the skin problem and name only the result of the use of purifying products su as “Skin so naturally clear it breathes” (St. Ives). is specific “zit” ad can be viewed from the perspective of age-related preference for use of non-standard vocabulary as well (cf. Coulmas 2005, 72–82). e image in the ad shows a young, possibly teenage girl with a rather crazy girlie smile. e other cleanser ads either show women in their late 20s or slightly older (all showing relaxed, satisfied, quiet “adult” smiles) or show no face at all; Clinique and Neutrogena only show the images of their products. A Sally Hansen lipsti ad uses a creative and playful tagline: “Xtra plump. Xtra shine. Xtra qui. Sally Hansen Lip Inflation EXtreme.” What can be viewed as non-standard here is the spelling of the repeated word Xtra. However, this use can hardly be understood as incorrect in standard-language sense. Creativity in this tagline can be compared to creativity in poetry or fiction. Unlike zit from the previous ad, this is not a form used commonly as non-standard. It fulfills a function of aracting aention by re-using the X sign repeatedly in the tagline as well as in the name of the product, thus establishing a stronger tie between the ad and the product (cf. Nemčoková 2009). It is also used to emphasize the word extra, whi is the major aribute of any quality of the lipsti. e visual side of the ad also confirms this: it only shows an extra-large image of female lips treated with the product. e lips appear to be extremely shiny and full. Even though this ad features a different type of non-standard expression (creatively rather than conventionally non-standard), it is unique among the other collected ads. Even in cases when creativity and playfulness are used to promote a product, they tend not to divert from creativity within norms of spelling and grammar. Examples of more standard-language approaes abound: creative yet rule-governed word-formation process of blending (cf. Nemčoková 2005) can be observed in a Covergirl lipsti ad (“Incredifull lipcolor”); skillful manipulation of literal meaning in figurative expressions can be seen in one of Noxzema’s taglines (“If anyone’s talking dirt, it won’t be about your face”), metaphors are plentiful (e.g., Si Intuition “Your skin will drink it in”), and vivid imagery is present in similes (e.g., Tone Exotic Fusions “Like a tropical rainforest, only you’re the wildlife”). All the examples demonstrate the creative skills of their creators yet they make use of standard language forms. Two ads in the corpus contain non-standard spelling that represents colloquial, informal pronunciation of the expressions. Dove Skin Vitalizer tagline reads ” ‘tis the season for radiant skin” and Covergirl VolumeExact Mascara is presented with the tagline “Plump ‘em Don’t clump ‘em.” e reasons for this non-standard use are partly corresponding and partly different. Both Dove and Covergirl’s advertising campaigns are based on using the natural, personal, daily language. is may be an overall aempt

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to “be different” – a feature whi is mu sought-aer and highly valued in today’s advertising. Cook (2001, 16) says: “e fact that a particular targeted group, or a particular product, associates with a particular medium or tenique is in itself oen a good reason for ange.” Dove was a pioneer in presenting images of real, non-model women in its ads, and presenting imperfect figures as beautiful. e usage of mildly colloquial language seems to correspond with this idea. Dove’s tagline is not overtly substandard, slangy or vulgar, as mu as the women in its ads are not shown with all the flaws a real-life figure can have. e Dove campaign excludes perfect, ideal bodies and refrains from the use of hypercorrect language, yet in both categories does not exceed certain “incorrect” limits. e Covergirl campaign, though, shows images of highly aesthetized, perfectly madeup real life show-business celebrities. e one promoting VolumeExact Mascara is een Latifah, the bla rap singer turned actress. e language used in this specific tagline imitates her own bla rapper’s language. It appears to strengthen the ties between the product and the celebrity promoting the product rather than make women audience identify with the language (and the product) themselves. I find this to be a thoughtprovoking fact, since no other anonymous solo bla woman is portrayed in the collected ads (one appears in a Nivea group photograph of 4 women, the other three being a Hispanic, an Asian and a Caucasian; one is Halle Berry (of mixed bla and white ancestry), yet another celebrity promoting Revlon products). Why women prefer standard or hypercorrect linguistic means still remains a point of widespread sociolinguistic discussions. While Trudgill (1984) viewed it as a sign of women’s insecurity, Labov (1966) suggested they do it to be socially more advanced and accepted, and Chambers (1995) claimed women actually become the creators and keepers of the linguistic norms. Holmes (1992, 178) adds: “Women’s greater use of standard spee forms may . . . simply be a reflection of their sensitivity to contextual factors. Standard spee forms are used in more formal contexts. ey reflect social distance. . . . When people do not know ea other well, they tend to speak in ways that reflect their social roles . . . rather than relating as individuals.” e language observed in ads aimed at women confirms the hypothesis that women prefer standard and correct linguistic forms. However, since it is not created and actively used exclusively by women but rather aimed at them, it fulfills a function of an already established norm. Women viewing these advertisem*nts are approaed by language they use. is language confirms their social status and allows them to identify with other members of the target group. Holmes’s claim (above) then can also be understood in the sense of women ad recipients as persons who are being approaed directly but are respected as not personally known to the ad senders. e corpus of ads contains only four taglines featuring non-standard or informal language forms. All of them were analyzed above. Except for the four mentioned, it also contains an additional four featuring standard expressions, that are, however, rare in women-targeting advertising. Lexical means appearing in the collected ads seem to confirm the hypothesis that women operate with extensive vocabulary (cf. Coulmas 2005, 69–82). Skin is aributed

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a wide range of synonymic qualities (great, beautiful, glowing, radiant, fresh, lively, clear, clean, smooth, breathing, natural, air-so, velvety, so, flawless, stress less, baby so, relaxed, healthy, renewed, luminous, highly-defined, irresistible, touable, sunkissed, gorgeous, diva-dimensional, sensational); similarly extensive synonymic sets can be collected for expressions su as skin problems, to heal, to hydrate, etc. Ri sets of figures of spee, idiomatic expressions, metaphors, creative nonce words and various stylistic devices can be found as well. e common denominator of all is the la of any negative lexical connotations. Dry skin, signs of aging, acne problems and allergies are semantic fields that may contain many possibly unpleasant expressions. Despite this fact, ads operate almost exclusively with positively colored words. Only two ads in the corpus contain words with negative connotations. Semantically, they seem to “fit” beer to men’s ads. Noxzema’s Purifying Blahead Cleanser features a tagline “If anyone’s talking dirt, it won’t be about your face.” e negatively colored idiom talk dirt is rather striking in the abundance of all the positive, aesthetizing, and euphemizing lexis. By this alone it operates successfully as an aention-cating device. However, the ad creators decided not to risk too mu and put the phrase in an indirect quote claiming someone else (not the female ad recipients) talking dirt. at allows women to perceive the language of the ad as somebody else’s language with no direct connection to themselves.At the same time, the negative phrase is used in direct opposition to your face, whi may even strengthen the effect of the overall positive outcome of the message: negative plus negative equals positive. Max Factor MAXalicious Gloss Collection is advertised by a tagline “Color me Naughty. Color me Nice.” Naughty, similarly to talk dirt from the previous ad, cates the aention by its negative lexical connotation. However, its negative meaning is used in a balanced two-faced message resting upon an idea of opposition. It applies an antonymic pair of naughty-nice; the visual part of the ad features two faces of Carmen Electra promoting the product line – once photographed as a provoking, sexy diva; the other one as a beautiful yet natural-looking girl next door. e advertised product line itself is a set of two subsets: bright-colored, provoking lip gloss colors for the occasions when the customer wants to feel provocative and flirty; another set of natural tones of lip gloss to be worn at times when customers want to be perceived as nice. By using two contrasting photographs of the same model and accompanying it with the antonymic pair of adjectives the advertisers promote the whole range of products rather than just one gloss color. e negative connotation of the word naughty is not perceived negatively, as it might seem to be in isolation. Interestingly enough, antonymic pairs are a common linguistic means appearing in all categories of ads. at should suggest one member of ea su pair features a negative aitude while the other brings in the balance by adding a positive one. Antonymic pairs appear in the corpus several times and indeed present opposing ideas; their negative connotations are not that strong though. e Nivea campaign uses opposition several times: “e difference between noticing your glow and being drawn to it” feels to be an

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opposition between nice and even nicer; “e difference between high collars and plunging nelines” names two types of clothes styles that get into the opposition only in the context of the ad promoting a product that helps improve the look of the décolletage. e Nature’s Cure tagline “Lose your zits. Find yourself.” uses the antonyms lose-find, whi do present the opposition in meaning but lose does not feel to be overtly negative in the way talk dirt or naughty are. e corpus of ads targeting women shows very few instances of non-standard language expressions and grammar forms. is non-standard use seems to be justified by context or specificity of the ad in ea case. Su findings are in line with the general sociolinguistic hypotheses that women tend to use standard language and avoid rule-breaking in language use. Works Cited Chambers, Ja K. 1995. Sociolinguistic eory. Oxford: Blawell. Cook, Guy. 2001. e Discourse of Advertising. London: Routledge. Coulmas, Florian. 2005. Sociolinguistics: e Study of Speakers’ Choices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holmes, Janet. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman. Labov, William. 1966. e Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Nemčoková, Katarína. 2005. What Is a Blend? In English Is a Key, ed. Alexandra Bagiová, Ján Kozoň and Dalibor Mikuláš, 93–98. Ružomberok: Katolía univerzita. Nemčoková, Katarína. 2009. e Illocutionary Force: Over-coding and Under-coding in Advertising Slogans. Topics in Linguistics 4: 73–77. Trudgill, Peter. 1984. Sociolinguistics. 2nd ed. London: Penguin. Corpus Cosmopolitan. August 2007. Life and Style Weekly. August 28, 2006. Life and Style Weekly. April 30, 2007. Life and Style Weekly. May 7, 2007. OK! Weekly. Issue 11, Mar 12, 2007. People. July 10, 2006. People. July 17, 2006. People. November 13, 2006. People Special Double Issue. December 25, 2006. People. Mar 5, 2007. Star. November 28, 2005. US Weekly. October 16, 2006. US Weekly. April 23, 2007. US Weekly. December 24, 2007.

Neologisms of Foreign Origin in English Petra Jesenská Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Tajovského 40, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic. Email: jesenska@v.umb.sk

Abstract: e goal of this paper is to present resear results in the latest English neologisms of foreign origin. Neologisms were collected with the aim of finding only those that entered the English language aer 2000. e paper focuses on the origin of new words in English and on the wordformation process by whi they were created. Keywords: neologism; word-formation processes; compounding; blending; derivation; borrowing

Introduction e enriment of vocabulary happens via three basic processes – borrowing, wordformation processes, and shis in meaning. Neologisms are special because they involve a combination of at least two of these phenomena – borrowing and word-formation, and sometimes a shi in meaning. is paper presents resear results in the latest English neologisms of foreign origin.. Su neologisms were collected with the aim of finding only those that entered the English language aer 2000. As will be demonstrated, this criterion proved to be very hard to keep. e paper primarily focuses on two things: a) the origin of new words in English and b) the word-formation process by whi neologisms were created. e presumption was that most neologisms would be of American origin and therefore had come into existence in British English via borrowing, and that the most frequent word-formation process would be compounding and blending. Defining neologism What is a new word and for how long does it remain new (for how long do we, the language users, consider a new word new)? What are the criteria? Time limit? And how long would that time limit be? In other words, what defines the perception of “newness” by native speakers-language users? e neologisms have been examined from the synronic point of view, disregarding the diaronic method. However, it is understood that expressions su as Kleenex, Xerox, nylon (created by means of coinage, so-called nonce words), laser (abbreviation treated as a single lexical word), AIDS (abbreviation), email/e-mail (compound noun of formal electronic mail later shortened into email), etc. used to all be neologisms regardless of the process by whi they were created. Southworth & Daswani define neologism as “the process of creation of new words or phrases, usually, to denote tenological innovations of new cultural features” (in Štekauer 1995, 286) and Trudgill defines it as “a newly coined

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word or linguistic form” (in Štekauer 1995, 286). Anyway, whether we call a neologism a process or a word, it is a new element/phenomenon in a language. Moreover, Bauer supports this defining nonce formation as “a new complex word coined by a speaker/writer on the spur of the moment to cover some immediate need” (in Štekauer 1995, 289). Despite this, however, an expression can be considered a neologism for years. ere are some foreign neologisms that look English or Anglo-Saxon at least. e point is that seventy-five percent of English vocabulary is of Latin and/or Fren origin, though these expressions are no longer viewed as foreign. Su lexical units can create compounds or blends, su as junior moment (compound of Latin junior and Old Fren moment first appeared in 2000) or killographic (blend of Old English killing and Fren p*rnographic first used in 2003). ese words can be considered neologisms of foreign origin, though a common language user might not agree. is problem creates another question: When is a word considered to be of “foreign” (non-Anglo-Saxon) origin? It seems that the diaronic point of view plays an important role too. Research Paul McFedries is a Canadian computer expert supervising the web pages of hp://www.wordspy.com/ on whi he presents an enormous database of new words in English regardless of their origin or time of the first appearance in the English language. He himself refers to his pages dedicated to this problematic as “e Word Lover’s Guide to New Words“. e only criterion for a word or expression to be added on the list is its “newness.” His arive has been expanding continuously and new words are added every month. e method of quantitative analysis was applied to the resear of English neologisms. For resear purposes, neologisms have been classified into four categories: a) b) c) d)

Word class; Origin – internationalism (Latin, Greek, American English) or foreign word; Type of word-formation process (single or multiple processes); Time of the earliest citation (should have been aer 2000).

a) Originally the idea was to select exactly 100 lexical items not older than 9 years (i.e. they first appeared the earliest in 2000). It turned out to be quite difficult to follow this particular criterion, so “older” neologisms were also included. Out of all 100 items there were 7 participles, 4 adjectives, and only one verb. e remaining 88 items were all nouns (see table 1). b) e neologisms in the sample were borrowed from 11 languages: American English, Dut, Fren (and Old Fren and Middle Fren¹), German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin (Middle Latin), Scandinavian (languages), and Spanish. e most frequent one is Latin. e least frequent of all these are Spanish and Japanese (see table 2). 1. Old Fren and Middle Fren are considered as one language, i.e., Fren.

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Table 1: Word Classes in Percentage Word Class Nouns Adjectives (and past participle) Verbs

Percentage 88 4 (7) 1

Table 2: Etymological background of neologisms in % Language Latin Fren British English Greek Scandinavian languages German American English Italian Dut Scoish English Hindi Spanish Japanese

Percentage 35 21 17 13 3 3 3 2 1 1 0.9 0.8 0.8

Table 3: Foreign and Adopted Units in % Units Adopted units Foreign units

Percentage 74 26

Included in the resear are foreign roots (aireoke, punditariat) as well as foreign affixes (de-, eco-, hyper-,-id, etc.). From the point of view of origin, foreign words and adopted expressions can be distinguished (see table 3). Foreign units are all words that language users perceive as foreign, for example aireoke, fauxmosexual, peoplerazzi, etc. It is obvious from table 3 that the percentage of adopted units is mu higher than foreign units. Sometimes it is just an affix (prefix or suffix) that is of foreign origin. However, it is quite surprising that most neologic expressions are adopted nowadays. c) Type of word-formation process (single or multiple processes) is depicted in table 4, whi shows that many more neologisms were formed as single processes than multiple processes.

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Theories in Practice Table 4: Type of Word Formation Processes Type of Word Formation Process Single Word Formation Process Multiple Word Formation Process

Percentage 89 11

e most frequent word-formation process in the sample was blending (in 48 cases), followed by derivation (28 cases), compounding (26), and finally shortening (8 cases) (see table 5). Table 5: Word Formation Processes Involved Word formation Blending Derivation Compounding Shortening

Percentage 44 25 24 7

d) e intention was to create a resear sample out of neologisms absorbed into English aer 2000. However, this criterion did not seem to work, because many units appeared for the first time before 2000 but their regular usage expanded aer 2000 or they underwent a particular modification. For example the following expression, genarian, first appeared in 1994 as a noun: Some people say that you should beware of retirement because it’ll drag you down. But don’t tell that to Maurice Browning, 83. According to one of his neighbors in Peace Dale, he’s found a sense of mission – by trying to grow an 800-pound pumpkin. [. . .] His garden is an expansive project for an octogenarian, or any kind of genarian. (Goldstein 1994)

Although the unit (genarian) is considered a noun, the third edition of LDCE published in 2001 considers it to be a suffix indicating nouns and adjectives (-genarian). On the contrary, this unit functions as a lexical noun and/or adjective (its uses in 2007 prove it). In all, 13 neologisms (i.e., 13 % of all resear sample) first entered the English language before 2000: Condop was first used in 1982, fogust and genarian in 1994, womenomics in 1995, neuromyth and transumer in 1996, feature fatigue, flexicurity, and punditariat in 1997, and aritourist, freshmore, ludology, and green urbanism in 1999. ere is a table 6 (see below) for readers’ clearness. Table 6: Neologisms First Used Before 2000 Year 1982 1994 1995 1996 1997 1999

Neologism(s) Condop fogust and genarian womenomics neuromyth and transumer feature fatigue, flexicurity, and punditariat aritourist, freshmore, ludology, and green urbanism

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87 of the neologisms in the sample first entered the English language aer the year 2000. e following table 7 shows figures and percentage in years since 2000. None of neologisms entered the language in 2009. Table 7: Neologisms after 2000 (2000–2008) Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Percentage 7 15 6 9 8 17 20 8 10

Table 7 shows that the years 2006 and 2005 represent the most productive periods of the first appearance of neologisms in the English language. e least productive years in the sample were 2002 and 2000. Of course, a larger sample would be necessary to generate any conclusions, however, the study of the sample has led to certain hypotheses. Conclusion Seing criteria helped to define the term neologism, and the diaronic point of view seems to be as important as the synronic when defining neologisms. e sample of 100 lexical items was limited for the purposes of simplicity and clarity. Even su a small sample demonstrates that the English language is still very open to new influences from other languages. Still, Latin (35 %) and Fren (21 %) dominate as resources of new items of inspiration in the English language. British English (17 %) and Greek (13 %) are also very productive sources of neologisms. Surprisingly, American English is not a main source of neologisms. Our resear has shown that word-formation single processes (89 %) are more common than multiple ones (11 %), and that there are more neologisms taken aer the year 2000 (87 %) than before (13 % in 1990s), but this last fact was influenced by the selection of lexical items (focus on units taken aer 2000). e hypothesis for blending and compounding has proved only partially correct. Blending (44 %) proved to be the most frequent word-formation process, followed by derivation² (25 %), compounding (24 %), and then shortening (7 %). Shortening was represented by two word-formation processes – clipping and initialisms. e resear has also affirmed the well-known fact that, in terms of word class, nouns are the most common neologisms.

2. Prefixation and suffixation

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Works Cited Goldstein, Gerry. 1994. Maurice Browning thrives and grows, just like his garden. Providence Journal-Bulletin, September 19, 1994, hp://www.wordspy.com/words/genarian.asp (accessed June 11, 2009). McFedries, Paul. 2009. Word Spy: e Word Lover’s Guide to New Words. hp://www.wordspy.com/ (accessed May 27, 2009). Štekauer, Pavel. 1995. An Encyclopaedia of English Linguistics. Prešov: Slovacontact. Dictionaries Consulted Harper, Douglas. 2001. Online Etymology Dictionary. hp://www.etymonline.com/index.php (accessed June 15, 2009). Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. 2001. Harlow: Longman.

Is the Pope Catholic? Translation of Affirmative Statements from English into Czech in Light of Equivalence Theory and Meaning Martin Němec Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Brno, Poříčí 9, 603 00 Brno, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: is paper deals with difficulties in the process of affirmative statements translations seen from the point of view of modern equivalence theories, especially those emphasising meaning as the key for the correct translation. e Cze portfolio of colloquial affirmative statements is probably not as ri as English, and some Cze translators find it difficult to understand and find the best equivalent and meet all the criteria of modern theories. is paper deals with the limits to the present translation theories. Keywords: affirmative; affirmative statements; translation; theory of translation; colloquial; equivalence; meaning

Introduction Is the Pope a Catholic? Could that be a serious question? What is in fact the true meaning of the phrase whi seems to be so obvious? Can all the contextual and extra textual meanings be identified? An analysis of modern professional and amateur translations of the script e Big Lebowski (Coen and Coen 1998) identifies some misinterpretations that might be solved through equivalence theories, while at the same time revealing some weak points when the theories (emphasising meaning and the sear for the equivalence) are meanically applied to modern texts. Equivalence and Contemporary Equivalence Theories Translators and solars might agree that equivalence is the key word for understanding and defining the quality of translations. ey might, on the other hand, disagree to what level and even how to apply it and mu ink has been spilt discussing the maer. e proponents of this notion, Newmark (1981), for example, try hard to define its nature, types and also compare its degrees as a crucial subject of resear in translation, whereas opponents like Mehra (1998) and Van Leuven-Zwart (1990) consider it as an impossible point for the translator to rea. Since the focus of this paper is not the discussion and evaluation of the definitions of the theories but an analysis of the Cze way of dealing with a particular problem in the perspective of meaning, it suffices to adopt the statement of Maite Aragonés Lumeras that “ . . . the problem [of equivalence], in a sense, is that the explanation of translation

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shares no common ground all around the world; it shows that every culture gives a specific priority to the equivalence in the act of translating without paying aention to the role of interpretations” (2008). So, what are the meanings? What is the message of the Pope in Rome being a Catholic? Translators seem to shi from referential meaning to contextual and pragmatic meaning and do not make a clear distinction between co-text (the surrounding text and all the linguistic and textual information) and context, su as the recurrent communicative situations (Miller 1984, Nord 1997), nor between referential meaning, communicative meaning, rhetorical tris used to convince the reader, communicative purpose of a specific communicative situation and/or private intentions of the author. Ea language/country abides by certain translation traditions, and the views on the quality of translation anges over time. e whole process of translation and evaluation is used in the context and understanding of meaning at a certain time and in distinctive communicative situations. But meaning is not generated purely by the translator and the original text; there is no autonomous and objective meaning in the text. Instead, a convergence of parameters forms a crossroad of human communication that will enable translators to extract the meaning for whi they sear (Lumeras 2008). If modern genre studies (Bazerman 1997) are projected into the seme (communication model), textual analysis stems from the importance of contextualizing texts. Meaning might be relativized, negotiated, discussed and remodelled according to different external factors (history, tradition, audience, social awareness, etc.). And thus, a reality emerges: meaning is neither an objective nor a universal value, but is constructed by readers according to the situational context (Nord 1997). Subjectivity is then the starting point of the translating process, whatever the text type (informative, exhortative, argumentative, narrative, etc.) and the text genre. e phrase “Is the pope a catholic?” is defined as an affirmative or strongly affirmative statement. Popular culture also introduced a statement with the same meaning, but the phrase was modified to “Does a bear live in the woods?” In the course of time and due to different peer pressures and usual shis of meaning in the development and modification of expressions, the laer was transformed into “Does a bear sh** in the woods?” And then, it was only a short leap for the Coen brothers to have Dude Lebowski (aracter in e Big Lebowski film) use the phrase “Does the pope sh** in the woods.” It might be a dead end to use the traditional translation theory or the pure meaning analysis on su an expression. Or is there a Cze phrase that would reflect all the historical, communicative, playful tou, level of vulgarity and culture awareness? Or, would the traditional definitions in the theory of translation provide the same “semantic,” “stylistic” and “pragmatic” equivalent? It seems that the extra textual meaning, an analysis of the dialogue, should be considered to find an adequate Cze statement. It is of lile surprise that the Cze subtitles read: “Co by dělal papež v lese?” (Fajah 2005) or “Papež? A v lese?” (Scripter 2007). e dubbed version of the films used the phrase: “Že váháš, nalej ještě!” (Coen and Coen 1998). e pace, length of the uerances, the rhythm and the rules for dubbing films into Cze, as well as the long and successful

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tradition of Cze dubbing probably made the translators of that particular statement very easy. It is worthwhile to e the context, the style, the semantic and pragmatic message; in other words, the whole communicative model presented in the scene, and try to imagine the raison d’être (not only the meaning) of the affirmative statement: TREEHORN I’ve heard the kidnapping story, so save it. I know you’re mixed up in all this, Dude, and I don’t care what you’re trying to take off her husband. at’s your business. All I’m saying is, I want mine. DUDE Yeah, well, right man, there are many facets to this, uh, you know, many interested parties. If I can find your money, man – what’s in it for the Dude? TREEHORN Of course, there’s that to discuss. Refill? DUDE Does the Pope sh*t in the woods? TREEHORN Let’s say a 10% finder’s fee? DUDE Okay, Jaie, done. I like the way you do business. Your money is being held by a kid named Larry Sellers. He lives in North Hollywood, on Radford, near the In-and-Out Burger. A real fuin’ brat, but I’m sure your goons’ll be able to get it off him, mean he’s only fieen and he’s flunking social studies. So if you’ll just write me a e for my ten per cent . . . of half a million . . . fiy grand. (Coen and Coen 1998)

Suffice it to say that even though the Cze subtitles reflect more or less the script, there are also rules that limit the ri/equivalent L2 (target) language. e limits are more or less tenicalities and one should consider for example the fact that in case of the lines, they – to meet the tenical demands of the distributors – have to be displayed for a minimum of 5 seconds. But, although anowledging some tenical restrictions, they should never be used as an excuse for mistakes, or, alternatively, an imprecise translation in the sense of the “meaning” of the message/uerance. Translation Studies provide different and still valid concepts to operate the communicative equation. However, communicative events are far from being as clear and determined as mathematics; communication is first of all negotiation (Ryan 2004, 220) between people in order to aieve a purpose and may contribute to the progress of the state of the art. If translation is understood as a specific communicative act, the following levels should be easily recognised: — semantic and/or rhetoric and pragmatic meaning (Seleskovit and Lederer 1984); — sociocommunicative function (Reiss and Vermeer 1996; Nord 1997); — semantic and/or functional equivalence.

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e traditional approa refutes the importance of the pragmatic aspect: the relationship itself is negotiated by the reading competence of the audience because a text is never to be isolated and analysed as su. It takes place in the whole complex structure of social communication, baground, and history and is intended to be received by a community for a specific purpose (Lumeras 2008). Translators should also deal with the complex baground that could be called extratextual parameters or aspects. us the translator might consider the use of the traditional communicative style in the affirmative uerances and want to emphasise the neutral point of view of the statements, whereas a different approa would highly emphasise the fact that the affirmative statement provided by Dude (“e Big Lebowski”) is probably not a standard one. us, a different style might be used as a notion of how to aracterise the aracter, using typically Cze means to deliver the right picture, respecting the style, context and meaning. Using this strategy, some students have suggested, “Q: Refill? A: Does the Pope sh*t in the woods?” translated as “Ještě jednu?,” “Ku***že, nalej!” or “Ještě? No, ku***, že si dám!” Even though these translations might work beer, the question of applying the equivalence theory to the examples provided still remains. e ideology, cultural history and social awareness reflected in translations are as old as the history of translation itself. According to Fawce, “throughout the centuries, individuals and institutions applied their particular beliefs to the production of certain effect in translation” (1998, 107). is might also play an important part in understanding the translations that more or less try to sti to the neutral meaning (see the Cze dubbing), emphasising a traditional linguistic approa to the translation. e tradition of modern Cze translations reflecting all the levels of the original (usually ri) language might have been started by the translation of the novel by Warren Miller Prezydent Krokadýlů, translated by Jan Zábrana and introduced into Cze literature and translation literature only in 1963 (first edition) and in 1990 (second edition). Even today, some translations reflect the previous ideology, and even though there is no longer censorship or any other form of ideology pressure, the feeling of something inappropriate when translating, for example, the profanity, remains with some translators. In the modern Cze translation literature Fawcet’s claim that “an ideological approa to translation can be found in some of the earliest as well as modern examples of translations known to us” (1998, 106) does not necessarily apply. Nevertheless, the traditional eory of Translation (linguistics-oriented) approaes to translation studies have not so far dealt in details with the concept of ideology and censorship and would, at least in the Cze translation tradition, be worth further investigating. In summary, the traditional theory of translation might reflect that: a. equivalence is what the translator seeks; and b. meaning is what is inherent in the text. It might also be true that the majority of translators seek an equivalence of meaning, as this is so far the only category that would define the translation as well done. e problem

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is that there is not a meaning, but a plurality of interpretations. Meaning is not static; it anges in time and space. e same text at the same time, but out of place, will lose part of its meaning, and the reader will have new interpretations of the communicative purposes and private intentions (Lumeras 2008). A well known example used in the eory of Genre by Berkenkoer and Huin (1995) illustrates the situation well. Visitors to South China might meet lots of people dressed in white grouped in the streets dancing and shouting. What does this ceremony mean? Visitors coming from a different “context” might easily link the white colour with a wedding, dancing with joy, and shouts with anger or commands. Comprehension is hardly ever correct without knowledge of the ceremony and its meaning for the particular community. However, linking the variables and contextualizing them in the culture makes it clear that this is the typical behaviour at a burial ceremony (Berkenkoer and Huin 1995). e equivalent ceremony (burial) in Europe is visibly different, because the visible signs ange, but the ceremony exists in Western countries and has to be recognised by the viewer if he or she wants to understand what is happening (Lumeras 2008). However happy the translator might feel about geing the right equivalent, did s/he get the right translation then? Translation Studies place too mu emphasis on the equivalence theory we could talk about “parallel events” or even similar cultural events. is paper barely scrates the surface of fascinating topics in the field of Translation Studies, and more work is needed. Colloquial affirmative statements will not serve as a corpora for further investigation into the topic, but they do show interesting baground and do explain how different aspects of the text and context might be considered. But, it seems obvious that the traditional theories of Translation Studies should really be revisited and adapted. Works Cited Bazerman, Charles. 1997. Systems of Genres and the Enactment of Social Intentions. In Genre and the New Rhetoric, ed. Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway, 79–101. London: Taylor & Francis. Berkenkoer, Carol, and omas N. Huin. 1995. Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition/Culture/Power. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Fawce, Peter. 1998. Ideology and Translation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker and Kirsten Malmkjær, 106–11. London: Routledge. Lumeras, Maite Aragonés. 2008. Meaning: e Philosopher’s Stone of the Alemist Translator? Translation Journal 12, no. 3, hp://translationjournal.net/journal/45meaning.htm (accessed August 23, 2009). Miller, Carolyn R. 1984. Genre as Social Action. arterly Journal of Spee 70: 151–67. Newmark, Peter. 1981. Approaes to Translation. Oxford: Pergamon. Nord, Christiane. 1997. A Functional Typology of Translation. In Text Typology and Translation, ed. Anna Trosbord, 43–66. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mehra, Mohamed. 1998. Towards a Text-Based Model for Translation Evaluation. Ridderkerk: Ridden print.

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Reiss, Katarina, and Hans J. Vermeer. 1996. Fundamentos para una teoría funcional de la traducción. Trans. Sandra García Reina and Celia Martín de León. Ed. Heidrun Wie. Madrid: Akal. Ryan, David. 2004. e Pragmatic eory of Meaning: Negotiation by Stealth. Language Sciences 26: 217–29. Seleskovit, Danica, and Marianne Lederer. 1984. Interpréter pour traduire. Paris: Didier Érudition. Van Leuven-Zwart, Kiy M. 1990. Translation and Original: Similarities and Dissimilarities, II. Target 2, no. 1: 69–95. Corpus Coen, Ethan, and Joel Coen. 1998. e Big Lebowski. Polygram Filmed Entertainment. Fajah. 2005. e Big Lebowski. České a slovenské titulky. May 2007. hp://titulky.com (accessed May 6, 2008). Miller, Warren. 1990. Prezydent Krokadýlů. Transl. Jan Zábrana. Praha: Odeon. Scripter. 2007. e Big Lebowski. České a slovenské titulky. August 2005. hp://titulky.com (accessed June 14, 2008).

Chesterman’s Translation Strategies in Syntax Zuzana Kozáčiková Department of English and American Studies, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Štefánikova 67, 949 01 Nitra, Slovak Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: e paper deals with translation strategies (mainly syntactic ones) proposed by Andrew Chesterman in 1997 in his work Memes of Translation and their use in the process of translation. Syntactic strategies primarily manipulate form focusing on structural elements and are interrelated with semantic and pragmatic translation strategies. Among these syntactic strategies are, e.g., literal translation, phrase structure ange or ellipsis. Moreover, the paper presents the results of empirical resear whi illustrates the link between the text, its syntactic qualities and their impact on translation quality. Keywords: Chesterman; Memes of Translation; text analysis; translation strategies; syntactic strategies; relative clause

1. Introduction Linguistics as the study of language and its linguistic properties has become quite dominant in various aspects of human life. It influences speaking, learning and writing; in other words, the way people share verbal or non- verbal ideas. It is generally accepted that linguistics has a very strict connection to translation studies and these two are closely related. More specifically, the concept of text and its analysis has contributed enormously towards the theory and practice of translation. Since linguistics is the study of language and has produced su powerful and productive theories about how language works, and since translation is a language activity, it would seem only common sense to think that the first had something to say about the second. is view was accepted by John Catford (1965, 1) who opened his book A Linguistic eory of Translation with the words: “Clearly, then, any theory of translation must draw upon a theory of language – a general linguistic theory.” Similar views can be found in the works of some other linguists as Nunan (1993) and irk et al. (1985). e definition by Catford takes text (source text) as a main departure for translation process. is paper is based on the assumption that the theoretical knowledge about text and text forming devices is indirectly reflected in every translation product and therefore has an implicit impact on its quality. 2. Chesterman’s translation strategies Since linguistic analysis is the first step any translator would take in the process of translation, the first thing to do is to explore the concept of linguistic strategies in the translation process. Su a view has led to a number of taxonomies whi help to transfer a source text to a target text. Among many sources, examples can be found in Vinay and

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Darbelnet (1958), Catford (1965) and Nida (1964/2004). Some of the taxonomies are simple, e.g., Nida’s (anges of order, omission, structure, addition), others are more complex and demanding. All of them take text as a language departure for strategic transfer. e most detailed taxonomy was proposed by Andrew Chesterman (1997, 92–115) who deals with linguistic strategies on syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels. Chesterman, professor of Multilingual Communication at the Department of General Linguistics, University of Helsinki, deals with theoretical aspects of translation, translation norms and memes. In his book Memes of Translation published in 1997, Chesterman tries to link theoretical aspects of translation process with practical translation activities. e overall movement of the book goes clearly from theory to practice. Of primary concern for this paper is apter 4, where the focus goes from product to process. e question “Given that there are translation norms, how do translators seek to conform to them?” is discussed in terms of the notion of translation strategies, whi depend on and are oriented towards translation norms. Here Chesterman takes a strategy as “a kind of process whi describes types of linguistic behaviour, specifically, text linguistic behaviour” (Chesterman 1997, 89). For him, strategies are the operations a translator may use during the formulation of the target text and “operations that may have to do with the desired relation between this text and the source text, or with the desired relation between this text and other target texts of the same type” (Chesterman 1997, 89). is definition may be understood based on the baground of linguistic operations a translator uses in the process of translation in order to prepare comprehensible and readable text. Strategies in this sense are thus the forms for textual manipulation and presuppose an excellent linguistic/language competence in both languages as the underlying system of knowledge and abilities necessary for linguistic communication in both languages. Furthermore, linguistic/language competence cannot be described only as an expert knowledge of a language, but also an expert theoretical knowledge of the linguistic system ea language posesses. Linguistic competence in translation studies is one part of extralinguistic competence – implicit or explicit knowledge about translation and linguistic systems (cf. Kiraly 1995, 2000). Both of them (language and linguistic competence) are interrelated and show how language and linguistic systems work. More directly, even though a translator has a good command of language, if he las a theoretical base, his translation will definitely not be sufficient. is need for linguistic and language knowledge is reflected in most translation programs at universities. Students are expected to master language and linguistic seminars (morphology, syntax, lexicology, etc.) where practical and theoretical knowledge go hand in hand. Coming ba to linguistic strategies in wrien (translation) discourse, the classification of linguistic strategies by Chesterman is the most detailed, since his aempt was to classify the strategies on conceptual base. e classification he proposes comprises three primary groups of strategies – syntactical (grammatical), semantic and pragmatic. Chesterman’s classification is not firmly fixed, but it assumes that these groups overlap to some extent and that strategies of different types co-occur. In addition, Chesterman claims that these

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strategies “can be broken down into sub-groups in a variety of ways and many of the strategies have obvious subtypes” (Chesterman 1997, 93). All of them form a necessary minimum whi helps the translator to shi the text from one language to another one with its syntactic, semantic and pragmatic qualities. Here is the classification by Chesterman as presented in his book Memes of Translation (1997, 94): Syntactic strategies – literal translation, loan, calque, transposition, unit shi, phrase structure ange, clause structure ange, sentence structure ange, cohesion ange, level shi, seme ange (discussed also by some other authors, e.g., Tárnyiková 1985, 2002). Semantic strategies – synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, converses, abstraction ange, distribution ange, emphasis ange, paraphrase, trope ange, other semantic anges. Pragmatic strategies – cultural filtering, explicitness ange, information ange, interpersonal ange, illocutionary ange, coherence ange, partial translation, visibility ange, transedeting, other semantic anges. is taxonomy is by no means rigid, but rather tentative and gives the theoretical base for empirical resear. Since the act of translation is primarily defined as language activity, the main focus is on syntactic strategies in the process of translation. More specifically, students’ ability to recognize these strategies in a source text should be tested with the aim of demonstrating that this ability or disability affects the oice of linguistic means from language register when translating. In other words, I want to show how the theoretical knowledge of a language system helps students to produce a high-quality translation. 3. Syntactic Strategies by Chesterman and the Process of Translation Given its importance within the translation process, not only knowledge of language, but also knowledge about language has a direct impact on the translation product. is assumption is the main rationale in this resear activity. e resear design includes two resear instruments – a short questionnaire and a text analysis. e first one is designed to obtain information about the subjects (translation training, professional experience, etc.) and their concept of translation. e second reflects students’ text translation and range from quite general questions (text type) to specific ones, e.g., information from the subjects about the problems encountered, the strategies used to solve them and syntactic strategies they use when translating. So far, there have only been two considerable studies in this area. e first carried out in 1995 by Donald Kiraly (1995, 72) was based on case studies where two different sets of resear subjects (a group who had completed a translator training program of studies and had some experience as professional translators/professionals and a group who whose members were at the beginning of their program of studies/novices) were osen. e task involved two simultaneous activities. e subjects were to translate the introductory text segment from a tourist broure and to verbalize their thought while translating. A surprising result of the study was that there was no apparent difference between professional and novice

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translators in quality of product. Kiraly (1995, 107) implies a very critical point of view that “many current training methods have no impact on translation quality.” e second study has been already mentioned. PACTE was formed in 1997 to investigate the acquisition of translation competence in wrien translation into and out of a foreign language. e project is still ongoing. Concerning this paper, two types of subjects are used in the resear activity – students in the second year of their translation studies and those who have been studying translation in the fourth year of their professional training (78 students together). e experimental tasks are the same for all the students and consist of: 1. 2. 3.

the completion of the questionnaire to obtain information about the subject the translation of one text from English to students’ mother tongue / Slovak text analysis based on the syntactic strategies as proposed by Chesterman (1997)

e text “Heads Roll at Land Fund” was osen as the source text for translation and text analysis. e subjects were told they had 100 minutes to finish translation and text analysis but were actually allowed to continue working until the task was completed. e hypothesis was that students’ theoretical knowledge of a linguistic system (syntactic structures) has a direct impact on the quality of their translations. Below are the resear results of two resear samples for task No. 3 in text analysis. Students were asked to recognize the following syntactic strategies (transposition, calque, etc.) in the text manipulation and to illustrate the use of strategy on a sentence example. Here are the resear results and illustrative examples from the text the students used. Table 1 Answers a) transposition b) calque c) sentence structure ange d) cohesion ange e) clause structure ange ) connector ange g) others

Answers 23 14 24 16 18 17 7

2nd year

% 19 12 20 13 15 14 6

Table 2 Answers a) transposition b) calque c) sentence structure ange d) cohesion ange e) clause structure ange ) connector ange g) others

Answers 27 17 25 20 17 11 4

4th year

% 22 14 21 17 14 9 3

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Transposition Line 3: . . . were first reported in Slovak media . . . a prvom oznámení v slovenský médiá . . . 10–11: . . . land deals are now under investigation by the police . . . pozemkové zmluvy prešetruje polícia . . . 43–45: . . . since the Fico administration took power in August 2006 . . . od nástupu Róberta Fica na ministerské kreslo v auguste 2006 . . . 50: . . . whi was confiscated from private owners . . . ktoré štát získal vyvlastňovaním Calque 3: ruling coalition – vládna koalícia 51: communist regime – komunistiý režim Cohesion Change 29–30: the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) – strana HZDS 34: the Land Fund Scandal – škandál Sentence Structure Change 7–12: At its January 16 session, the cabinet removed all members of the Land Fund’s boards, including the man whose land deals are now under investigation by the police, former Land Fund Deputy Head Branislav Bríza. Na zasadnutí, ktoré sa konalo 16. januára, kabinet odvolal všetký 19 členov Správnej rady Pozemkového fondu. Odvolali aj muža, ktorý je zodpovedný za prerozdelenie pozemkov a v súčasnosti je jeho konanie v procese vyšetrovania. Ide o zástupcu bývalého riaditeľa Pozemkového Fondu – Branislava Brízu. 24–30: According to unconfirmed reports, the board members appointed by Fico’s Smer Party and the Slovak National Party (SNS) had resigned the day before, puing pressure on the junior coalition partner, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), to follow suit. Podľa nepotvredený zdrojov podali členovia rady, ktorí boli menovaní Ficovým Smerom a SNS svoje demisie už deň pred. Vyvinuli tak veľký tlak na svojho Clause Structure Change 3: . . . were first reported . . . čo sa v slovenský médiá po prvýkrát objavili 7: . . . are under investigation by the police . . . práve vyšetruje polícia . . . 47: . . . whi was confiscated from private owners . . . z ktorý väčšinu skonfiškovali súkromní vlastníci..

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Connector Change 28: . . . puing pressure on the junior coalition partner . . . a tým sa snažili prinútiť svojho mladšieho koaličného partnera . . . 43: . . . sparking the worst government crisis since the Fico administration took power . . . a to vyvolalo doteraz najväčšiu krízu . . . Although syntactic strategies primarily manipulate form, they indirectly correlate with pragmatic and semantic translation strategies, e.g., a clause structure ange can have an indirect impact on information ange, either through the addition of new (non-inferable) information whi is deemed to be relevant to the TT readership but whi is not present in the ST, or the omission of ST information deemed to be irrelevant (cohesion angeellipsis). Concerning clause structure ange, one of the students’ tasks was to find examples for relative clauses in the source text. e study was designed to test students’ ability to recognize this type of dependent clause in a source text and then to show that this ability or disability affects the oice of linguistic means from language register when translating and can influence information filtering. In the enclosed text are the following relative clauses 9–11: . . . the man whose land deals are now under investigation by the police . . . 25–26: . . . the board members appointed by Fico’s Smer Party and the Slovak National Party (SNS) . . . 49–52: . . . and forest land, mu of whi was confiscated from private owners aer the former communist regime took power in 1948. e following tables state the proportion of correct-incorrect answers wrien by two comparative resear samples. It is quite evident that 2nd year students do not recognize all relative clauses in the analysed text in comparison with 4th year students, who are more successful in this regard. Table 3

Answers a) correct answers b) incorrect answers

Answers 13 26

2nd year

% 33 67

Table 4

Answers a) correct answers b) incorrect answers

Answers 29 10

4th year

% 74 26

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Comparing the translations themselves (look at the following students’ examples), led to the following conclusion. Students who were not able to find at least one relative clause in text used mainly word-to word translation, whi seems to be unnatural in context. 9–11: . . . including the man whose land deals are now under investigation by the police, former Land Fund deputy head Branislav Bríza . . . . . . počnúc bývalým štátnym zástupcom Branislavom Brízom, ktorého obody s pozemkami momentálne vyšetruje . . . . . . vrátane osoby, ktorej prevody sú teraz vyšetrované políciou, pričom ide o zakladateľa fondu – Branislava Brízu . . . . . . vrátane muža – predsedu Branislava Brízu, ktorého činy okolo prevodu pôdy vyšetruje polícia . . . . . . vrátane bývalého zástupcu šéfa Pozemkového fondu Branislava Brízu, ktorého obody s pozemkami práve vyšetruje polícia . . . . . . vrátane muža, ktorého obody s pozemkami sú vyšetrované políciou, bývalého námestníka šéfa Pozemkového Fondu, Branislava Brízu . . . On the other hand, the following examples illustrate the text translation as proposed by those students who recognize all relative clauses in “Heads Roll at Land Fund” text. . . . vrátane Branislava Brízu. Ide o bývalého zástupcu šéfa pozemkového úradu. V súčasnosti jeho obody s pozemkami prešetruje polícia . . . . . . Odvolali aj Branislav Brízu, bývalého zástupcu šéfa Pozemkového Fondu. V súčasnosti je jeho konanie v procese vyšetrovania. ey, more or less, show sentence structure ange, including anges between main clause and sub –clause status. e message itself becomes more natural, dynamic and related to its semantic and pragmatic qualities. erefore, the results confirm the preliminary assumptions – theoretical knowledge about language is indirectly reflected in every translation product and refers to the dominant position of source text in translation activities. Kiraly (2000, 150) takes source text as “a fallible artifact, a tentative product of communicative intentionality that will initiate students’ resear, translation and text production work.” is study, however, suggests that the source text itself (its structure and form) initiates a high quality translation of it. Being aware of the text structure and form are important conditions for a translator in order to form a relevant text in the process of translation, since the quality of a source text indirectly reflects the quality of a translation. 4. Conclusion is paper aempts to explain the impact of linguistic knowledge-competence on the process and product of translation. It is of crucial importance for the translator before translating the text to realize and fully recognize its syntactic qualities in context. Full understanding of the text depends also on some other factors su as contextual

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relations, information processing, etc., but syntactic analysis is the starting point for text comprehension. Linguistic competence as the underlying knowledge of a language system helps students to be aware of theoretical aspects of language in practical usage, making their translations reliable and procedural. Works Cited Chesterman, Andrew. 1997. Memes of Translation: e Spread of Ideas in Translation eory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Catford, John. 1965. A Linguistic eory of Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press Kiraly, Donald C. 1995. Pathways to Translation: Pedagogy and Process. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. Kiraly, Donald C. 2000. A Social Constructivist Approa to Translator Education: Empowerment from eory to Practice. Manester: St. Jerome. Nida, Eugene Albert. 1964/2004. Principles of Correspondence. In e Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 153–68. London: Routledge. Nunan, David. 1993. Introducing Discourse Analysis. Harmondsworth: Penguin. irk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Lee, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Tárnyiková, Jarmila. 1985. Chapters from Modern English Syntax: A Communicative Approa. Olomouc: Univerzita Palaého. Tárnyiková, Jarmila. 2002. From Text to Texture: An Introduction to Processing Strategies. Olomouc: Univerzita Palaého. Vinay, Jean Paul, and Jean Louis Darbelnet. 1958. Stylistique comparee du francais et de l’anglais. Methodede traduction. Paris: Didier. Corpus Niolson, Tom. 2008. “Heads Roll at Land Fund.” Slovak Spectator 14, no. 2: 1.

On Right and Wrong Uses of Translation Theory: A Case Study and Implications for Research Renata Kamenická Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno, Arna Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Cze Republic. Email: kameni@phil.muni.cz

Abstract: is paper discusses the misguided aempt by Biloveský and Brenkusová (2006, 177–85) to apply Popovič’s theory of translation shis to the Slovak translation of Changing Places by David Lodge. It shows how these authors’ concern with demonstrating the applicability of Popovič’s theory in literary translation blurs the ri socio-cultural context in whi the translation took place. eir failure eoes Ján Vilikovský’s failure to situate the translation culturally in the aerword to the Slovak translation (Vilikovský 2004, 250–63). Profesorská rošáda (2004), the first ever translation of a David Lodge novel into Slovak, is reassessed as a re/translation in the context of the still fuzzy Cze/Slovak socio-cultural divide. Methodological conclusions are drawn, especially that of the necessity to engage in an active dialogue with translation theory in the descriptive translation studies framework, whi will inevitably include studying translations into Cze and Slovak within a non-reductive sociocultural context. Keywords: literary translation; translation theory, application of; David Lodge; Anton Popovič; shis of expression; Cze; Slovak

Although the relation between theory and practice is a mu-debated issue in many solarly fields, it seems to be of particular interest to the developing field of Translation Studies (TS). is paper uses an article by Vladimír Biloveský and Ľubica Brenkusová (2006, 177–85), as a starting point to demonstrate the pitfalls associated with applying translation theory in analyzing existing translations. It also suggests the presence of a significant void in contemporary descriptive TS in the Cze Republic and in Slovakia. In their article, Biloveský and Brenkusová regret that although TS resear in Slovakia has continuously reflected the theories of Jiří Levý, František Miko, Anton Popovič and Ján Vilikovský, these approaes have rarely been used in the practical analysis of specific texts. e authors define their objective as the identification of specific translation solutions based on Popovič’s shis of expression in the Slovak translation of David Lodge’s Changing Places (1975), titled Profesorská rošáda (2004). However noble applying Popovič’s shis of expression to the translation of a major work by a major contemporary British author might be, the way in whi Biloveský and Brenkusová went about doing so is fraught with problems. As might be expected in dealing with Lodge’s novel, the authors first provide an introduction to the campus novel and its history, and then to the novel itself. en they discuss the issue of translating culture in the novel, with an emphasis on the translation of academic terminology. A brief review of some shis in the translation,

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largely grammatically motivated (involving passive constructions, gerunds and infinitives in the source text), is followed by an evaluative account of the solutions the translator used to render some expressions referring to the academic context. In preparation for their criticism of some of these shis, the authors of the paper demand that the translator must: have a thorough knowledge of university systems in the USA, in Great Britain and in Slovakia, not only from the point of view of different cultural-political principles, but also as to terminology. It also seems that the translator must be familiar with the university credit system, whi has been in use in Slovak higher education institutions since 2002. We believe the adequacy of the translation is, among other things, largely dependent on the treatment of university education terminology as the text by Lodge reflects, especially at the lexical level, the situation of the ethnic group it addresses. (Biloveský and Brenkusová 2006, 180; my translation)

e adequacy of translation of David Lodge’s novel depends, of course, on many things. And, although the authors of the paper are right in noticing that there are indeed numerous shis as far as terms referring to the different elements of the academic life are concerned, it is wrong to accept their labelling these shis as “negative” without even considering first, the text as literary, and second, the role of the references in the text, something Popovič himself would certainly have done. In order to apply Popovič’s shis of expression, i.e., his concept of stylistic shis in translation, it is necessary to do so in line with his understanding of style, and at the same time taking into account the task of the translator with respect to style. Style, according to Popovič, is “a unique and standardized dynamic configuration of stylistic aributes in a text, manifest in the thematic and linguistics means used” (Popovič 1975, 287; my translation). Additionally, according to Popovič, e dialectics of the translator’s work means that translation must not be limited to rendering words but should strive for a text. e translator must preserve what holds the individual, stylistically diverse, elements together. He must base the translation on his idea of a certain whole with an internal structure, a whole whi is coherent. (Popovič 1975, 287; my translation)

e following examples are listed by Biloveský and Brenkusová as negative shis (examples (a) through (c)) or stylistic loss and weakening (examples (d) through ()): (a)

ST: “Oh. Yeah, I’m still geing a Master’s.” TT: “Aha. No, eště len na bakalára.” TT*: “I see. Well, it’s only a Baelor’s now.” (102)¹

(b) ST: “What I wouldn’t give for an indigenous Indian with a PhD. [ . . . ]” TT: “Co by som dal za rodeného Inda s docentúrou. [ . . . ]” TT*: “What I wouldn’t give for a native Indian docent. [ . . . ]” (102) (c)

ST: Try to get me her new address, will you, from the Dean of Students office? TT: Skús mi, prosím Ťa, zistiť jej adresu na dekanáte. TT*: Try to get me her address from the dean’s office, please. (102)

1. e abbreviations stand for source text (ST), target text (TT), and ba-translation of the target text (TT*). e asterisk will be used in this paper to refer to a ba-translation.

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(d) ST: “Some PhD student I flunked?” TT: “Nejaký študent, ktorého som vyrazil?” TT*: “Some student I flunked?” (183) (e)

ST: “[ . . . ] he applied in an idle moment for a Fellowship to America [ . . . ]” TT: “[ . . . ] v jednej zahálčivej víli si podal žiadosť o štipendium do Ameriky [ . . . ]” TT*: “[ . . . ] in an idle moment he applied for a solarship to go to America [ . . . ]” (183)

()

ST: Zapp was the man who had published articles in PMLA while still in graduate sool [ . . . ]. TT: Zapp publikoval v odborný časopiso už ako študent [ . . . ]. TT*: Zapp started publishing [articles] in journals as early as a student [ . . . ]. (183)

To be able to judge whether rendering “Master’s” as “bakalár,” “PhD” as “docentúra,” and “Dean of Students office” as “dekanát” are indeed negative shis, or whether translating “PhD student” as “študent,” “Fellowship” as “štipendium” or “in graduate sool” as “ako študent” are indeed instances of stylistic loss or stylistic weakening, it is first necessary to analyze the stylistic value of university terminology in the source literary text, both in the individual instances and globally, and determine their role in the particular dynamic configuration of stylistic aributes in the style of Changing Places. e translator’s solutions will be defended later, but the reasons for the shis labelled as “negative” have nothing to do with those suggested by Biloveský and Brenkusová: “a failure to understand the source text,” “a la of knowledge of the appropriate academic terminology in the target language, specifically Slovak in this case,” or “a la of knowledge concerning the credit system” (Biloveský and Brenkusová 2006, 184). In fact, it is misleading to refer to “academic terminology” in the novel because although the same vocabulary would count as terminology in other contexts, it hardly has this function in the novel – and therefore does not have to be translated as terminology. e authors keep invoking the credit system as a magic formula, but what would the recognition of the credit system by the translator indeed mean? One of the examples they give where the Slovak translator opted for a solution relying on the lived experience of the readers rather than on the up-to-date university study terminology is the following: (g)

ST: e student is le very mu to his own devices, he accumulates the necessary credits at his leisure [ . . . ]. TT: Študent je zväčša poneaný sám na seba, skúšky a zápočty skladá, kedy sa mu ce [ . . . ], TT*: e student is largely le to his own devices, sitting exams and credit tests at his leisure [ . . . ] (Biloveský and Brenkusová 2006, 184)

It seems hard to believe that two years aer the implementation of the credit system in Slovakia, when the translation appeared – or even four years aer the implementation of

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the credit system, when the paper was published – a reference to exams and credit tests would be found “historicizing”: As the translator has not replaced the British terminology reflecting the credit system with the terminology in Slovak, his translation strikes a contemporary reader familiar with the academic environment as historicizing. (Biloveský and Brenkusová 2006, 184; my translation)

e words “exam” and “credit test” have not disappeared from the mental lexicons of people – and in Slovakia, just like in the Cze Republic, students still continue to sit exams and tests in order to earn the necessary credits. So mu for the alleged “terminological mismates” in the translation. Truly following Popovič and Miko, it might be added, one would have to conclude that the academic seing of the novel in English implies a certain level of what the Slovak theoreticians term minuteness and explicitness of the discourse (Popovič and Miko 1978, 88–9, 265–6), whi are quite high compared with the minuteness and explicitness of a corresponding discourse in Cze or Slovak. is is mainly because the Cze and Slovak academic cultures have still not fully overcome the forty years of impoverishment under the socialist regime when access to universities, especially programmes in humanities, and indeed the very make-up of these programmes, were strictly controlled by the regime in power. In other words, current study regulations, university programme catalogues and other documents are something entirely different from casual conversation in the academic seing. erefore, what looks as a “stylistic loss” to Biloveský and Brenkusová is a stylistic adjustment necessary if the translated text is to remain a literary one and the discourse concerning Lodge’s aracters is to remain unmarked. But to arrive at the main point of this paper, it is necessary to address what the authors of the paper do not. And significantly, this same issue, central to the reception of the novel in Slovak, is le unaddressed in the aerword to the Slovak translation, by eminent Slovak translator Ján Vilikovský. Although Professor Vilikovský welcomes the Lodge novel into Slovak by a fourteenpage aerword (Vilikovský 2004, 250–64), it follows only implicitly from his text that this provides the first opportunity for Slovak readers to read a David Lodge novel in their own language. Besides this, he manages to avoid mentioning that Slovak readers, in fact, do know David Lodge as an author – from the Cze translations of his novels. e first translations of David Lodge’s novels into Cze were by Antonín Přidal, published under the nom de plume Miroslav Červenka. ey followed in the same order as David Lodge produced them, with a delay of only a few years in ea case (Zkáza v Britském muzeu [1974, e British Museum is Falling Down], Hostující profesoři [1980, Changing Places], Svět je malý [1988, Small World]). A host of translations of other Lodge novels, by other translators, soon followed in the 1990s and aer 2000, both his newly wrien novels and some of his older novels.² e only novel that has not been translated 2. Nice Work as Pěkná práce (1993, Svoboda-Libertas, Miloš Calda), erapy as Terapie (1996, Mustang, Ivar Tiý), Paradise News as Zprávy z ráje (1996, Ikar, Luboš Trávníček, Libuše Trávníčková), Home Truths as Pravda někdy bolí a jiná erotika (2000, Academia, Dagmar Steinová), inks as Profesorské hrátky (2002, Academia, Eva Kondrysová), Out of the Shelter as Prázdniny v Heidelbergu (1996, Mustang, Zora

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into Cze yet is Lodge’s very first novel, e Picturegoers. However, it was Přidal’s masterful translation that was undoubtedly the reason why Lodge was received so well in the former Czeoslovakia, by both Czes and Slovaks. Although Vilikovský provides a very detailed account of the development of Lodge’s writing and refers to many of his novels, his aerword, wrien at a time when all the Cze translations had been available to Cze and Slovak readers, anowledges the existence of a Cze translation only once – mentioning its title only in passing, without giving the name of the translator or commenting on the Cze translations of Lodge in general. When Přidal was translating Changing Places and Small World, he was facing a very difficult situation: ba in the 1980s, the experience of his Cze (and Slovak) readership regarding university life and fiction in English (or international travel, for that maer) was considerably limited. Adding to this is the fact that the sheer number of potential Cze and Slovak readers, let alone readers who might have been inclined to read a novel about the intricacies of academic life, was mu smaller than the size of the potential readership of the novels in English, it is clear that Přidal was facing a real allenge. Another factor was Lodge’s style, involving subtle intellectual ironies and allusions and registers, some of whi were unavailable in Cze. Přidal did a brilliant job, and his translations found broader audiences than those whi might have been expected given the above-mentioned factors. His David Lodge translations became canonical ones. Critics anxious to find fault with translators su as Biloveský and Brenkusová might argue that Přidal simplified some elements in the novel. Students of translation interested in describing the translator’s approa to the translation and the potential motivation underlying his shis will however anowledge that he did not have mu oice, and that the losses in some places were compensated very well by his stylistic skills, owing, among other things, to his own writing career as a poet and playwright. As far as elements of academic life in the humanities are concerned, Přidal oen had to generalize. Many of the problems he had to deal with stemmed from the fact that university study in what was then Czeoslovakia did not distinguish between the BA and the MA stage, the programmes lasting for 5 (or, in some cases, 4) years. In addition, PhD study was hardly an institution, with doctorates being rather formal titles awarded to a select few people aer they submied a thesis (whi had to be preceded by another one involving the application of the Marxist doctrine). e idea of majoring in a subject is another concept to whi Czes and Slovaks were unaccustomed. e list of the differences and their implications is quite long indeed. Přidal responded to the context in whi references to academic life were made very sensitively, taking great care that the meanings of the source text got across to his target language readers without straining their aention too mu by introducing concepts with whi they were entirely unfamiliar, and simplified or generalized where it was necessary to bring the concepts closer to what were the basic-level concepts regarding academic Wolfová), Ginger, You Are Barmy as Zrzku, ty jsi blázen (1997, Mustang, Zuzana Mayerová, Petr Mayer), a How Far Can You Go?as Kam až se může (1998, Mustang, Soňa Nová), and Deaf Sentence as Nejtišší trest (2009, Mladá fronta, Riard Podaný).

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life then. e fact that his translation reads very well even aer the major ange in our higher education, with only a few places seemingly antiquated, proves that he has not exaggerated his strategy. It is therefore highly surprising to find that an analysis of a new Slovak translation of the novel by Otakar Kořínek does not mention the fact that Kořínek was, despite producing the first translation in Slovak, in fact, producing a re-translation and how this fact might have influenced his oices. It is also surprising that the analysis does not consider the Slovak translator’s expertise and habits at all, the more so that Otakar Kořínek is a translator whose bibliography comprises over one hundred translations, among them books by many authors, mainly American, of great renown: E. A. Poe, Mark Twain, Ja London, Herman Melville, Ja Kerouac, Vladimir Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Anthony Burgess, G. B. Shaw, J. R. R. Tolkien, Yan Martell and others (Index Translationum). It would be a mistake to assume that prizes for translation alone guarantee high quality in translation (and Otakar Kořínek has accumulated quite a few prizes) but suspecting someone with su a broad translation expertise of a simplistic approa without even mentioning their translation profile and directly framing their strategy as neglect, seems rather short-sighted (Index Translationum). e Slovak translation of Changing Places is definitely an interesting translation to analyze: firstly, because it shows that a first translation into a language can, under certain circ*mstances, be a re-translation of a kind; secondly, because it was interesting to see how Kořínek treated the fact that many of his readers would be familiar with the Přidal translation – and in whi respects he decided to differ from it; and thirdly, because one might be interested in how his translation responds to the fact that he was translating a literary text describing British and American academic life in the late 1960s and early 70s some thirty years later, when the cultural and academic reality of his own country was mu closer to that of Lodge’s English-speaking readers and yet the Slovak readers’ own experience of university study in the past whi the novel was clearly referring to was very different. Analysis demonstrates that Kořínek was aware of the re-translation situation quite intensely: He avoided some of Přidal’s solutions, mostly the more memorable ones, on the one hand (the different Slovak title; Harraburgridge rather than Papridge for Rummidge; Ronald Du rather than Ronald Cater, etc.) while opting for rather similar Slovak variants in other, less apparent, cases (su as Euforita for Euphoric State [University]). e following two examples highlight textual spots where the Slovak target text coincides with the Cze one most unexpectedly: (h) ST: Not even its City Fathers would claim as mu for Rummidge, a large, graceless industrial city sprawled over the English Midlands at the intersection of three motorways, twenty-six railway lines and half-a-dozen stagnant canals. (13) SL: To by sa o Harraburgridgei neodvážili tvrdiť ani najväčší lokálpatrioti [the biggest local patriots]. Je to totiž veľké, nepôvabné priemyselné mesto, rozťahané uprostred Anglia na križovatke tro diaľnic, dvadsiati šiesti železničný tratí a pol tucta kanálov so stojatou vodou. (12)

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CZ: Což by ani největší patrioti [the biggest patriots] nemohli tvrdit o Papridgi, velkém, ohyzdném průmyslovém městě, rozlezlém uprostřed Anglie kolem křižovatky tří dálnic, šestadvaceti železniční tratí a šesti průplavů se stojatou vodou. (15)³ (i)

ST: Ea morning for the next ten days he bore this precious vessel to the examination halls and poured a measured quantity of the contents on to pages of ruled quarto. (16) SL: V najbližší desiati dňo nosil ráno čo ráno túto drahocennú nádobu do skúšobnej miestnosti a odlieval z nej presne odmerané množstvá na predpísaný papier [prescribed sheets of paper]. (15) CZ: Další deset dnů pak ráno co ráno pronášel tuto drahocennou nádobu do zkušební místnosti a odléval z ní přiměřené množství na předpisové čtvrtky [prescribed quarto sheets]. (18)

It seems that competing with the excellent Cze translation (new editions of whi are still available in Slovakia, through both regular and internet shops) was very difficult, and although Kořínek has done a very good job, his translation las some of the extra value added by Přidal – especially due to his inclination to undertranslate and opt for slightly facile Slovak equivalents to some adjectives and adverbials in Lodge’s source text (examples (j) through (l)) and his inability to compete with Přidal’s sense of sentence aritecture (example (m)). (j)

ST: In America, for instance, Hilary had tended to emit a high-pited cry at the moment of climax whi Philip found deeply exciting; (26) SL: V Amerike, napríklad, vydávala Hilary vo vrolnej víli vysoký výkrik [high cry, does not collocate very well], ktorý Philipa hlboko vzrušoval, (24) CZ: Tak třeba v Americe vydávala Hilary ve vrolné víli jakýsi sopránový výkřik [soprano cry], který Philipa hluboce vzrušoval; (26)

(k) ST: is undiscriminating enthusiasm, however, prevented him from seling on a ‘field’ to cultivate as his own. (17) SL: Tento nevyberavý zápal [this ruthless enthusiasm] mu však bránil zamerať sa na niečo konkrétne a túto špecializáciu si prehlbovať. (15–16) CZ: Toto všeobjímající nadšení [this all-encompassing enthusiasm] mu však bránilo, aby se na něco zaměřil a udělal z toho svou „specializaci“. (18) (l)

ST: [ . . . ] but (it was the story of his life) it was then too late for him to ange his style, the style of a thoroughly conventional English don, keeping English up. (21–22)

3. e abbreviations stand for source text (ST), Slovak (SL) and Cze (CZ). Page references in examples (h) through (m) locate the relevant places in the respective English, Slovak and Cze editions (see the References) section.

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SL: [ . . . ] no preňho už bolo neskoro (ako vždy v jeho živote) zmeniť štýl, štýl skrz–naskrz konvenčného angliého vedca vyznávajúceho angliý jazyk [whose devotion was English]. (20) CZ: [ . . . ] jenže (jako vždy v jeho životě) bylo už pozdě, aby změnil svůj styl, styl veskrze konvenčního angliého pedagoga, oddaného spisovnému jazyku [devoted to standard English/language]. (22–23) (m) ST: Euphoria, that small but populous state on the Western seaboard of America, situated between Northern and Southern California, with its mountains, lakes and rivers, its redwood forests, its blond beaes and its incomparable Bay, across whi the State University at Plotinus faces the gliering, glamorous city of Esseph – Euphoria is considered by many cosmopolitan experts to be one of the most agreeable environments in the world. (13) SL: Euphoria, onen malý, ale ľudnatý štát na západnom pobreží Ameriky, ležiaci medzi Severnou a Južnou Kaliforniou, s vrmi, jazerami a riekami, sekvojovými lesmi, zlatistými plážami a neporovnateľným Zálivom, cez ktorý je vidieť z Eufority v Plotinuse trblietavé, fascinujúce mesto Esseph – z týto dôvodov pokladajú kozmopolitní experti univerzitu v Euphorii za jeden z najpríjemnejší kútov sveta. (12) SL*: Euphoria, that small but populous state on the Western shore of America, situated between Northern and Southern Califonia, with hills, lakes and rivers, redwood forests, blond beaes and the incomparable Bay, across whi Euphorita at Plotinus faces the gliering, fascinating city of Esseph – for these reasons cosmopolitan experts regard the university of Euphoria as one of the most agreeable places in the world. e same could however be said about some other otherwise very good Cze translators, and it does not mean that the Slovak reader does not get a good-quality translation. e first two aspects that make the translation interesting have been addressed neither in Biloveský and Brenkusová’s paper nor in the otherwise detailed aerword to the translation itself by Vilikovský. e third point – the complex cultural and temporal aspects of the situation in whi the Slovak translation was produced – is treated only tangentially in the paper and not used to explain the translator’s strategy. Several conclusions can be drawn from this analysis. First, simply “applying theory,” even if it is a generally recognized theory, is not self-justifying. ere are more and less relevant applications. It is the duty in translation solarship to keep asking whi theoretical framework can help answer the particular set of questions deemed worth asking. Although the paper by Biloveský and Brenkusová does not explicitly say if its aim is to test Popovič’s model, to evaluate the translation, or to give a descriptive account of it, its descriptive reading highlights the need to engage in an active dialogue with theory. Secondly, if Cze and Slovak theoreticians of translation are to be known and appreciated abroad, they should endeavour to make sure that their own applications of their theories and concepts are correct. If those involved in TS are to be taken seriously and not dismissed

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by translation practitioners as people who do hardly more than criticize translators, it is important to make sure that criticism is justified and that the highest academic standards are adhered to. irdly, and most importantly, what seems especially disturbing about the case is the failure to refer to sufficient Czeoslovak sociocultural context when Biloveský and Brenkusová are addressing translations of cultural phenomena. And equally disturbing is the apparently deliberate oversight of the Cze translations in the aerword by Vilikovský. is error should not be underestimated. For long years, Cze and Slovak translations co-existed in the same sociocultural and political space and were created and read in interaction. Even today, these translations continue to operate across what might be called a fuzzy cultural and linguistic divide. is interaction has however been le unexplored – both in individual cases like the one discussed here and on a more systematic basis. Hardly anything is known about whi authors were first introduced into the Slovak and whi into the Cze language, or about the typical time spans dividing Slovak and Cze editions – or about how the political division of the two countries affected this cultural interaction. is area, thus, calls for thorough empirical resear. If the goal of those involved in studying Cze and Slovak literary translation is to beer understand the dynamics of the respective literary systems and their translation subsystems, their interconnections must not be avoided, even if this study might reveal some suggestions of cultural dependency due to cultural-political imbalances brought about by the past regime, whi may indeed be hard to face. Works Cited Biloveský, Vladimír, and Ľubica Brenkusová. 2006. Angliý akademiý román v slovenskom kultúrnom prostredí. In 35 rokov výučby prekladateľstva a tlmočníctva na Slovensku, 1970–2005, ed. Alojz Keníž, 177–185. Bratislava: Lenta. Popovič, Anton. 1975. Teória umeleého prekladu: aspekty textu a literárnej metakomunikácie. Bratislava: Tatran. Popovič, Anton, and František Miko. 1978. Tvorba a recepcia. Bratislava: Tatran. UNESCO. 2009. Index Translationum: World Bibliography of Translation. hp://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.phpURL_ID=7810&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. Vilikovský, Ján. 2004. Cerebrálny ironik. Aerword to Profesorská rošáda: príbeh z dvo univerzít, by David Lodge, 250–63. Bratislava: Ikar. Corpus Lodge, David. 1975. Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses. London: Penguin Books. Lodge, David. 1980. Hostující profesoři. Trans. Antonín Přidal. Praha: Odeon. Lodge, David. 2004. Profesorská rošáda: príbeh z dvo univerzít. Trans. Otakar Kořínek. Bratislava: Ikar.

Sharpening Translating/Interpreting Skills Through the Application of Psychological Knowledge Gabriela Lojová Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Comenius University in Bratislava, Račianska 59, 813 34 Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: In this paper the impact of field dependency/independency upon the quality of translation and interpretation processes is discussed. Field dependency as a cognitive style determines how information is perceived and processed, how the environment is responded to, and how problems are approaed and solved. As a cognitive feature with affective and social dimensions, it is aracterized by the ability to separate parts from the whole in perceptual, abstract, and social fields. ese subconscious mental meanisms are present also in translation and interpretation processes, in whi they may have considerable effects on the quality of outcomes. Different aspects of field dependency/independency are influential in different types of translated discourses and interpretation situations and tasks. In this paper, the theoretical analysis of various aspects of this cognitive style is followed by their application to translation and interpretation processes and illustrated by some examples of defective practices. Keywords: cognitive style; field dependency/independency; translation; interpretation; professional skills

In the aempt to train beer translators and interpreters nowadays, more aention should be paid to the personality of people doing the job as their mental processes and psyological aracteristics, both cognitive and affective, can considerably determine the quality of their work. e education (training) of good professionals should therefore focus not only on the development of their linguistic competence, but also on the development of required skills, processes and aracteristics that make them beer translators/interpreters. In so doing, the knowledge of cognitive psyology can be drawn upon and applied to this specific field of expertise. One of the relevant topics seems to be cognitive styles that are nowadays being studied and researed intensely, not only by cognitive psyologists but also by experts in other fields, education in particular. ey try to explain how people perceive stimuli from the environment, process and store information, respond to the environment, and what interactions they enter in language learning/using processes. ey study not only what people have in common but also how they individually differ in these processes. Apart from state-of-the-art general theoretical knowledge, the starting point for this paper is the empirical evidence suggesting that ea person constructs his/her subjective picture of reality and processes information and solves problems in his/her own unique way. Everybody has their specific aracteristics related to cognitive processes that lead to a wide variety in approaes to problem solving, task fulfilling, responses to problems in various levels and spheres of mental functioning.

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Lile resear on cognitive or learning styles has been conducted to date in the field of foreign language learning and usage (cf. Ellis 1994; Griffiths and Sheen 1992). erefore experts tend to draw on the knowledge of experimental psyology and apply it to this specific field. More resear aention to the field would undoubtedly lead to an increasing efficacy of foreign language teaing, to a higher effectiveness of the development of all components of communicative competence as well as specific skills and subskills needed for the professional usage of a target language. Even if there are plenty of resear findings available, some researes doubt their validity due to numerous uncontrolled variables that might distort resear results (Mareš 1998; Skehan 2000; Witkin and Goodenough 1981). eoretically there are a lot of controversial claims leading to a plurality of opinions, different interpretations and classifications. In second language acquisition the most frequently researed learning style seems to be field dependency/independency (FD/FI). It is considered to be a complex cognitive phenomenon comprising also some affective and social aspects (Chapelle and Green 1992; Skehan 2000). It determines how learners perceive, organize and process information and what interactions they enter. Concretely, it determines to what extent people perceive individual elements as parts separated from their environment (field) or as components of the whole. Generally speaking, the ability to discriminate perceptually, in abstract fields, in social situations and in language usage is a kind of universal endowment in whi people individually differ. is is also the case with the ability to perceive items in a given context and to see relationships between them. FD/FI is a continuum with two aracteristic poles. Ea individual is aracterized by his/her position, whi may ange slightly within his/her individual zone of flexibility, determined by numerous internal or external conditions. ough the extreme types are rather rare in real life, it seems to be more effective to theoretically study and explicitly describe the differences between the two poles. In so doing judgemental approaes are quite frequent, particularly in practical application. However, it is important to realize that ea pole has its positive and negative aspects. erefore it is more useful to underline their typical consequences and impact whi may be positive or negative depending on the different tasks and situations where a target language is used. As a cognitive phenomenon, FD/FI is predominantly aracterized as a perceptual feature determining how people perceive stimuli. Field independent people can easily separate parts from the whole, quily and easily perceive and remember details. However, extreme field independency, also called “tunnel vision” can be too restricting, as people are not able to see the whole as they focus on details, oen unimportant. On the other hand, field dependent people tend to perceive a field as a non-analyzed whole and may not be able to perceive the parts that the whole consists of. Extremely field dependent people are not able to perceive the details that may sometimes fundamentally ange the meaning of the whole. Some experts suggest that FD/FI can also influence aention, namely the ability to concentrate on the activity in disturbing environment. Field independent people are not easily disturbed by surrounding stimuli, in contrast to field dependent people who are not able to concentrate when their aention is distracted by surrounding stimuli that they are not able to blo off.

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Apart from perceptual stimuli, the field can also be comprised of abstract sets of ideas, thoughts or emotions. erefore FD also determines how people process information and how they approa problem-solving tasks. Field dependent people tend to approa problems holistically, consider the context, create “a bird’s-eye view” and grasp complex relations within the whole. ey do not focus on parts, overlook or ignore them even if they may be crucial for solving a problem or may ange the understanding of the whole situation. On the other hand, field independent people when solving problems tend to focus on separate ideas and details, whi they are able to elaborate on thoroughly, however, independently of the whole context. It may lead to an incorrect comprehension of the whole, of the relations within the whole and to a digression from the main problem. Furthermore, FD/FI has an impact upon the perception of the social environment that people live in, in particular on self-perception, i.e., perception of self as a part of the social field. It considerably determines self-esteem, self-image, relations to our social environment and our behaviour. A general orientation either towards internal or external frames of reference seems to be fundamental (Brown and Gonzo 1995; Chapelle and Green 1992). Internally oriented people (field independent) tend to draw conclusions according to their own interpretations and are more self-confident. ey think and behave independently of their environment, of other people. ey also perceive themselves as a separate identity, not as part of society they live in; their self-image is a result of their own self-esteem and self-evaluation. Externally oriented people (field dependent), on the other hand, in decision making are significantly influenced by the, context and other people’s opinions. ey are less self-confident and their self-esteem depends mu more on other people’s evaluation. It is obvious that FD/FI is a multi-componential feature that has an impact upon numerous spheres of human activity. It has a powerfully determining effect on the processes of foreign language learning as well as the usage of a target language in real life. is claim is based on the hypothesis that specific cognitive skills enabling us to analyse perceptual and abstract fields are the same as those skills enabling us to analyze linguistic fields. Even if FD/FI resear in the field of translation and interpretation is quite limited, the claim being made in this paper is that general knowledge on FD/FI can usefully be applied to this specific field. Applying the general knowledge on cognitive styles, it can be hypothesized that field dependent/independent translators and interpreters are differently successful when interpreting in various situations, contexts, and conditions or when translating different types of texts. Generally speaking, differences in FD/FI are reflected in the different perception and processing of foreign language input as well as different responses to the environment. When perceiving foreign language stimuli, it is necessary, on the one hand, to classify language units independently of the context, so that they can be understood paradigmatically and used appropriately in different contexts and varied communicative situations. On the other hand, they must be properly comprehended in a given context. It means one must perceive and comprehend a stream of sounds, word, phrase, and a sentence both independently and in any given context, i.e., in the field it is a part of. It

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is obvious that when translating or interpreting, both processes are equally important. However, in different contexts and discourses they have different roles, advantages and disadvantages. e typical aracteristics of the two poles of this cognitive style and their impact on the quality of translation/interpretation processes can be summarized as follows: Highly field dependent people process foreign language stimuli holistically, parts merge with their environment, with the field. erefore it is difficult for them to separate some elements from the context, to notice individual components and details, whether essential or inessential. Partial problems or incomplete information do not prevent them from geing the whole picture. When perceiving foreign language texts or uerances, they get the main idea, gist of a problem, overall situation and atmosphere with ease, even if there are some unknown words or structures. ey can easily create the general view; they are skilled in paraphrasing and guessing the meaning and relations from the context. However, they can also tend to be superficial, imprecise and inaccurate, as they miss details that may significantly determine the meaning of the whole. As a consequence of underdeveloped analytical skills they are not able to effectively process linguistic information and gradually create systematic knowledge of the language or of the translated subject maer. ey tend to underestimate linguistic rules, correctness and accuracy in their uerances, whi may result in more or less serious mistakes in their translation or interpreting. Field dependent people focus more on functional aracteristics of linguistic phenomena, usually they are fluent and communicative, however, their level of linguistic competence is inferior, whi they do not mind. As they rely on external frames of reference, they are easily influenced by the environment, situation and context, can flexibly respond to anging conditions as well as to feedba from the audience. Due to their strong interpersonal orientation they enjoy cooperation and need to belong to a team. When interpreting, they can be easily influenced by a speaker, whom they approa as a partner, or by the emotional atmosphere, i.e., they succumb to possible tension or stress. ey can also suffer from inner inhibitions, whi may create barriers and hinder their foreign language performance. All these aracteristics lead us to hypothesize that the highly field dependent prefer successive interpretation in a social or professional environment that allows them to self-confidently move within a familiar linguistic and content environment, to interpret freely, to paraphrase and respond directly to feedba. ey are successful in interpreting uerances that require condensing, generalization, and providing concise summaries of uerances that are weak in ideas. In so doing, however, they may miss some important pieces of information (Where is the conference?), whi they do not mind. ey prefer interpreting in natural social situations where flexibility and situational alertness are required. Similarly, field dependent translators are beer at free translation of materials ri in figurative language (literature), implicit ideas, various contextual and cultural connotations, with metaphorical and emotional elements aimed at strong perlocutionary acts. On the contrary, field independency could manifest itself by an ability to analyze and cognitively reconstruct the linguistic material one is exposed to, identify its components,

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explore the relationship between them, and separate the essential from the inessential (Skehan 2000). However, too mu focus on details and their manipulation independently of other elements may hinder the comprehension of the meaning or contextual relations. Field independent translators tend to sti too mu to the original text and lexical meaning. An unknown word or structure brings them to a standstill; they find it difficult to cope with different semantic fields, hom*onymy and polysemy, ambiguous linguistic structures or lexical units where the meaning must be derived from the context. In the case of la of knowledge (linguistic or content), they are not able to guess the meaning from the context, either linguistic or situational. Due to these aracteristics their target language uerance may be illogical, meaningless, confusing or even nonsensical, whi they do not realize (e.g., on TV news the sentence “members of the American intelligence” was translated as “ . . . intelligent people . . . ” , or “I enjoyed the meeting” as “Zabával som sa”). Furthermore, highly field independent translators and interpreters la the skills of paraphrasing, generalizing, summarizing, condensing, reviewing, perceiving relationships within a wider whole, respecting cultural differences etc. erefore they tend to translate literally word-by-word, not respecting cultural differences or social conventions (e.g., inadequate translation of phrases frequently used in American movies su as “I love you!” or “Hello!”); translated dialogues do not sound natural, they make mistakes su as the inappropriate use of pronouns, relative clauses etc. In auditory perception of foreign language input, the field-independent are able to selectively focus their aention on stimuli essential for the comprehension of the conveyed meaning, as well as on the crucial linguistic aspects. On the other hand, they tend to easily focus on unimportant details, whi may divert their aention away from the main idea. ey get lost in numerous details, losing the thread and mutual relations and the interpreted uerance is difficult to comprehend. When interpreting, they also tend to pay aention to random notes or phrases that native speakers may spontaneously insert into their uerances, oen subconsciously. ey mistakenly believe that the more literally they interpret the beer job they do. Similarly, this predisposition manifests itself in the visual perception of linguistic material, i.e., in reading and translating. A typical field independent translator tends to translate ea word, “plays” with individual words and details, either linguistic or content, usually to the detriment of cohesion and coherence. His/her ability to respect and implement even basic interlingual differences, syntactic in particular is inadequate (e.g., the usage of passive and active constructions, nominal constructions, complex sentences, etc.). Furthermore, he/she is not able to implement intercultural differences and differences in extralingual reality sufficiently so as to preserve the illocutionary intentions of the original text. All these aracteristics suggest that people who are highly field independent are beer at translating and interpreting materials that require linguistic analysis, accuracy, precision, exactness and literal translation su as economic and legal documents, professional materials ri in explicitly stated facts, tenical descriptions, exact and clear instructions, etc. As they rely on an internal frame of reference, they rely on themselves

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and prefer individual work. Interpreters require to be given the text in advance, whi enables them to study it, analyze and prepare thoroughly. It is difficult for them to respond flexibly to a anged situation or to get feedba from the audience; indeed they may hardly perceive the audience. As for the further development of their professional skills, they should focus more on functional aracteristics of linguistic phenomena and their pragmatic aspects. Since their declarative knowledge dominates their procedural knowledge and their linguistic competence is usually higher than pragmatic and strategic competences, they should develop skills su as guessing, paraphrasing, generalizing, summing up, condensing, grasping contextual relations, and perceiving nonverbal means of communication. e above described aracteristics can be exemplified by differences in interpreting some types of frequently interpreted uerances su as: 1. Welcome/farewell spee, expressing thanks, etc. usually not ri in ideas and concrete information: — A field dependent interpreter immediately grasps the purpose, interprets the main ideas freely, summarizes, paraphrases and uses equivalent phrases in the target language, adapts his interpretation to the audience and situation respecting cultural differences so that the overall “atmosphere of the spee” is preserved. — A field independent person interprets literally word by word, whi may be perceived as boring and monotonous. He/she interprets also vague or redundant phrases as he/she is not able to select, condenses and concisely paraphrases them or replaces them with equivalent phrases in a target language. When expected to concisely summarize a spee, he/she finds it difficult to get the gist and to briefly express the main ideas. 2. Professional spee ri in facts and concrete information: — A highly field dependent person interprets freely, expresses main ideas and paraphrases, whi results in omiing some details that may be essential for comprehension. Su interpretation is not accurate or complete and eventually may be incomprehensible. Responding to the feedba he/she fills in missing information giving his/her own explanation, whi he/she does not find inappropriate. In so doing he/she likes to communicate with the speaker (or audience). — A highly field independent person interprets precisely ea item of information and all facts as required. However, he/she may focus too mu on separate details missing the relationship between the pieces of information, whi may result in the la of cohesion and coherence obvious in the speaker’s uerance. Running into an unknown expression causes a serious problem, particularly if the interpreter’s expertise in the content field is not sufficient. Due to a strong focus on the interpreted spee he/she does not perceive and respond to feedba from the audience.

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It is obvious, generally speaking, that the overall quality of translation and interpretation processes does not depend either on field dependency or independency. In different contexts, tasks and types of uerances different approaes are required. eoretically speaking, it would be optimal for an interpreter or translator to be able to activate the most suitable features of the dimensions in any situation. Even if this is not fully possible, ea translator and interpreter should know his/her degree of field dependency /independency and be aware of related strong and weak points. Undoubtedly, it is possible to consciously utilize one’s strengths and purposefully fight with weaknesses so that one could become more flexible and move on the FD/FI continuum within a wider individual zone of flexibility instead of strengthening a relatively fixed way of functioning. In addition, there is some empirical evidence as well as resear findings (cf. Cook 2001; Johnson, Prior and Artuso 2000) suggesting that field dependency is not as fixed a feature as it was originally considered and that it may be determined by various factors, su as age, type of tasks, social, cultural and natural environments etc. From a pedagogical perspective it means that it is possible to develop the required professional skills of translators and interpreters. e discussion in this paper could be of direct use to translators and interpreters by helping them become aware of their own subconscious preferences and mental meanisms and purposefully work with them in order to improve the quality of their work. Furthermore, it could help educators to develop the required professional skills of their trainees. e above mentioned knowledge may serve as basic guidance for su development. Works Cited Brown, Hugh Doughlas, and Susan T. Gonzo, eds. 1995. Readings on Second Language Acquisition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Chapelle, Carol, and Pat Green. 1992. Field Independence/Dependence in Second Language Acquisition Resear. Language Learning 42, no. 1: 47–83. Cook, Vivian. 2001. Second Language Learning and Second Language Teaing. 3rd ed. London: Edward Arnold. Ellis, Rod. 1994. e Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griffiths, Roger, and Ronald Sheen. 1992. Disembedded Figures in the Landscape: A Reappraisal of L2 Resear on Field Dependence-Independence. Applied Linguistics 13: 133–48. Johnson, Janice, Suzanne Prior, and Mariangela Artuso. 2000. Field Dependence as a Factor in Second Language Communicative Production. Language Learning 50, no. 3: 529–67. Mareš, Jiří. 1998. Styly učení žáků a studentů. Praha: Portál. Skehan, Peter. 2000. A Cognitive Approa to Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Witkin, Herman A., and Donald R. Goodenough. 1981. Cognitive Styles, Essence and Origins: Field Dependence and Field Independence. New York: International Universities Press.

Translator as an Important Part of the Intercultural Communication Process Martin Djovčoš Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Tajovského 40, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic. Email: djovcos.martin@v.umb.sk Abstract: is paper deals with the person of the translator. It tries to provide an overview of the most relevant aspects of the translator’s work. It deals with their competence and knowledge base, as well as some important factors whi influence their work. ese factors are divided into the internal (psyological) and external (mainly commercial). It also points out the importance of further resear in this field. Keywords: translator; translator’s competence; influencing factors; model of translator’s work; intercultural communication

Translation has always accompanied any human activity requiring communication between different cultures. However, the status of translator as an intercultural mediator has varied through different periods of history. While in ancient Egypt the head of interpreters was one of the major social positions, in 1546 Etien Dolet was burnt for his translation of one of Plato’s dialogues, allegedly for questioning the immortality of man by inserting inapt words (Oo 1995 qtd. in Rakšányiová 2005). Nowadays, the social and financial status of translators and interpreters is rather poor, as general society thinks that anybody who can speak two languages is able to translate. is is not only the fault of general society but also of translators themselves. Most solars will agree with the title of this paper and say that the translator is an important factor influencing intercultural communication. But what do we know about the personality of translators? What do we know about their competence? How are we supposed to prepare future translators if we have no clear idea of what a professional translator should know? e aim of this paper is therefore to focus aention on the basic competence of translators and emphasize the need for further scientific observation of translators and interpreters. Paraphrasing the words of James S. Holmes (1998),¹ translation studies as su can be investigated from three points of view: 1. Product-oriented (translation as product); 2. Function-oriented; 3. Process-oriented (translation as process). Moreover, some solars have summed up Holmes’s ideas, and they also distinguish translation as an abstract concept (e.g., Bell 1991). 1. e first, shorter, version of the given article, “e Name and Nature of Translation,” was published in 1972.

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Product-oriented translation studies include the description of individual translations as well as comparative translation description. According to Holmes (1998) “su individual and comparative description provides materials for surveys of larger corpuses of translations . . .” (Holmes 1998, 15–16). Function-oriented translation studies are “not interested in the description of translations in themselves, but in the description of their function in the recipient social and cultural situation: they study contexts rather than texts” (Holmes 1998, 16). Process-oriented translation studies deal with the process or act of translation itself (Holmes 1998, 16). In this, Holmes considers the problem of what takes place in the “lile bla box of translators mind.” As he states, mu speculation has been made about the problem, yet there has been very lile aempt at its systematic investigation under laboratory conditions.² As demonstrated, the translator, as part of the translation process, is obviously influencing both its function and the product. erefore, the translator is the most important part of the translation process, and the competence and predispositions of the translator are the crucial elements influencing the quality of translation as su. ere are many different definitions of translator. Ea one of them deals mainly with language disproportions and oen neglects cultural determinants of the process. House (1977) for example defines translator as a “bilingual mediating agent between monolingual communication participants in two different language communities” (qtd. in Bell 1991, 15). On the other hand, in the context of communication theory, Popovič (1983) views the work of the translator as a process of decoding a text created in one language and encoding a message into a new language and a new stylistic and semiotic context. e translator is one of the subjects of literary metacommunication. ese definitions are only illustrative as we do not have enough space to present more of them. However, most solars agree on the bilingual and bicultural competence of a translator. In general, according to Bell (1991) translators’ competence may be summarized as follows: 1. Bilingual competence 2. Communicative competence, whi includes: a) grammatical competence: knowledge of the rules of the code; b) sociolinguistic competence: knowledge of and ability to produce and understand uerances appropriately in a particular context; c) discourse competence: the ability to combine form and meaning in order to aieve unified spoken or wrien texts in different genres; d) strategic competence: the mastery of communication strategies whi may be used to improve communication or to compensate for breakdowns.³

2. is topic will be dealt with later on in this article. 3. Translators’ competence has been discussed and adopted to the Slovak context by Professor Edita Gromová (2003).

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Bell (1991) also mentions translators’ knowledge base as consisting of source language knowledge, target language knowledge, text-type knowledge, domain knowledge, and contrastive knowledge of the above-mentioned factors. He also defines inference meanisms of translators whi permit them to decode and encode the text. e abovementioned competence is mainly based on an empirical approa. If we try to outline the position of translator within the process of intercultural communication, we get the following model: .R.1

.A1

.Text1

.Reader1=Translator

.Reception/Interpretation .Natural

.Strategy

.Reflexive . Analysis . .

s. yntactic . .semantic .pragmatic

.Text2

.Read2

.R2

.Reproduction .Synthesis . .

p. ragmatic . .semantic .syntactic

R1 – reality of the source context; A1 – author of the work/text; Text1 – source text; Reader1 – reader of the source text; Translator – translator; Text2 – target text/translation; Reader2 – reader of the target text/translation; R2 – reality of the target context.

is model is a synthesis of the ideas of Ján Vilikovský (1984) (reception, strategy, reproduction), Anton Popovič (1983) (author, text, reader, translator), and Gromová (1996)/Bell (1991) (natural and reflexive interpretation, analysis, synthesis). e model shows how complex the work of a translator is, even without including all factors influencing this process (we shall mention a few factors later on in this paper). First, it is necessary to realize that ea translator is a very special kind of source text reader. While in most cases a common reader performs only a natural interpretation of a text, i.e., the first impression, the translator has to take into account many factors whi influence the creation of this impression, starting with meaning-relevant linguistic features, the cultural baground of the text and author (this applies to literary as well as to non-literary texts), the time of text creation etc. is phase is called reflexive interpretation. Reflexive interpretation includes the analysis of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features according to whi the translator creates a strategy for their translation in order to aieve functional (in rare cases also formal) equivalence of the source text. To do so, within the phase of reproduction, they have to make a synthesis of information gained during analysis. Synthesis, in contrast to analysis, consists of firstly the pragmatic, then the semantic and in the end the syntactic phase. On one hand, this is rather a sound overview of the translator’s position in the process of translation; however, there are many factors influencing the quality of their product.

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To investigate translators properly and to prepare future translators, it is necessary to find out mu more about their actual work and apply this information to theory and practise. For this reason, more resear needs to be done on these factors, but in the meantime, it is believed that the factors influencing the translator’s work may be divided into two groups: 1. Internal factors 2. External factors By internal factors we mean all information whi the translator has to absorb in order start translating (we have already mentioned Bell’s competence, knowledge base and inference skills), but mainly the psyological and neurological influences on the translator, whi have been researed only scantily so far. For example, Nida (1964) states that “we actually do not know precisely what takes place in translator’s mind when he translates, for psyologists and neurologists do not know the manner in whi language data are stored in the brain” (Nida 1964, 145). Or, as Holmes states, “the problem of what exactly takes place in the ‘lile bla box’ of the translator’s ‘mind’ as he creates a new, more or less mating text in another language has been the subject of mu speculation on the part of translation’s theorists, but there has been very lile aempt at systematic investigation of this process under laboratory conditions” (Holmes 1998, 16). Since the period when these ideas were pronounced, there has been a lot of resear done in this field, but only a small part of it has been applied to translation studies. One application concerns think-aloud protocols, where the translator describes what they do and how they do it directly during translating. ere has also been some resear done on memory (mainly during interpreting) and code switing. However, this area of study requires more resear (especially in Cze and Slovak context), especially in relation to the influence of field dependence and independence on translation. ese concepts were mentioned for the first time in the Slovak context (and possibly for the first time ever in these circ*mstances) by Professor Lojová at a conference in Budmerice, Slovakia in 2007 (Lojová 2009). Field dependent (FD) learners process information globally; that means that they see the perceptual field as a whole. ey can beer learn material with social content, they respect the structures as something given, and they use the “spectator approa” for concept aievement very oen. ey are not as analytical and not aentive to details. ey see relationships and make broad general distinctions among concepts. is sort of person is more socially oriented, so they react more to reward or punishment. When the studied material is not organized, they need more explicit instructions to understand, because they are less able to synthesize. ey are more interested in material relevant to their own experience and require externally defined stimulations and goals. On the other hand, field independent (FI) learners perceive more analytically, and they can easily separate the field into its parts. ey use the “hypothesistesting approa” to arrive at the concept. Generally, they are not influenced by their surroundings and they can make oices independent from the perceptual field. ey make specific distinctions of concept with lile overlap. ey are more impersonally oriented

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and are interested in new concepts for their own sake. In comparison with FDs, they are less affected by criticism and have self-defined goals and motivations. Lojová, adopting this theory to translation studies, assumes that field-independent translators/interpreters may underestimate general context and concentrate too mu on the lexical aracteristics of the text. On the other hand field dependant translators/interpreters focus more on the general context and underestimate its components. ese facts are subject to further study, but if there is any connection between cognitive styles and translation, it may help to improve translators’ training as well as the quality assessment of translations. Aention must also be paid to the model of language processes and how knowledge of it may help increase understanding of the translator’s work. is concept was based on the examination of aphasia patients and was brought into the Slovak and Cze context by Cséfalvay, Košťálová and Klimešová in 2002 and was first applied to translation studies by Djovčoš and Bešinová in 2008. e model explains how language is received and produced in one as well as multiple languages. e two mentioned concepts are the subject of our further study. Among the relevant external factors, are sociological factors su as the commercial aspects of translation (mainly price for translation), competition, motivation, stress, time, social status of translators etc. is information might be obtained by means of a questionnaire, whi shall be sent to professional translators (of literary and non-literary texts) as well as students. Comparing the answers of the professionals and the students might demonstrate whi factors are not included in translators’ training, and hopefully will lead to new methods in training translators. Certainly though, the aforementioned aspects of translation are oen neglected in translation theory. Su resear might suggest the following: — Most professional translators do not have professional translation training. — e financial reward of the translator influences the quality of translation. — Translators of less widespread languages are beer paid and are not under su pressure from competition. — ere is a smaller amount of translators of literary works than those of nonliterary texts. — Most translators do not have sufficient tenical competence (translation programs, computer skills etc.), but do have sufficient market competence. — Translators of literary texts have lower market competence than translators of pragmatic texts. — Students of translation studies do not have sufficient market or tenical competence. — e understanding of translation’s cognitive and psyological aspects will help us to improve translators’ training and translation quality assessment. Without a doubt, however, further knowledge of the aspects influencing translators’ work may enri translation studies and uncover many as-yet unknown facts about the translator and their work.

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Works Cited Bell, omas Roger. 1991. Translation and Translating: eory and Practice. London: Longman. Cséfalvay, Zsolt, Milena Košťálová, and Marta Klimešová. 2002. Diagnostika a terapia afázie, alexie a agrafie. [Praha]: Asociace kliniý logopedů České republiky. Djovčoš, Martin, and Zuzana Bešinová. 2008. Kognitívne aspekty tlmočenia. In Analytié sondy do textu 3: Zborník prednášok z medzinárodnej konferencie konanej v Banskej Bystrici 13. septembra 2007, 140–46. Banská Bystrica: FHV UMB. Gromová, Edita. 1996. Interpretácia v procese prekladu. Nitra: Vysoká škola pedagogiá v Nitre. Gromová, Edita. 2003. Teória a didaktika prekladu. Nitra: Filozofiá fakulta UKF. Holmes, James S. 1998. e Name and Nature of Translation. In Translation across Cultures, ed. Toury Gideon, 9–25. New Delhi: Bahari Publications. Lojová, Gabriela. 2009. Závislosť od poľa ako determinant kvality prekladu a tlmočenia. In Slovak Studies in English II: e Proceedings of the Second Triennial Conference on British, American and Canadian Studies, Dedicated to Ján Vilikovský on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday, 341–47. Bratislava: Faculty of Arts, Comenius University. Nida, A. Eugen. 1964. Towards a Science of Translation. Leiden: Brill. Popovič, Anton. 1983. Originál – preklad. Bratislava: Tatran. Rakšányiová, Jana. 2005. Preklad ako interkultúrna komunikácia. Bratislava: AnaPress. Vilikovský, Ján. 1984. Preklad ako tvorba. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ.

Effective Writing: Communication Strategies in Academic Texts Gabriela Zapletalová Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava, Reální 5, 701 00 Ostrava, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: is paper deals with effective writing in terms of creating academic texts, particularly resear articles. Viewing a text as a site for interaction between author and reader allows scientific texts to be understood as a complex of certain communication strategies, the knowledge of whi may substantially improve the resulting text’s quality. e communication strategy in focus is the use of textual/linguistic signaling, mostly realized through clause relations and especially lexical cohesion, whi commonly creates multiple relationships making it the leading mode of creating texture. is paper examines how the theoretical concept of lexical cohesion is put into practice in particular professional texts: the aim is to aempt a practical application of theoretical concepts. e resear is based on a 40,000 word corpus of English economics resear articles from e Economic Journal. Keywords: academic texts; clause relations; communication strategy; lexical cohesion; linguistic signaling; resear article; textual interaction

Introduction Until recently academic and scientific texts were regarded as non-interactive and impersonal texts. It was the author who controlled the one-sided process of transmiing knowledge to the other party – an anonymous reader. However, the resear into scientific texts in the past few years has revealed and proved the assumption that wrien text is interaction: su interaction is a multi-faceted phenomenon and can be approaed from various perspectives. ere is not only author and reader but also author and audience and the relations among all these participants is complex and delicate. is paper investigates how su complex relations among the four types of participants are realized lexically in terms of textual signalling. In particular, it reveals to what extent these textual signals can be regarded as a specific type of communication strategy in scientific texts. Hence the paper is intended as a probe into the concept of what may be called effective academic writing (and reading as well) a skill that oen proves illusive not only for prospective (and experienced) writers but also for students and teaers. e resear is based on a corpus of English economics resear articles. e paper opens with a brief outline of the topic by presenting an overview of main terminological concepts used in the paper, then discusses how lexical cohesion and textual signaling are seen among text linguists and offer an analytical framework employed in the resear, and finishes by examining the intended paerns so as to reveal something of their function as a type of communication strategy.

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1. The research framework Seminal for the present resear is the concept of text, whi is understood as “the visible evidence of a reasonably self-contained purposeful interaction between writers and readers” (Hoey 2001, 10). e definition is particularly suitable for wrien discourse whi is the focus of the paper, but generally, this fact does not necessarily exclude spoken language. e original sema of textual interaction rests on a dual relation between a writer and a reader whi can (not only in scientific texts) be amplified into a more complex four-participant process including an author and the audience. e author, who wants to convey a message and has some purpose to communicate with the audience (the ideal reader for whom the writer creates the text), endows the writer with authority to create a text that may be aimed at either the audience or the reader, while both of whom do not have to be one single individual but maybe two distinct parties (cf. Hoey 2001, 13–15). is relation is illustrated as a sematic drawing in Figure 1, where the squares with doed lines imply the potential (dis)unity of the participant(s) and the doed arrows illustrate the author’s intellectual capacity on the text: Figure 1: Complex Textual Interaction .Author .Writer

. . ext T

.Reader .Audience

Su understanding of participant interaction as shown in Figure 1 clearly reveals the nature of communication that is reflected in textual interaction in academic and science texts. Especially in these texts authors/writers are forced to submit to delicate requirements imposed by the particular discourse communities in whi they work. Hoey (2001, 18) sees this as “the writer’s desire to meet the audience’s needs,” whi is a strategy that can be best illustrated using a comparison with a two-pronged fork: one task but two requirements at one time – both to accomplish own objectives and simultaneously to not lose the reader’s interest since if there is no reader, the text in fact does not exist because the information is not communicated further. If texts are understood as products of an interaction between their author and their audience (cf. Hoey 2001, 20), this interaction can be managed either from the point of view of the reader or from the point of view of the writer. As for the reader, at any point in a text s/he has certain expectations about what might be going to happen next in the text. On the other hand, a writer may partly fulfill these expectations by signaling in advance so as to provide connections between sentences that help the reader to make necessary inferences. To sum up, the readers’ task is to work with inferences that help them decode sentence connections in text while writers employ certain signals that help readers to diminish the number of these inferences. In order to study effective writing as employed in the genre

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of academic texts, two models were employed and tested. e first model working with the concept of clause relations, lexical signaling and repetition paerning was developed by Eugene Winter (1986) – the author claims that the sentences in a text can be viewed as answering questions that the reader wants answered. e second model is by Miael Hoey (1991) and it heavily draws on Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) lexical cohesion and mainly on the work of Winter, whi Hoey further developed under the notion of lexical paerning. A unifying force behind the resear is the notion of communication (and textual) strategy. Enkvist (1987, 19) works with the term text strategy (whi seems to be a narrower concept than communication strategy) in a predication-based text theory; in his view, “a strategy might be defined as a goal-oriented weighting of decision criteria” in terms of so called decision parameters. is view is further developed and elaborated by Svoboda (2008, 8) who claims that “communication strategies should be treated from the perspective of the Hallidayan three components of language: textual, ideational and interpersonal. It is especially the interpersonal (pragmatic) level that deserves the most aention since it has been rather underrated so far” (my translation). e present resear focuses on mapping and studying communication strategies in academic texts on the textual (or syntactic) level. 2. Clause relations model e concept of clause relations has been regarded in linguistics as propositional relations or interclausal relations. Winter’s (1986, 89) theory is based on the concept of clause as the central semantic unit; he claims that “in any sequenced uerance, the signals of grammar and of the grammatical status of the clause are crucial to the understanding and interpretation of the message.” In his approa Winter ignores the grammatical connection typically associated with a sentence (coordination, subordination, apposition) and focuses on the so called sensible connection – clause relations. It means that if two sentences are joined together, the reader intuitively tries to find a sensible connection between the topics of these two sentences that appear in sequence. Winter identifies two types of relations between clauses or sentences: logical sequence relations and mating sequence relations. I. Logical sequence relations deal with “anges in time/space continuum from simple time/space ange to deductive or causal sequence whi is modeled on real world time/ange” (Winter 1986, 94). ese relations answer the ronological event questions: “What happened next/before that? and deductive questions su as: What happened as a result?, What did that lead to?, What caused that to happen?, What do you conclude from this? or What made you conclude that?.” Typical logical sequence relations are time sequence, cause and consequence, instrument-aievement, means and purpose, and premise and deduction expressed by sentence subordinators (because, if, before, when) and sentence conjunctions (then, therefore, previously, as a result) (cf. Hoey 2001, 30). Strong and weak versions of the logical sequence relations can be identified (i) based on the signals by conjuncts, subordinators or lexical paraphrases of the relation in the strong

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version while there are (ii) no signals in the weak version so that the reader must rely on his/her own intuition (this processing is not discussed here). Compare example (1) and (2): (1)

(2)

Aer 10 moves or so, the men ose cooperation and thereaer rarely anged course. Not so the women, who would cooperate for a while and then revert to independence. (Winter 1986, 95) Once on this page I announced ‘I am no warped spinster waving the feminist flag’, and thereby gravely offended some spinster readers. (Winter 1986, 95)

In (1) there are two sentences that have their own signaling conjuncts thereaer and then that enable the reader to answer the same question: “What did men/women do about cooperation aer that?.” Moreover, the negative particle not in the second sentence introduces a negative answer to the question about the women – as will be demonstrated, su a device also functions as the mating contrast relation. In example (2) above, the conjunct thereby signals the aievement of the action in the first clause. II. Mating sequence relations can be dealt with as partly contrastive to the logical sequence relations. As their name suggests, they are defined by “a high degree of repetition between the clauses, and by the semantics of compatibility or incompatibility” (Winter 1986, 92) of the lexical and grammatical makeup of the sequenced clauses. A typical question is: “How does x differ from y?,” whi elicits information regarding a contrasting relation. Compatibility/incompatibility subsume relations su as comparison and unspecific/specific (general/particular – generalization), and appositions, similarity, exemplification, exception, topic maintenance, contrast and contradiction (denial and correction). Apart from subordinators (while, whereas) and sentence conjunctions (however, moreover) as textual signals, an important marker is repetition (or replacement – variation within repetition structure) and parallelism (cf. Hoey 2001, 31). Here are some examples of the relations: (3)

(4) (5)

“What we have still not forgiven him for,” she says “is that he [Sco] reasoned“. Mrs Jenkins, whose spiritual home is the 18th century enlightenment, also reasons. (Winter 1986, 92) No Russian wants to conquer the world. Some Americans do, on the best crusading grounds. (Winter 1986, 93) is may or may not be true – it simply doesn’t maer. What maers is whether we can afford to lower the academic quality of education in any sector for purely ‘social’ purpose. (Winter 1986, 94)

Sentence (3) offers examples of lexical replacement whi subsumes the ange within the repetition structure of the pair he – Mrs Jenkins or she. In example (4) the replacement of no Russian with some Americans is contrastive. Example (5) is an example of a denialcorrection relation where the correction is included in the whether-clause. It is important to bear in mind that these two types of relations – logical sequence and mating sequence – should be viewed as complementary and equivalent rather than disjunctive and adversative relations of the larger semantic concept.

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3. Lexical patterning model While the clause relation model has mu to do with outlining a text’s interactivity based on strictly subsequent clauses, and hence its text perspective is rather the local one, the concept of lexical paerning works with respect to a larger text perspective so as to find out sensible relations not only between adjacent sentences but among distant sentences. Lexical paerning can greatly ease “the writer and both reflect and signal to the reader the coherence to be detected between the sentences” (Hoey 2001, 39) since coherence is signaled by means of the shared vocabulary. Lexical paerning is based on cohesion as a semantic concept realized through the lexico-grammatical system; it reflects the relations of meaning that exist within the text and define it as a text; it is a surface phenomenon based on non-structural, textforming relations (cf. Halliday and Hasan 1976). Daneš (1985) treats lexical cohesion as a reflection of isotopic/anaphorical relations in text: “hierarical organization of lexis plays an important role in forming isotopic relations in text” (1985, 205; my translation), and his classification (cf. Daneš 1985, 201–206) in fact conceptually anticipates Hoey’s (1991) methodology for treating lexical paerns. Lexical cohesion has organizational and ‘interpretative’ qualities: it is “the way certain words or grammatical features of a sentence connect that sentence to its predecessors (and successors) in a text” (Hoey 1991, 3). Halliday and Hasan treat lexical cohesion as “selecting the same lexical item twice, or selecting two that are closely related” (1976, 12). e organization of text (texture) is formed by relationships that exist among items of text. ese relationships are either grammatical or semantic and they create cohesive ties. Hoey’s lexical cohesion rests on a simple presupposition suggested by Halliday and Hasan (1976, 292): “however luxuriant the grammatical cohesion displayed by any piece of discourse, it will not form a text unless this is mated by cohesive paerning of a lexical kind.” In brief, lexical cohesion is a necessary prerequisite for creating texture: “the study of cohesion (. . .) is to a considerable degree the study of paerns of lexis in text” (Hoey 1991, 10). us lexis has been assigned a leading role in both the construction and organization of text. e category of repetition has already appeared in the clause relations model where it is treated, together with parallelism, as an important signaling device from the side of the writer that helps readers to orient themselves in the text. e term repetition may induce the mistaken idea that repeating the same lexical item counts among monotonous and stereotypical ways of expression. As Tárnyiková (2002) admits (with respect to narrative texts she focuses on), it is not a very creative way of text-shaping, but at the same time stresses its special communicative value even in narrative texts. Non-narrative (scientific) texts avoid creative intricacies so as to preserve exactness and terminological preciseness. e many kinds of repetition (plus other text-connecting features referred to as cohesion) are “part of the signalling that a writer, consciously or subconsciously, supplies to enable a reader to detect places where expectations are to be met” (Hoey 2001, 41). Repetition can be classified into the following nine lexical types. Hoey calls these lexical types based on cohesive ties ‘strategies for repetition’ whose “real significance lies in their availability as means for connecting sentences” (Hoey 2001, 41). Simple/complex

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paraphrase and superordinate/hyponymic repetition are lexically semantic classes expressing various degrees of semantic contiguity (Tárnyiková 2002): synonymy, antonymy, or marking other lexical and sense-relations: (i) simple repetition: volume – volumes, indicate – indicated (ii) complex repetition: productivity – production, audible – inaudible, write – writer (iii) simple paraphrase: traditional – standard, expansion – growth, explain – interpreted (iv) complex paraphrase: growth (N) – decline (V), record – discotheque (v) hypernymic repetition: horsepower → power unit, tenician → the expert (vi) hyponymic repetition: general word → specific word. (vii) co-reference repetition: Tony Blair → the Prime Minister, scientists → biologists (viii) reference, substitution and ellipsis (ix) closed sets: the number system (e.g., series as ‘the 1980s – 1830s – the mid 1800’) Example (6) demonstrates how lexical cohesion works between an adjacent pair 12 and 13 and then between 12 with 22 and 13 with 22 (relatively distant sentences): a strong bond between (12) and (13) is established by five links (trade, liberalisation, growth, important/importance, policies), and there is a three-link bond between (12) and (22) – trade, liberalisation, growth, and (13) and (22) – trade, liberalisation, growth. e relation between (12) and (13) with (22) can be treated as an example of distance bonding operating over long stretes of text: (6)

12. While trade liberalisation alone is unlikely to be sufficient to boost growth significantly, in two important dimensions – corruption and inflation – it appears to improve other policies. 13. e paper then stresses the importance of investment – and hence of other policies affecting investment – in translating trade liberalisation and growth and the importance of institutions in permiing growth. 22. If trade liberalisation shis the economy onto a higher but parallel growth path actual growth rates exceed the steady-state rate while the ange occurs.

4. The analysis e analysis was carried out on a 40,000-word corpus consisting of English economics resear articles and texts to study to what extent the textual signals realized by clausal relations and lexical cohesion (namely repetition and parallelism) can be regarded as a specific communication strategy in science texts. e following analysis outlines some basic principles that operate as linguistic signaling in science texts. In example (7) we can observe the use of two types of linguistic signaling: the conjunction although is used to introduce a clause that makes the main statement seem surprising or unlikely because necessary – it implies a kind of contrast as a ‘gap’ that needs to be fulfilled (cf. the Swalesian ‘Create-A-Resear-Space model – CARS): (7)

Although there exists pioneering cliometric resear on the social savings of both steam engines (von Tunzelmann, 1978) and railways (Hawke, 1970), there has never been an aempt to examine the long-run impact of steam tenology on British

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economic growth during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (e Economic Journal 114, 2004, 338) Apart from conjunctions as one type of linguistic signaling, example (7) also contains another kind of element: lexical signals. Lexical signals are features that are associated with so called referential vocabulary since they may indicate the discourse organization. ese are the words su as reason, difference, example, result, condition, aieve, compare, contrast (cf. Hoey and Winter 1986, 127). In (7) the words aempt and examine together with the negative marker never prepare the space for resear and anticipate the next phase in the text whi continues in (8) where this gap makes it topic and resear focus of the paper clear also by specifying the resear task with the lexical signals to assess and to place. Example (8) demonstrates how lexical signals can be used by writers to anticipate the questions to be answered: the phrase in particular signals to readers that they should expect answers to the question ‘What for?’; three questions tell readers how many answers to expect: (8)

is paper uses growth-accounting to fill this gap and, in so doing, both to assess the validity of a GPT-based account of British economic growth and also to place the impact of steam in a comparative perspective. In particular, three questions are addressed: 1. When did steam have its greatest impact on productivity growth? 2. How does steam measure up to the contribution of ICT in the late twentieth century? 3. Was steam’s contribution to productivity growth responsible for the ronology of trend growth in the economy overall? (e Economic Journal 114, 2004, 338–39)

A very frequent feature appearing mostly in introductory parts of science texts is the mating sequence relation paern ‘denial-correction’ that has a delicate function to balance between what has been done and what needs to be done and thus prepare the ground and resear ‘gap’ for the researer (and the writer). is is shown in example (9): (9)

We depart from these studies by focusing on a factor that we argue is a particularly salient one for the self-employed: income risk. (. . .). at is a distinct form of risk that we do not focus on in this paper; nor shall we explore the decision to participate in self-employed instead of paid employment. Instead, we focus specifically on uncertainty of returns . . ., and ask how this effects the labour supply. (e Economic Journal 115, 2005, C190–C191)

is section abounds in words saying what is not the focus of the researers: su propositions are supported by a series of referential words and phrases that intensify the effect of refusal and denial – depart, distinct, instead – together with the negative reciprocal particles not-nor. e propositions seems to be layered – the layering effect rests in gradually adding other negative components until a certain level is aieved, whi is clearly marked by instead. is effect is also supported by repetition, a means used for lexical signaling, of the word focus.

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Repetition is a type of lexical signal that is complex and subsumes various realizations su as lexical reiteration and pronominalization (cf. Halliday and Hasan 1976), or a variety of paraphrases (see Hoey 1991 and Section 3 above). Parallelism is an important signal of clausal relations; it helps to support interactivity and reinforce the relationship between sentences as is illustrated in the following examples (10)–(14). In (10) and (11), a marker of the parallel structure is the former that provides sound evidence that the following sentence would begin with the laer whi is not, however, true in this case, since the writer breaks this sequence by referring to the stem sentence using a paraphrase how to acquire instead of the laer that should replace how to aieve. In (11) the sequence works vice versa: phrase the former is missing while the laer occurs in the text: in fact, there is no reason for the former since it is not the focus of the writer in this section of the text – the maer was discussed earlier in the text. Su asymmetry does not interrupt interaction, but the reader must exert more effort so as to identify appropriate links. (10) Rodrik (2000b) addresses the question of what institutions maer and how to aieve them. On the former he identifies five critical areas . . . On the issue of how to acquire institutions, Rodrik argues that there is no single optimal set of institutions. (e Economic Journal 114, 2004, F14) (11) TFP growth is decomposed into a component based on the production of ICT capital and other TFP growth. In turn, the laer is based on production of the rest of GDP deriving both from unrelated advances in tenology and from (unremunerated) TFP spillovers from ICT. (e Economic Journal 114, 2004, 340) In examples (12)–(14) we can observe a similar type of parallel structure that is a very frequent (and to a certain level necessary) feature of science texts can be observed – it is the use of numerals referred to as interclausal enumerative cohesion, either contact or distant (cf. Pípalová 1992). is linguistic signal helps orient in the text, as su structuring reveals the rhetorical makeup: (12) Establishing an empirical link between liberal trade and growth faces at least four difficulties – see Winters (2003). First, there is the definition of ‘openness’ . . . Second, once one comes inside the boundary of near autary . . . ird, causation is extremely difficult to establish. . . . e fourth complication is that for liberal trade policies . . . (e Economic Journal 114, 2004, F14) (13) In the introduction three specific questions were posed. e answers that have been obtained in the paper can be summarised as follows. First, steam had its greatest impact on productivity growth . . . Second, in terms of its impact on the annual rate of productivity growth through capital-deepening . . . ird, slow productivity growth during the industrial revolution . . . In sum, seeking to base an account of 19th-century British economic growth . . . (e Economic Journal 114, 2004, 339) (14) What are the wider implications for the GPT literature of the results obtained in this paper? e first and most obvious message is . . . e second point to note is that these results help to explain the modest rate of productivity growth during the

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British industrial revolution . . . e third important aspect of the results is that . . . (e Economic Journal 114, 2004, 348) ese textual devices are important means of expressing interclausal contiguity and have “more functional, logico-semantic as well as its more formal, organization, structural aspects, hence the relation between them is that of asymmetrical dualism” (Pípalová 1992, 27). Conclusion e present resear is based on the central premise that “texts are indeed products of an interaction between their author and their audience” (Hoey 2001, 20). In studying how academic texts get wrien, it is important to bear in mind that every wrien discourse (academic and scientific texts being not an exception) is part of an interaction. It was also stated that most readers approa texts with some expectations and form hypotheses about the future reading. As Hoey and Winter (1986, 126) put it, “one of the reader’s tasks in interpreting wrien discourse is to recognize the relations between propositions that the writer is signaling and infer those that the writer is implying.” e writer’s task is that of a certain facilitator who can immensely help the reader decode the message – whi is also the task the writer should bear in mind when composing a text: if the reader already starts reading let’s offer him/her a text that would not have him/her stop reading. is paper keeps students in mind, to whom the existence, knowledge and consequently intentional use of clause relations and lexical paerning models help transfer their first-language potential into understanding, interpreting and composing skills in the second language. e existence and presence of clause relational signaling (subordinators, conjunctions, lexical signals, repetition, parallelism) in a text “reduce the inferential role of the reader by expressing the clause relations explicitly” (Hoey and Winter 1986, 127). erefore, academics (almost professional writers) can benefit from and make use of the signaling system – in the case of parallelism, for example, the knowledge of its principles can help uncover the meanings of unknown words or reveal meaning relations beer. ough the conclusion is rather tentative and might seem thin as there are some aspects of the resear that make it imperfect, especially the scope of the corpus, clause relational analysis seems to offer an interesting and functional insight into interaction that is the basis of any type of wrien discourse. To conclude, in theory, the concept of linguistic signaling based on various lexical relations (clause relation analysis and lexical cohesion) is important for the structuring of the text. In practice, studying linguistic signaling and its recognition can be of great help to students in both writing and reading these texts. Acknowledgement is article is part of the GA ČR project 405/07/0176 “Communication and textual strategies in mass media, commercial and academic discourse (Contrastive analysis of English and Cze discourse)” supported by the Cze Science Foundation.

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Works Cited Daneš, František. 1985. Věta a text [Sentence and Text]. Praha: Academia. Enkvist, Nils E. 1987. A Note towards the Definition of Text Strategy. Zeitsri für Phonetik, Sprawissensa und Kommunikationsforsung 40: 19–27. Halliday, Miael A. K., and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Hoey, Miael. 1991. Paerns of Lexis in Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hoey, Miael. 2001. Textual Interaction: an Introduction to Wrien Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. Hoey, Miael, and Eugene Winter. 1986. Clause Relations and the Writer’s Communicative Task. In Functional Approaes to Writing: Resear Perspectives, ed. Barbara Couture, 120–41. London: Frances Pinter. Pípalová, Renata. 1992. On the Types of Linkage Indicated by Intersentential Connectives. In Linguistica Pragensia 1: 21–27. Svoboda, Aleš. 2008. Komunikační strategie statiá a dynamiá [Static and Dynamic Communication Strategy]. In Ends and Means in Language: Communication and Textual Strategies in Mass Media, Commercial and Academic Discourse, ed. Renáta Tomášková, Sirma Wilamová, and Christopher Hopkinson, 7–9. Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita v Ostravě. Tárnyiková, Jarmila. 2002. From Text to Texture: An Introduction to Processing Strategies. Olomouc: Univerzita Palaého. Winter, Eugene. 1986. Clause Relations as Information Structure: Two Basic Text Structures in English. In Talking about Text: Studies Presented to David Brazil on his Retirement, English Language Resear, Discourse analysis monograph no. 13, 88–108. Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Corpus e Economic Journal 114 (2004): 4–21; 97–116; 117–129; 150–173; 338–351; 421–440 e Economic Journal 115 (2005): 29–47; 81–107; C99–C117; 190–207; 225–243; 244–261

Literature and Cultural Studies

Literary Theory and Reading World Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism Róbert Gáfrik Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Konventná 13, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: e present age of multiculturalism has led to an awareness of differences among cultures and a general respect for them. e term world literature itself, in order to avoid Eurocentrism, has been considerably expanded to include literatures of other cultures. Literary theory has the ambition to offer a universal approa to literature. However, it has been shaped by Aristotle’s concept of mimesis. is paper will focus on how reading literary works coming from non-Western cultures allenges the basic Western notions of literature. It will also point to the existence of literary critical discourse outside of the Western world, especially in India, and argue for the emergence of an intercultural theory of literature. Keywords: world literature; notion of literature; multiculturalism; comparative poetics; Sanskrit poetics

Literary theory is supposed to be a systematic study of the nature of literature. Consequently, one of the fundamental questions of literary theory is the question “what is literature?” ere is a wide range of definitions and explanations. Some try to see the essence of literature in mimesis, some in literariness, and yet others propose an antiessentialist definition of literature as, for example, the adherents of the institutional theory of literature. As a result of this precarious situation, some solars ceased to believe that literature could be defined by a set of properties common to all literary texts, and they contented themselves with the idea that it is possible to determine only certain features whi are aracteristic of literature but are not necessarily sufficient. Every well-intended definition apparently fails because it is always possible to find a work that can disprove it. Despite the dreary solarly debates on the nature of literature every user of the English language has an idea what the word “literature” means. e Oxford English Dictionary provides a basic definition: “Literary production as a whole; the body of writings produced in a particular country or period, or in the world in general. Now also in a more restricted sense, applied to writing whi has claim to consideration on the grounds of beauty of form or emotional effect.” Nonetheless, this definition is of very recent origin. e word “literature” previously meant “acquaintance with ‘leers’ or books; polite or humane learning; literary culture.”¹ Most solars agree that the establishment of the contemporary notion of literature may be conveniently dated in the mid-eighteenth century. e word “literature” was soon followed by another word, “world literature,” that has caused a lot of headae to literary solars, especially to those who work in 1. e Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. “literature.”

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the field of comparative literary studies and claim to have a privilege on this word. Responsible for its coinage was 18th century German poet and translator Christoph Martin Wieland. It gained recognition only thanks to Goethe, who saw it related with other similar terms whi designated transnational concepts like Weltkommunikation, Weltfrömmigkeit, Weltbildung as well as the older term Weltbürger. “I am more and more convinced,” Goethe remarked, “that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men. . . . I therefore like to look about in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epo of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approa.”² e term literature and world literature thus represent notions that originated in Western Europe in the late 18th century. However, they came to designate even phenomena they precede temporarily or transcend spatially. us we speak about ancient Greek literature, medieval German literature or Chinese literature, for example. is difference in meaning had been of no concern for most literary solars before the advent of formalism and structuralism, whose adherents started to ask about the essence of literature. Non-European literatures played no significant role in this debate until recently. Comparativists were hardly concerned with literatures wrien in exotic languages, although orientalists, Africanists and sinologists were at great pains to present translations from these literatures. Even nowadays the great works of the world consist mostly of Western classics and works suited to Western taste, although at least since the 1970s comparativists have made efforts to broaden the canon and include also non-European literatures.³ e major breakthrough came aer World War II, when Western self-inspection led to self-destruction. e United States, Russia, Japan, and recently India and China, emerged as important protagonists of the modern world. International communication and interaction has become possible in an unprecedented way. e accessibility of information increased dramatically due to modern tenologies. In this new planetary situation, encounters and dialogues have become mu easier. Immigration has become prevalent and even a hotly debated issue in some countries. ere might exist parts of the world and historical periods in whi there is more cultural diversity concentrated in one place than at present in the West, however, it has been the Western world that has increasingly occupied itself with the idea called multiculturalism. Besides other lapidary designations, the current age is indeed repeatedly called an age of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism, a notion associated with cultural studies, has prompted heated discussions. To some it means diversity. e various viewpoints of many cultures, its advocates argue, enable a beer understanding of the world and its past. To others it represents the end of European hegemony, including the feared disintegration of the time2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Conversations of Goethe with Eermann and Soret, trans. John Oxenford (London: George Bell and Sons, 1875), 212–13. 3. See, e.g., Roland Greene, “e Greene Report, 1975,” in Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism, ed. Charles Bernheimer (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 28–38.

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honored Western traditions. Cultural studies have had an immense impact on literary studies. However, the marriage of literary studies to cultural studies has been associated with a loss of focus on literature itself. Literary texts have turned into carriers of cultural information without sufficient emphasis on the questions of aesthetics. is paper addresses questions different from the common application of concepts borrowed from cultural studies to literary studies. ey are the following: Is the present Western literary theory universally satisfying? Can the idea of multiculturalism or cultural relativism contribute to the advancement of literary theory? Can it offer any corrective to the status quo in literary theory? I will start with an example of the reception of Gitagovinda, a cycle of poems, or rather songs, composed by Jayadeva in the twelh century and considered one of the finest examples of Sanskrit poetry. e reception of this work demonstrates how Western criticism ignored the indigenous Sanskrit literary criticism, whi was “discovered” only recently. e example can be considered aracteristic not only of the Western approa to this work of Sanskrit literature, but to non-European literatures in general. e twenty-four poems of Gitagovinda depict the love exploits of the popular Hindu god Krishna with his consort Radha. In the opening part the author reminds us by a series of poems that Radha and Krishna are no ordinary personalities but God himself, the transcendent Lord. e young love-stru milkmaid Radha wanders through the blooming forest and looks for Krishna. Her confidential friend, who plays the role of a mediator and messenger between the two lovers, informs her that Krishna carelessly enjoys other milkmaids. Radha remembers the happiness she experienced with Krishna, and her heart is filled with sorrow. She asks her friend to persuade him to come ba to her. Krishna also cannot forget about Radha. He regrets that he made Radha angry and incited her jealousy. Radha’s friend tells him that Radha still longs for him. Krishna sends her ba to Radha to relate to her how he misses her. In this way verses expressing passion and jealousy alternate until the lovers finally happily reunite. Gitagovinda was one of the first text of Sanskrit literature that came to be known in the West. It was translated by Sir William Jones, who is best known today for making the observation that Sanskrit bore a certain resemblance to classical Greek and Latin. Gitagovinda was soon translated into German, and Goethe was one of the big admirers of this text. He wrote to Siller: “What stru me as remarkable are the extremely varied motives by whi an extremely simple subject is made endless.”⁴ Further translations followed, soon improving on Jones’s prose translation in whi passages deemed “too luxuriant and too bold for an European taste” were omied.⁵ Kapila Vatsyayan surveyed the translations of Gitagovinda from 1792, the year of the publication of Jones’s translation, to 1977, when Barbara Stoler Miller’s highly acclaimed translation appeared. Vatsyayan concluded: 4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Correspondence between Goethe and Siller (London: George Bell and Sons, 1890), 2:395. 5. William Jones, e Works of Sir William Jones (London: Stodale and Walker, 1807), 4:235.

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In India a systematic investigation of literature can be traced ba to at least the 3rd century BCE, when Natyasastra, a textbook of dramaturgy, whi influenced the subsequent thinking about literature, might have been composed. Since the 6th century CE the Sanskrit solars engaged in heated discussions and developed several theories concerning the nature of literature. ey addressed a wide range of problems su as the definition of literature, its function and its originating factors. ey also discussed literary education, literary conventions, elements of a literary text, genres, figures and tropes, and style. However, the most important question they sought to solve was the question of the soul (atma) of literature. e word atma thus designates the inner essence, without whi every literary text would just be the transcript of an everyday talk or a solarly treatise. e soul-body metaphor served as a convenient means to assign all the elements of literature a part in the whole. According to the representatives of the rasa theory, the most popular literary theory amongst Sanskrit solars, the body of literature is formed by word and meaning; rasa is its soul; qualities like valor pertain to literature as well; blemishes are likened to bodily defects; style to the structure of bodily parts; and figures and tropes to ornaments like earrings etc. Rasa is the most important term in Sanskrit literary studies. It denotes the aesthetic experience in the form of the enjoyment of emotions suggested by a literary text. e theory of rasa is based on a psyological analysis of human emotional life. A work of art can affect its recipient by evoking various moods whi are heightened modes of emotions like love, mirth, sorrow, anger etc.. Sanskrit literary theorists focused on emotions on the contrary to Western literary studies whi have been primarily concerned with meaning, with the propositional effects of literature. (ey started turning their aention to an analysis of the emotional dimension of literature only recently.) e existence of ancient non-Western literary theories may come as a surprise to Western literary solars who are used to thinking that the discourse on the nature of literature began with Plato and Aristotle, and continued through Longinus, the neoClassical thinkers, the Romantics, and so on. However, there were traditions of thinking about literature in India, China and the Arab world even before European colonization. e appreciation of literature in these countries has been inseparable from the indigenous literary critical discourse. Literary critics from these countries interested in Western as well as their own ancient literature live in a kind of dual world. In 1994 G. B. Mohan ampi repeated Krishna Chaitanya’s twenty-year old remark that the Indian critic “applies the critical criteria of the Sanskrit tradition in evaluating Sanskrit poetry, but swites to another set of criteria in appraising English poetry or even poetry in any 6. Kapila Vatsyayan, “e Gitagovinda: A Twelh-Century Sanskrit Poem Travels West,” in Studying Transcultural Literary History, ed. Gunilla Lindberg-Wada (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006), 230.

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Indian language.”⁷ e situation has slightly anged since 1994, as there has been several aempts to use Sanskrit literary theory as a universal literary theory and to apply it to the works of world literature in general and of English literature in particular. e most significant publication in this respect may be considered Priyadarshi Patnaik’s Rasa in Aesthetics. Interestingly, with the increased self-awareness of contemporary Indian poets, the problems of Sanskrit poetics become relevant even for anglicists, as Shrawan K. Sharma states: “It is remarkable to note that contemporary Indian English poetry eoes the aracteristics of poetry as defined by the Sanskrit aaryas.”⁸ Non-Western literary criticism is making its existence known more and more in a multicultural world, even beyond the confines of literatures with whi it originated. is is something that will definitely have influence on literary theory itself. In 1990 Earl Miner published his Comparative Poetics subtitled An Intercultural Essay on eories of Literaure, in whi he argued that there is an “originative” poetics in every culture. e “originative” poetics emerges “when a gied critic defines a conception of literature from the genre thought most prestigious.”⁹ Aristotle’s Poetics occupies su a position in the Western world, for example. It is founded on drama, and hence it is a mimetic one. Mimesis is no doubt a category that has shaped Western literary criticism either by way of acceptance or by endeavors to overcome it. From Miner’s studies emerged the belief that the Western view of literature is a minority view among literary theories in the world. e rest of the literary systems are lyric, and he designates their poetics as “affectiveexpressive.” Notwithstanding whether one agrees or disagrees with Miner’s analysis, the universality of Western notions of literature is allenged by the traditions of non-Western literary criticism. It is not only an alien culture that we are confronted with when we read, for instance, the Sanskrit epic poem Ramayana, whi deserves to be called a masterpiece of world literature no less than Shakespeare’s plays. It is founded on a completely different notion of literature, without knowledge of whi one is not able to really appreciate the text.¹⁰ e words “literature” and “world literature” are in need of a new definition in the age of multiculturalism. It may sound like a strange claim since there are no fixed and clear definitions of these terms within the Western tradition of literary critical discourse itself. Instead, what is needed is a set of ideas that readers of literature have about its nature and function. Anders Peersson, in one of his theoretical articles forming a part of the project of the Swedish Resear Council called Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective, 7. G. B. Mohan ampi, “Point of View in Comparative Criticism,” in East West Poetics at Work, ed. C. D. Narasimhaiah (Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1994), 35. 8. Shrawan K. Sharma, “Modern Indian Poetry in English: A Note,” in New Perspectives on Indian English Writing, ed. Malti Agarwal (New Delhi: Atlantic, 2007), 12. 9. Earl Roy Miner, Comparative Poetics: An Intercultural Essay on eories of Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 24. 10. See K. S. Narayanar, “e Rasa View of Art and its Advantages over Western Poetics – Some Illustrations from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata,” in East West Poetics at Work, ed. C. D. Narasimhaiah (Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1994), 109–17.

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writes that every culture must work with some system of representation and no su system is the “proper” one, and concludes: “us we cannot hope for a neutral, valuefree system of transcultural literary-historical representation. Yet the heavy reliance on specifically Western terminology may well be a genuine obstacle to the understanding of other literary cultures on the part of those thinking and writing in European languages.”¹¹ Multiculturalism seems to be gradually exerting influence on literary theory as well. Uncertain as the concrete form of this new way of looking at literature may be at present, the very idea of sensitiveness for and of familiarity with non-Western literary critical tradition on the part of Western solars promises the future emergence of an intercultural theory of literature. Acknowledgment is paper is a result of the project VEGA 2/0033/08 “Contribution of Sanskrit poetics to the discourse of contemporary Western literary studies.” Works Cited Bernheimer, Charles, ed. Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Conversations of Goethe with Eermann and Soret. Translated by John Oxenford. London: George Bell and Sons, 1875. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Correspondence between Goethe and Siller. Vol. 2. London: George Bell and Sons, 1890. Greene, Roland. “e Greene Report, 1975.” In Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism, edited by Charles Bernheimer, 28–38. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Jones, William. e Works of Sir William Jones. Vol. IV. London: Stodale and Walker, 1807. Miller, Barbara Stoler. e Gitagovinda of Jayadeva: Love Song of the Dark Lord. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. Miner, Earl Roy. Comparative Poetics: An Intercultural Essay on eories of Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Narayanar, K. S. “e Rasa View of Art and its Advantages over Western Poetics – Some Illustrations from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.” In East West Poetics at Work: Papers Presented at the Seminar on Indian and Western Poetics at Work, Dhvanyaloka, Mysore, January 1991, edited by C. D. Narasimhaiah, 109–17. Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1994. Patnaik, Priyadarshi. Rasa in Aesthetics: An Application of Rasa eory to Modern Western Literature. Foreword by Prof. K. Krishnamoorthy. New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1997. 11. Anders Peersson, “Conclusion: A Pragmatic Perspective on Genres and eories of Genre,” in Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective, vol. 2, Literary Genres: An Intercultural Approa, ed. Gunilla Lindberg-Wada (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006), 303.

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Peersson, Anders, Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, Margareta Petersson and Stefan Helgesson, eds. Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective. 4 vols. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006. Rangaarya, Adya. Natyasastra: English Translation with Critical Notes. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1999. Sharma, Shrawan K. “Modern Indian Poetry in English: A Note.” In New Perspectives on Indian English Writing, edited by Malti Agarwal, 7–15. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2007. ampi, G. B. Mohan. “Point of View in Comparative Criticism.” In East West Poetics at Work, edited by C. D. Narasimhaiah, 35–47. Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1994. Vatsyayan, Kapila. “e Gitagovinda: A Twelh-Century Sanskrit Poem Travels West.” In Studying Transcultural Literary History, edited by Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, 221–32. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006.

Ethnicity, Individuality and Peer Pressure in Meera Syal’s Anita and Me Šárka Bubíková Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, University of Pardubice, Studentská 84, 532 10 Pardubice, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: is paper focuses on the literary depiction of bi-cultural ildhood consciously placed into postmodern situation. Using theories of postmodernism and multiculturalism, it analyzes how Meera Syal’s critically acclaimed novel Anita and Me (1996), about the growing up of the girl Meena, English by birth, Indian by parentage, addresses the complex issues of a ild’s emerging individuality, the struggle with bi-culturalism, the coping with ethnic versus mainstream identity, the influence of peer pressure on her maturation and how the realization of otherness and experience with racism function as rites of passage in the protagonist’s transition from ildhood to adolescence. Keywords: growing up; ethnicity; identity; multiculturalism; Meera Syal; Anita and Me

ere is a growing body of literary texts that focuses on growing up in Great Britain in a postmodern, multicultural society. Depictions of the position of the “ethnic” ild within its community and his/her relationship to the mainstream culture vary with time and place. Sometimes the ildhood of somebody considered marginal is described in terms of isolation, deprivation, hate, dislocation, and/or assimilation. ere are some examples of ildhoods depraved or devastated by racial and ethnic pressures and abuse, as for example, e Unbelonging (1985) by Joan Riley, where the main aracter, an elevenyear-old girl named Hyacinth, faces racial abuse aer she moves from Jamaica to Britain. Not accepted by her stepmother and isolated from her classmates, Hyacinth’s ildhood is quite an extreme example of a stolen ildhood,¹ finally crippled by sexual abuse from her father. Set in the 1970s, some of the book’s issues parallel those of Toni Morrison’s highly acclaimed novel e Bluest Eye (1970). However, it was precisely during the 1970s, as Graeme Dunphy claims, when Britain was quily turning into a multicultural society. e late 1960s were “a melting-pot period when British pluralism was born.”² With the flourishing of multiculturalism, some of the racial tensions have been reduced and on both sides of the Atlantic books have appeared that deal with ildhoods in postmodern, multicultural societies in a more positive, optimistic manner. Similarly, we are witnessing a gradual paradigmatic shi in the understanding of culture. While traditionally culture was considered as consisting of centre and margins, it has gradually been described in terms of diversity and multitude. In a way, culture has become “multi-culture.” 1. I borrow this term from the title of Wilma King’s book on slave ildren, Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995). 2. Graeme Dunphy, “Meena’s Moingbird: From Harper Lee to Meera Syal,” Neophilologus 88 (2004): 649.

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Nathan Glazer in his book We Are All Multiculturalists Now (1997) names several factors constituting the boom of multiculturalism in the last decades. ese include the revisionist aitude towards history, a new perception of the position of the so-called world-powers within the world community, and the realization of the existence of the non-Western world. is all implies that the “[w]estern hubris can never again be what it was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.”³ is hubris stemmed from the very concept of culture because it “was a unifying ideal, centered around a vision of Western civilization as the climax of cultural progress and synthesis.”⁴ Other features of multiculturalism include a greatly shaken confidence in science and irreversible progress and the decline in religious faith in the West.⁵ ese aspects of multiculturalism can actually be seen as parallels to what philosophers call the anging of the modern paradigm into the post-modern one defined, above all, by the falling apart of any unity, any one meta-narrative. According to Steven Mintz, the concept of ildhood anged in the post-war, post-industrial society as well. Children in postmodern times are no longer seen as binary opposites to adults nor as naïve and innocent creatures. ey, in fact, are “independent consumers and participants in a separate, semiautonomous youth culture.”⁶ It is also clear, Mintz concludes, that in our times the “basic aspects of the ideal of a protected ildhood, in whi the young are kept isolated from adult realities, have broken down.”⁷ e most striking ange in the life of post-industrial youth is a “marked increase in diversity – ethnic, economic, and familial.” Mintz goes even as far as to claim that “[e]thnic diversity became a defining aracteristic of [postmodern] ildhood.”⁸ How then do the theories of postmodernism and multiculturalism apply to ildhood? How is the booming multiculturalism affecting literary ildhood? To explore these questions I will focus on the novel Anita and Me (1996) by Meera Syal. Anita and Me tells the story of two formative years in the life of Meena Kumar, a nine-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants living in the once mining town of Tillington in the English Midlands. Although the novel features instances of the revisions and reinterpretations of history that Glazer names as important element of multiculturalism,⁹ I will limit my discussion to the issue of identity formation of the ild protagonist growing up in a multicultural seing where the concept of one appropriate, unifying culture is no longer valid and one’s identity is formed on different premises and against other sets of limits than the traditional measuring against a hom*ogenizing mainstream ideal. e fact that our societies are gradually turning multicultural and that diversity is seen in positive terms does not mean that racism has gone from our world. In fact, almost all 3. 4. 5. 6.

Nathan Glazer, We Are All Multiculturalists Now (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 61. John G. Cawelti, “Popular Culture/Multiculturalism,” Journal of Popular Culture 30, no. 1 (Summer 1996): 3. See Glazer, We Are All Multiculturalists Now, 62. Steven Mintz, Hu’s Ra: A History of American Childhood (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 4. 7. Mintz, Hu’s Ra, 4. 8. Mintz, Hu’s Ra, 349. 9. Glazer uses the term “new history,” see Glazer, We Are All Multiculturalists Now, 61.

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novels about the growing up of a ild of an ethnic minority feature instances of racial or ethnic abuse when the ild realizes, oen for the first time, his/her otherness. We have moving literary depictions of su moments that mark a turning point in the ild’s life and can be seen as moments of transition or initiation into adulthood. Meena, at the opening of Syal’s novel, feels a vague tension, a sense of something being wrong with her that she cannot explain. Later she is openly abused by a complete stranger, an elderly woman. Meena asks the woman to reverse her car to whi she “blinked once and fumbled with the gear sti and said casually: ‘Bloody stupid wog. Stupid woggy wog. Stupid.’”¹⁰ e encounter comes as a great sho to Meena and can be seen as a first step away from her ildhood: [P]apa pulled me onto his lap. . . . I wanted to tell him about the old lady, but then I looked at his face and saw something I had never seen before, a million of these encounters wrien in the lines around his warm, hopeful eyes, lurking in the furrows of his brow, shadowing the so curves of his mouth. I suddenly realized that what had happened to me must have happened to papa countless times, but not once had he ever shared his upset with me. He must have known it would have made me feel as I felt right now, hurt, angry, confused, and horribly powerless because this kind of hatred could not be explained. (AM 98)

By juxtaposing the soness and gentleness of Meena’s father’s face with the harshness and cruelty of racial hatred, Syal draws a powerful picture of the devastating effects of visible otherness on one side and human ignorance and racism on the other. Similarly devastating for Meena is Sam Lowbridge’s racist outburst at the village fair because it comes from a trusted friend. e event also speeds up Meena’s maturation process as she herself later admits: “In that one moment at the fete, Sam . . . had taken my innocence. ere was nothing in the world I could do to him that would have the same impact, that would affect him so deeply and for so long” (AM 227). us, as Graeme Dunphy concludes, “the experience of racism . . . jolts the young [protagonist] unceremoniously into the adult world.”¹¹ Other examples of racism Meena experiences are even more casual, yet disclosing how deeply imbedded racial prejudices are in Western culture. For example, Meena’s neighbors name their bla dog nigg*r, and in a paint shop a shade is labeled “nigg*r brown.” With good intentions, a neighbor says to Meena: “You are so lovely. You know, I never think of you as, you know, foreign. You’re just like one of us” (AM 29). Although meant as a positive compliment, the remark is a frustrating reminder of the aracter’s otherness, implying, at the same time, that “to be foreign is not to be likeable.”¹² However, the society’s aitude is anging and while there are the threatening Skinheads and Eno Powell’s hateful speees, the Kumars are well accepted and respected in the local community of Tollington, and the general reaction of the villagers

10. Meera Syal, Anita and Me (London: Flamingo, 1997), 97. Hereaer cited in text as AM. 11. Dunphy, “Meena’s Moingbird,” 646. 12. Dunphy, “Meena’s Moingbird,” 654.

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to Sam Lowbridge’s racial slurs and auvinistic exclamations is that of sho and disapproval.¹³ With the general aitude towards otherness anging, Meena also finds advantages in her bicultural situation. She can become aractive particularly for her difference. She can use her baground to draw aention to herself as when she is “telling a group of visiting kids in the park that [she] was a Punjabi princess and owned an elephant called Jason King” (notice the very non-Punjabi name of the animal), or when she told her classmates her family went to India for holidays and “stayed in mud huts and killed a tiger for breakfast” (AM 118). She can make up excuses, for example when she is “telling [her] teaer [she] hadn’t completed [her] homework because of an obscure religious festival involving fire eating” (AM 28), and she happily realizes that unlike other English ildren, she can celebrate “two Christmases” (AM 99). Multiculturalism works best at the level of popular culture and life style. As John Cawelti claims, popular culture particularly in the last decades made possible “mixing and overlapping of hitherto separate ethnic traditions.”¹⁴ e motif of mixing cultures reflects the multicultural and postmodern tendencies for inclusion, pastie (even in cultural terms), hybridizing, and heteronomy. “Recombinant lifestyles are becoming more the norm than the exception,” Cawelti concludes.¹⁵ ere are many instances of this mixing and recombination in novels, where they serve as important vehicles for identity formation. us Meena is trying to find out who she is and where she actually belongs culturally by trying out both parts of her heritage – that of her family of origin and that of the country in whi she grows up. At the novel’s opening, she is more concerned with being like her English peers from the yard. She longs for British food (or more accurately the global fast food type of meals), and her favorite music is not the Indian songs of her father but pop songs she knows from the radio, declaring thus her affinity with global pop culture rather than her ethic baground. In the novel, multiculturalism is also presented through language. While Meena’s parents try to speak English without any accent to prove the level of their assimilation (and education), Meena identifies with her surroundings by acquiring an English Midlands’ accent, to su a degree that “[s]he sings Punjabi with a Birmingham accent” (AM 114). e double-faceted nature of the ild protagonist’s identity complicates her growing up. us Meena, on one hand, wants to belong to her family and community, to be rooted there, accepted and loved. Yet, she feels different from most girls within her Indian community, who are “polite and sweet, and enjoy spending time with their family” (AM 148). At the same time, Meena wants to belong to the community of her peers, to be liked by them and to be like them, and she tries to model herself on her friend Anita. Meena

13. He expresses his disdain for supporting Missionary Project in Africa, because he does not want to give “everything away to some darkies we’ve never met.” He claims “this is our pat. Not some wogs’ handout” (AM 193). 14. Cawelti, “Popular Culture/Multiculturalism,” 14. 15. Cawelti, “Popular Culture/Multiculturalism,” 15.

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admits that at the age of eleven, her “life was outside the home, with Anita, [her] passport to acceptance” (AM 148). is would not be an entirely exceptional situation for ildren on the verge of puberty, but Meena’s situation is more complex because her body functions as racial signifier, limiting her options for self-identification. Meena is afraid that she is “a freak of some kind” because she is “too mouthy, clumsy and scabby to be a real Indian girl, too Indian to be a real Tollington wen” (AM 150). Meena describes her in-between-ness as “living in the grey area between all categories” (AM 150). While what sets her apart from the rest of her Indian community are her personal individual features of aracter and also language, what sets her apart from the rest of Tollington is simply her skin color, the external marker of her otherness. It is equally difficult for Meena to find role models. She does not want to follow the Indian ideal set within her family, she can never fully assimilate to become an English girl, nor does she find adequate models of British-Indians in the mainstream culture or the media. us Meena experiences what Amy Ling proposes: that ethnic women are living “between worlds, totally at home nowhere.”¹⁶ To have diversity or multi-culture at the core of one’s identity might not be perceived in strictly positive terms of enriment and opportunities for re-combinations. In fact, many postmodern ild protagonists perceive their formation as complicated by diversity and rather than embracing it, they oen face it as a need for an either-or oice. Meena’s quest for identity is a self-conscious juggling of possibilities offered by her Indian heritage and the culture in whi she is immersed. Meena makes use of her imagination to transcend the identity “split” or “division” of her binary “hyphenated” (i.e., British-Indian) aracter to constantly re-create or reinvent herself, confirming what Begoña Simal Gonzales states: “Hybrid or not, the postmodern subject is no longer unitary or consistent, but shiing.”¹⁷ e recombinations of diverse traditions are not merely a postmodern past time but a necessary way to self-identification and self-invention. As the Native American-GermanAmerican author Louise Erdri explains, unstable identities enable one “to pi and oose and keep and discard” cultural values at will, thus allowing one to survive in a world that is so rapidly anging.¹⁸ In this way, recombining is presented as a healthy survival tool in the postmodern multicultural society. Meena, who manages to combine and to claim both parts of her heritage finally realizes that she can be at home anywhere, that she is strong enough to be on her own, to become an adult. To conclude, in Anita and Me the ild protagonist is consciously situated into a multicultural seing. Combining elements of diverse cultures in one’s life and negotiating one’s identity that is no longer fixed but shiing and multifaceted, are aspects of the post-modern literary ildhood. e figure of a ild can function as a powerful vehicle for addressing pressing issues of personal, national, ethnic and “global” identity, issues 16. Amy Ling, Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 105. 17. Begoña Simal Gonzáles, “e (Re)birth of Mona Changowitz: Rituals and Ceremonies of Cultural Conversion and Self-Making in Mona in the Promised Land,” MELUS 26, no. 2 (Summer 2001), 227. 18. Qtd. in Joseph Bruac, Survival is Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1987), 79.

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of social acceptance and belonging, of racism and abuse and their effects, as well as of interpretation of history and the possibility (or even necessity) of transcending the conflicts, hatreds and tensions it had inflicted. By presenting examples of a ild’s personal coping with a double or multifaceted identity, the novel draws parallels to the larger process of the postmodern society’s coping with its diversity and multi-culture. Acknowledgement is paper is a result of the GA ČR project 405/07/0151 “Representation of Childhood in American Fiction” supported by the Cze Science Foundation. Works Cited Bruac, Joseph. Survival is Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1987. Cawelti, John G. “Popular Culture/Multiculturalism.” Journal of Popular Culture 30, no. 1 (Summer 1996): 3–19. Dunphy, Graeme. “Meena’s Moingbird: From Harper Lee to Meera Syal.” Neophilologus 88 (2004): 637–59. Glazer, Nathan. We Are All Multiculturalists Now. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. King, Wilma. Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Ling, Amy. Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Mintz, Steven. Hu’s Ra: A History of American Childhood. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004. Simal Gonzáles, Begoña. “e (Re)Birth of Mona Changowitz: Rituals and Ceremonies of Cultural Conversion and Self-Making in Mona in the Promised Land.” MELUS 26, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 225–42. Syal, Meera. Anita and Me. London: Flamingo, 1996.

How to Use a Bookworm: Michael Cart’s My Father’s Scar as a Crossover Novel Roman Trušník Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Mostní 5139, 760 01 Zlín, Cze Republic. Email: trusnik@s.utb.cz Abstract: is paper explores the contestable border between adult and young adult gay (male) fiction published in the United States since the late 1960s. Since the 1990s crossover novels have been published, and Miael Cart’s My Father’s Scar is an early example of this trend. What makes this novel acceptable both as an adult and young adult title is primarily its use of two alternating narrative lines and the bookworm narrator. Neither tenique is original, yet only in the 1990s did they become widely acceptable in gay young-adult fiction. Keywords: American literature; hom*osexuality; gay literature; coming out; young adult novels; crossover novels; Miael Cart

One of the significant features of literature for ildren and young adults is that it receives rather limited aention from literary solars. is is true in the field of gay literature as well, mu to its detriment. Paradoxically, the border between adult and young adult literature is constantly contested in the field of gay literature because of the central importance of the coming out process in the gay experience. While adolescence is generally recognized as a key period in the development of every person, in gays and lesbians this period is even more important, as during this time (here called coming out) they oen discover and come to terms with their different sexual orientation. A great majority of all gay literature reflects on this experience in one way or another. e vital importance of the coming out process for gays led some authors as well as critics to the expectation that gay literature should tend primarily to the needs of teenagers. A famous argument in this line of thought was presented by David Leavi in his introduction to the e Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories (1994), in whi he condemned novels su as Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance (1978) as unsuitable for teenagers.¹ Leavi’s criticism was, among many others, repudiated by David Bergman in e Violet Hour: e Violet ill and the Making of Gay Culture (2004). According to Bergman, Leavi requires literature to be a guide to young men going through their own coming out but this requirement is immature and shows a misunderstanding of the goals of gay literature. Bergman succinctly dismisses Leavi’s objections in the following words: “Criticizing Dancer from the Dance as unsuitable for those coming out is like damning James Joyce’s Ulysses as a terrible guidebook for the Dublin tourist.”² 1. See David Leavi, “Introduction,” in e Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories, ed. David Leavi and Mark Mitell (New York: Viking, 1994), xix. 2. David Bergman, e Violet Hour: e Violet ill and the Making of Gay Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 23.

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Young adult literature is certainly mu more suitable for fulfilling su a didactic function. Yet, it should be remembered that the cultural significance of the coming-of-age process has anged throughout the ages, and so has its portrayal in literature.³ Miael Cart and Christine A. Jenkins define young adult literature as “books that are published for readers age twelve to eighteen, have a young adult protagonist, are told from a young adult perspective, and feature coming-of-age or other issues and concerns of interest to YAs.”⁴ According to Cart, American “young adult literature” emerged aer the Civil War as a category of books aimed at readers who are no longer ildren and are not yet adults; he, for example, considers Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy Mar “America’s first ‘official’ young adults,” making Louise May Alco’s Lile Women (1868) the first young adult title.⁵ While some fiction for young adults has appeared since then, a greater production of books geared towards teenage readers was initiated by librarians in the late 1960s. e first young adult title dealing with hom*osexuality, John Donovan’s I’ll Get ere, It Beer Be Worth the Trip, appeared in 1969. e key element whi makes the category of YA fiction so susceptible to allenges is that, according to this definition, it should be published for teenagers, i.e., a decision to publish a particular work as an adult or young-adult title is oen based on the marketing strategies of the publisher. e border has been uncertain historically as well: for example, J. D. Salinger’s e Cater in the Rye (1951) was published as an adult title, yet it was adopted by many young people, and some critics believe that nowadays the novel would be most likely published as a young-adult rather than adult title.⁶ Although the border between young adult and adult titles had been fluid for some time, it was only in the 1990s that this fluidity was openly anowledged and crossover titles started to emerge. According to Cart and Jenkins, these books were called crossover because “they crossed over the traditional boundary that had separated YA and adult readerships.” Aempts have been made since the 1990s “to expand the retail market for YA books by publishing titles that appeal to readers as old as twenty-four and twenty five.”⁷ An early example of this trend is Miael Cart’s My Father’s Scar (1996), whi was first published as a YA title in the Simon & Suster Books for Young Readers series, only to be reprinted two years later as an adult title by St. Martin’s Press.

3. For a succinct overview of the development of literature for ildren and adolescents, see, e.g., Šárka Bubíková, “Concepts and Experiences of Childhood,” in Literary Childhoods: Growing Up in British and American Literature, ed. Šárka Bubíková (Červený Kostelec: Pavel Mervart; Pardubice: Univerzita Pardubice, 2008), 11–26. 4. Miael Cart and Christine A. Jenkins, e Heart Has Its Reasons: Young Adult Literature with Gay/Lesbian/eer Content, 1969–2004 (Lanhan, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006), 1. 5. See Miael Cart, From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 4. 6. See Cart and Jenkins, e Heart Has Its Reasons, 6. 7. Cart and Jenkins, e Heart Has Its Reasons, 129.

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As a crossover title, the novel has to fit both the criteria for a young-adult and adult title.⁸ It certainly fits all the criteria for YA fiction: the first edition was published for teenagers by Simon & Suster Books for Young Readers, the protagonist, Andy Logan, is both a teenager and the narrator, whi ensures the young-adult perspective, and indeed, Andy’s coming of age is one of the major themes of the book. As an adult title, the novel was published by St. Martin’s Press in its Stonewall Inn series. is series focused on books of gay and lesbian interest in the broadest sense of the word and in addition to the titles that were published in the series in the first edition, it also included reprints of titles originally published elsewhere. For this reason it includes a broad and diverse spectrum of titles ranging from Edmund White’s sophisticated Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978) to titles that would, on the other hand, easily pass as young-adult titles if they were marked so, su as John Fox’s e Boys on the Ro (1984) and Larry Duplean’s Blabird (1986). Indeed, the distinction between a YA and an adult title is made by the publisher, and books published by St. Martin’s Press are marketed by the publisher and catalogued by libraries as adult titles. As St. Martin’s Press is a trade publisher, before oosing My Father’s Scar for reprint in the Stonewall Inn series it had to believe that the title would be marketable as an adult title, or, from a literary perspective, acceptable as an adult book.⁹ And, the novel indeed significantly surpasses the average level of YA novels. Two elements primarily mark the relative complexity of Cart’s novel: its treatment of time and its narrator/protagonist. In its treatment of time, the novel goes beyond the level of complexity common among other titles in the mid-1990s by its temporal ordering – in this case, by including two narrative lines and switing between them. e main narrative line presents the story of Andy Logan as a college freshman who, aer excelling at a literature lecture, is seduced by Professor Hawthorne, a descendant of Nathaniel Hawthorne himself. Only aer his encounter with the narcissist professor does Andy fall for the professor’s teaing assistant, Sasa Stevenson. is narrative line is interrupted by a series of flashbas that focus on the formative evens in Andy’s life up to the present: his love for his Uncle Charles, a former poet laureate of the state, who instilled in Andy his passion for books. Moreover, while Uncle Charles was a baelor, he had a special friend, Mr. Biddle (the nature of their relationship is suggested, yet never revealed). Andy’s encounters with a group of bullies are described. Ironically, Andy falls in love with a brother of one of them, and they co-air a ur pageant, until Evan comes out as a hom*osexual in the ur and is excommunicated. Moreover, Andy then has sexual relations with Billy, a former bully, whom he tutors so that he does not have to leave the football team. e seemingly episodic nature of the flashbas is used to aracterize the protagonist and, indeed, the believability of the narrator is another central issue in the novel. e novel 8. For an aempt to summarize the formal criteria of young-adult literature in the context of gay fiction, see Roman Trušník, “Young Adult Novel: e Bane of American Gay Fiction?” Ostrava Journal of English Philology 1 (2009): 167–73. 9. is logic applies to a 1996 text; with the development of the crossover titles in recent years, more conscious aention has been paid to the positioning in the market not only by publishers, but also by authors.

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is narrated in the first person by the protagonist, and in this narrative situation a certain connection between the mental level, language use, and the aracter of the narrator is expected. Some well-known failures are known in gay literature for adults, e.g., in Miael Cunningham’s treatment of one of the narrators, Bobby, in A Home at the End of the World (1990). In this case, Reed Woodhouse pointed out the incongruity of a half-wit aracter thinking in abstract terms and using complex vocabulary.¹⁰ is danger is artfully avoided by Cart, though, when he makes his protagonist narrator a bookworm, i.e., a well-read person, moreover, a first-year college student who spends his days studying and running. Considering its publication history, My Father’s Scar was primarily wrien for the young-adult, i.e., teenage market. Even though an early-collegeage narrator is not unusual in YA fiction, it is also well balanced here by the line of flashbas covering the age of ten up to the present, whi makes the age of the protagonist closer to that of the intended audience. Making Andy a bookworm also helps to bridge the distance from whi Andy contemplates his early teens because it is possible for him to think about this period analytically with a certain emotional detament. He thus clearly realizes that his relationship with Billy was doomed simply by the vast intellectual gap between a bookworm and a jo. However, to make this believable, Andy’s erudition and his intellectual superiority are hinted at repeatedly throughout the novel when he quotes from Shakespeare, Webster, Walter Sco, or translates from Latin. is is supported by the oice of seing: the university, mostly its lecture halls, library, or for a ange, its tra field. While these features contribute considerably to accepting the novel as a crossover title, it is interesting to note that Cart’s narrative strategies are not entirely original in the context of young-adult fiction, not to mention fiction for adults. In YA fiction, the British author David Rees used a complex narrative tenique in his novel In the Tent (1979), whi is made of two parallel stories, one contemporary one, the other one set in 1646. Paradoxically, Cart and Jenkins believe that this complexity was one of the reasons of the failure of the novel on the American market.¹¹ e use of bookworms (or highly intelligent narrators) had also been previously seen in gay novels hovering between young-adult and adult fiction. For example, the narrator of Larry Duplean’s Blabird is also a literate high-sool/college student who not only knows his Shakespeare but also writes sool projects on a gay classic, Mart Crowley’s play e Boys in the Band (1968). Miael Cart’s My Father’s Scar is undoubtedly a very successful novel, both in the field of young-adult literature and gay literature for adults. e narrative strategies the author uses are not original, though; they had been used earlier in novels that nowadays would be comparable with Cart’s novel but in the 1970s and 1980s were uncommon or unsuccessful in young-adult titles. is testifies to the growing complexity of young-adult 10. See Reed Woodhouse, Unlimited Embrace: A Canon of Gay Fiction, 1945–1995 (Amherst: University of Massauses Press, 1998), 180. 11. See Cart and Jenkins, e Heart Has Its Reasons, 34.

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fiction in the form of crossover novels in the 1990s, and at the same time it serves as a reminder for literary historians of the turbulent developments and the need to consider with unusual precision the period in whi a young-adult/crossover novel was published. Acknowledgement is paper is a result of the GA ČR project 405/09/P357 “Faces of American Gay Novel Aer 1945” supported by the Cze Science Foundation. Works Cited Bergman, David. e Violet Hour: e Violet ill and the Making of Gay Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Bubíková, Šárka. “Concepts and Experiences of Childhood.” In Literary Childhoods: Growing Up in British and American Literature, ed. Šárka Bubíková, 11–26. Červený Kostelec: Pavel Mervart; Pardubice: Univerzita Pardubice, 2008. Cart, Miael. From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Cart, Miael. My Father’s Scar. 1996. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Cart, Miael, and Christine A. Jenkins. e Heart Has Its Reasons: Young Adult Literature with Gay/Lesbian/eer Content, 1969–2004. Lanhan, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006. Duplean, Larry. Blabird. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Fox, John. e Boys on the Ro. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. Leavi, David. “Introduction.” In e Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories, edited by David Leavi and Mark Mitell, xv–xxviii. New York: Viking, 1994. Trušník, Roman. “Young Adult Novel: e Bane of American Gay Fiction?” Ostrava Journal of English Philology 1 (2009): 167–73. Woodhouse, Reed. Unlimited Embrace: A Canon of Gay Fiction, 1945–1995. Amherst: University of Massauses Press, 1998.

“You are safe from me”: Satirical Targets in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Ema Jelínková Department of English and American Studies, Philosophical Faculty, Palaý University, Křížkovského 10, 771 80 Olomouc, Cze Republic. Email: [emailprotected] Abstract: is paper arts Jane Austen’s satire as it is interwoven into the text of Pride and Prejudice. Austen made a plot out of criticizing society’s aitude towards money. In early nineteenth century England, a woman needed dowry to aract a man, a fact whi helped the upper or upper middle classes to maintain their social superiority. Women who did not have financial support or a nest egg found themselves in a very precarious position – they either had to accept anyone who came along or live off the generosity of their male relatives. However, Austen made a point of portraying men who are themselves used. In fact, at some point, everyone in Austen’s world becomes a victim of a mercenary society manipulating people into roles. A lady in Austen’s position had to be careful about seeming to criticize one of the pillars of a society on whi she was dependent. Satire therefore appears in the subtext, hidden yet approaable to anyone careful enough to read the novel closely, following Austen’s clues. is paper deals with those clues appearing on the very first page of Pride and Prejudice. Keywords: Jane Austen; Pride and Prejudice; satire; irony; feminism; social criticism

Jane Austen’s aitude towards her own fiction was always subject to scrutiny; the first of the host of critics being her own nephew and biographer, James Edward Austen-Leigh. is is a section of what he published about his already dead – and therefore silent – aunt: Neither the hope of fame nor profit mixed in her early motives. . . . She could scarcely believe what she termed her great good fortune when Sense and Sensibility produced a clear profit of about £ 150. Few so gied were so truly unpretending. She regarded the above sum as a prodigious recompense for that whi had cost her nothing. . . . So mu did she shrink from notoriety, that no accumulation of fame would have introduced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen. . . . In public she turned away from any allusion to the aracter of an authoress.¹

Needless to say, the passage conveys nothing about Austen’s view of writing successful books while being paid for the pleasure of writing them – it merely reflects Austen-Leigh’s opinion of what would have been desirable for Miss Austen to have felt. It also implies the qualities expected from ladies of her rank (su as domesticity, propriety, modesty, la of financial motivation). In short, he has drawn a pleasing Victorian portrait of a leisured lady rather than published a remotely truthful account of a novelist’s life. “You are safe from me,” said an Austen aracter in her writer’s stead.² Likewise, Austen-Leigh seemingly believed that the death of his aunt le him safe to spin his own 1. is part of James Edward Austen-Leigh’s memoir is cited in e Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, ed. Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 12. It was published long aer the death of Jane and even Cassandra – whi means nobody could object to its publication. 2. Elizabeth to Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813; London: Penguin, 1992), 33. Hereaer cited in text as PP.

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fiction about her. Should Austen-Leigh’s work be influential enough, people might read her books through his lens. Austen-Leigh, as Jane Austen’s first biographer, apparently feared the notion of his Aunt Jane going down in the canon of English literature as an eccentric, ironic, profound writer interested in her bank account and public fame.³ For this reason, he may have tried to pigeonhole Austen as a “lady writer” just like many others, an authoress of romantic fiction for gentle readership. Yet, the silenced woman strikes ba. “You are safe from me” is an assurance of an ironist who is to lull others into slumber of safety while sharpening her tools. Pride and Prejudice, the work whi contains the above mentioned quote, is the most beloved work by Jane Austen; never going out of print, always spawning a myriad of adaptations, parodies and spin-offs. One of the reasons for its popularity is the fact that it tells an aretypal story – the one of Cinderella finding her Prince Charming and him recognizing his perfect mat in the girl. e confusion here is not about a different shoe size but different – and wrong – opinion one has of the other. Darcy snubbs Elizabeth by saying that she is not prey enough and ignoring her at the first ball; she hurts him in return later by refusing his love on moral grounds – she thinks he is the worst man she knows because of her sister Jane’s misery and her admirer Wiham’s accusations. But it is not only misunderstandings that shape the lives of Austen aracters; there are other forces at work. As most Jane Austen modern-day readers are aware, young ladies in the Victorian era depended on their husbands; if they did not marry, it was their father or brothers who had to provide for them. If the male relatives failed to do so, women in the family suffered a terrible social downfall because their education did not prepare them to take up any profession. As a result, gentle and poor young ladies in Regency England were pitiful creatures of few prospects. Only the luiest ones could marry the man of their oice; the rest married for economic reasons. If they did not marry at all, they lived dependent and mostly unhappy lives as “spinsters.” Jane Austen’s family were respectable, well-connected, but not well-off, members of gentility with far too many ildren to raise. Jane and her elder sister Cassandra – both poor and not quite beautiful – were the most vulnerable of them all since their social status of ladies defined what they were and were not allowed to do. eir brothers could oose a profession and earn their living, but young women were trapped by circ*mstances since “ladies” were not supposed to contribute to the family income. Robert Irvine points out that the lady “remained defined by her ability to provide her husband with male heirs, and to display his wealth and power to others on public occasions through her own beauty and the expense of the clothes and jewellry that he can afford to dress her in.”⁴ Austen could not shape her life, but she could influence the life she gave to her aracters. She did not write anything directly autobiographic, but her inner life and opinions get mirrored in her aracters. 3. Austen’s Emma is dedicated to the Prince Regent. Su a dedication was made on request only, and it serves as proof that Austen was very mu interested in advertising herself. 4. Robert P. Irvine, Jane Austen (Oxon: Routledge, 2005), 10.

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Jane Austen’s aracters find themselves on something that was termed “the marriage market.” We may think of the market in terms of shopping – it is the man who ooses the best-looking “apple” on display, points to it and buys it. Young ladies – apples – are passive objects waiting for a potential customer. is is, for instance, the aitude of Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet’s heir, who comes to oose a bride, not prepared to take “no” as a real answer, because he has a right to oose, and the woman should be thankful for his aention. ere is a lot of emotional blamail going on, because Elizabeth would not accept a detestable man, not even to save her position in the society. e business of finding a wife for Mr. Collins – presided over by the wry, sharp and ironic author – serves as one of many eye openers for anybody trying to mistake this novel for a romantic work by a genteel lady. What is more, Dorothy Van Ghent suggests that not only girls, but all people within Austen’s fictional (yet far too real) world are victims of the society and its rules. She asks the readers to concentrate on the opening paragraph of the book because it contains important clues: “It is a truth universally anowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife” (PP 7). Van Ghent also suggests that this sentence should be read in a radically new way: What we read in it is the opposite – a single woman must be in want of a man with good fortune – and once we are inducted into the Austen language, the ironical Austen aa, and the energy peculiar to an Austen novel, that arises from the compression between a barbaric surface material warfare and a surface of polite manners and civilized conventions. Marriage – that adult initiatory rite that is centrally important in most societies, whether barbarous or advanced – is the uppermost concern. e tale is that of a man hunt, with the female the pursuer and the male shy and elusive prey. e despertion of the hunt is the desperation of economic survival; girls in a family like that of the Bennets must succeed in running down solvent young men in order to survive.⁵

No wonder Elizabeth is dissatisfied, and she rebels against her prescribed role of either a mere apple on display or even worse, a female hunter, trying to impress a man ri enough to take care of her financial needs. Society, however, turns Darcy into a rebel as well, because he finds himself trapped by circ*mstances as mu as Elizabeth does. e opening page of the novel makes the following statement about society’s aitude to single ri men coming to the neighbourhood and the already mentioned “truth anowledged”: However lile known to the feelings or views of su a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. (PP 7)

It is not difficult to understand that high valuation of property is so dominant in this culture that the word “property” becomes a metaphor for the young man himself – the man finds himself also turned into a passive carrier of desirability for the opposite sex. ese ironic outbursts, lile narrative rebellions, are not confined to the first page only; they tend to form an undercurrent or even a counter-narrative that subverts the official (superficial) version of any Jane Austen story. And it is a truth universally anowledged among academics that irony serves as a portal in the fabric of su “flawed” narrative. One 5. Dorothy Van Ghent, e English Novel: Form and Function (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1953), 101.

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might suggest that these “slips” are merely a maer of cating the great narrator off her guard. However, this opinion is swamped by further evidence. Jane Austen giving in to romance blindly and unconditionally would indeed constitute a major “slip”! e existence of prevalent hostility and cynicism within her Juvenilia, the immediate predecessors of her fiction intended for publication, is far too obvious to be open to doubt. However, a capacity for demonstrative frankness could hardly be considered an enhancement to a Regency lady’s personal arms (should she ever become a published author) and Austen, given her upbringing and status, never vied for the vacant position of the “hyena in peicoats”⁶ – another Mary Wollstonecra. Darcy is a obviously a proud man who does not want to be seen as a mere carrier of ten thousand pounds a year (whi is the only piece of information generally known about him) but as a human being – a very special, admirable human being in fact. at is why he uses impoliteness as a shield to protect himself from women. If he dissapoints the potential female hunters from the start, they will leave him alone. is strategy works well – the problem is his proud remark insults his only perfect mat – a woman who was not a hunter; a woman whose qualities made him fall in love very soon. Darcy and Elizabeth are very mu alike; they could have been ideal allies from the start. But they must learn their lesson first. Clearly they have both become victims of first, the society that manipulates people into roles, and second, of their hurt pride. e turning point of the novel has a lot to do with Elizabeth and Darcy discovering not only the fact they are in love with the other, but with realizing the other one is a good, admirable person, unspoilt by the society around them. e conventional happy ending itself, however, cannot make up for atrocities “commied” on the way to it. Aentive readers shudder and wince at the thought of the world Jane Austen inhabited and to whi she testified. It is a place that leaves a nie for detestable people and very quiet rebellions. Unless you are the master and mistress of Pemberley, whose class status raised them above harm’s rea from a society of creatures with sharpened claws beneath their white gloves, you will never know freedom. Acknowledgement Resear for this paper was done within the Resear Plan “Plurality of Culture and Democracy” MSM6198959211, a grant project supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Cze Republic. Works Cited Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. 1813. London: Penguin, 1992. Copeland, Edward, and Juliet McMaster, eds. e Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Irvine, Robert P. Jane Austen. Oxon: Routledge, 2005. Van Ghent, Dorothy. e English Novel: Form and Function. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1953. 6. A proper lady would never admit to admiring Wollstonecra’s views as she was considered an immoral person, partly due to her openness. See Irvine, Jane Austen, 35.

Cultural Approach Applied to the Analysis of Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend Ľubica Brenkusová Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Tajovského 40, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic. Email: brenkusova.lubica@v.umb.sk

Abstract: is paper aempts to point out the usefulness of interpretational approaes in helping students understand the most relevant features of a particular work of fiction. e novel e Lile Friend by Donna Tar has been osen to demonstrate how a cultural approa can be helpful in identifying elements that make the novel a part of the body of southern literature. Keywords: American literature; southern literature; critical approaes to literature; cultural studies; Donna Tar; e Lile Friend

To Interpret or Not to Interpret? Various approaes to the interpretation of a literary work and the relevance of literary interpretation itself have always been the subject of solarly discussions. Literary theory offers several types of classifications of approaes to interpretation. However, there is also a group of solars who declare that there is no su thing as the need for interpretation. Among them is the American writer, essayist, literary theorist, photographer, and political activist, Susan Sontag. In her essay “Against Interpretation” (1964) Sontag declared: e old style of interpretation was insistent, but respectful; it erected another meaning on top of the literal one. e modern style of interpretation excavates, and as it excavates, destroys; it digs “behind” the text, to find a sub-text whi is the true one. . . . Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. . . . To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow of “meanings.”¹

It is true that the interpretation of literary works is oen superabundant and can easily shi into misinterpretation or into subjective play with symbols and meanings that had never been the author’s intention; on the other hand, as teaers oen experience, without equipping students with hints regarding the interpretation of a particular literary work, they are oen lost and unable to identify features and structures that make the literary work great. e aim of this paper is to show how the application of a particular interpretational approa can be helpful in identifying the key thematic compositional principles that Donna Tar employed in her second novel, e Lile Friend (2002).

1. Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation,” in Against Interpretation and Other Essays (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1964), 6–7.

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Critical Approaches to Interpreting Works of Fiction Comprehensive overviews of critical approaes to literary works are readily provided by college handbooks. One of the most popular ones, Wilfred Guerin’s A Handbook of Critical Approaes to Literature (5th ed., 2005), identifies seven basic approaes to the interpretation of a literary work: 1) the historical-biographical approa, whi sees a literary work mainly as a reflection of its author’s life or the life and times of the aracters in the work; 2) the moral-philosophical approa, whi views literature as a means of teaing morality and probing philosophical issues (Plato – emphasis on moralism and utilitarianism; Horace – literature must be delightful and instructive); 3) the formal approa, whi focuses on the words of the text and all their connotative and denotative values and implications; it emphasizes awareness of multiple meanings, and even the etymologies of words and the analysis of all means that contribute to the uniqueness of the work; 4) the psyological approa, one of the most controversial; it is mainly associated with the psyoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud; 5) the mythological approa, whi deals with the relationship of literary art to some “deep ord” in human nature and universal symbols (aretypes); it is closely connected with the psyological approa; however, while psyology tends to be experimental and diagnostic, mythology tends to be speculative and philosophical; 6) the feminist and gender studies approa, whi reflects concern with the silencing and marginalization of women in a patriaral culture; this is oen a political approa; 7) the cultural approa, whi examines interrelationships among race, gender, popular culture, the media and literature and questions cultural conventions, both historical and contemporary; it focuses on those social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and alienation. Applying the Cultural Approach to Donna Tartt’s Fiction Since the story of Donna Tar’s e Lile Friend (2002) takes place in the American South, where, according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the issue of race is still a critical feature, full of contradictions and ambiguities, while also being the greatest force of social conflict and the riest source of cultural development in America,² the cultural approa is likely the most relevant approa for the purposes of analyzing Tar’s novel. Distinctive features of the American South are depicted in the works of Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, Harper Lee, and the works of younger representatives of the region – Ri Bragg and Donna Tar³; this paper, however, 2. See Wilfred L. Guerin et al., A Handbook of Critical Approaes to Literature, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 288. 3. See Ľubica Brenkusová, “Donna Tar in the Context of Southern Literary Tradition in American Literature,” (PhDr. thesis, Matej Bel University, 2004).

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focuses on Southern aracteristics demonstrated in excerpts of Tar’s e Lile Friend. Besides race as one of the most dominant problems reflected in southern literature, Tar’s work treats other phenomena typical for southern culture – the importance of religion and spirituality, family heritage, and the problems of poverty and violence.⁴ Donna Tar was born in 1963 in Greenwood, Mississippi. In her list of authors to wat in the twenty-first century, Laura Miller, critic and book reviewer contributing to prominent American magazines, placed Tar among the ten authors she believed had the potential to stir the literary waters.⁵ Tar was thirty-seven at the time and was mu celebrated for her first novel, e Secret History (1992). Her second novel, e Lile Friend, seems to have affirmed her reputation as one of the most talented American authors of the twenty-first century. In her reflection on Donna Tar entitled, A Talent to Tantalise (2002) Katherine Viner speaks of Tar as of “one of the most mythologized novelists of modern times, weird and reclusive and very mu a Writer.”⁶ Aer the release of e Secret History, Donna Tar ose to live in seclusion and let a decade pass before she published her second novel. Even though Tar repeatedly refused to be labelled as a southern author, e Lile Friend is an apparent aempt to write a piece of southern gothic fiction in the tradition of her regional compatriots, William Faulkner and Eudora Welty. While most of the literary critics agree that Tar made great use of the fundamental elements of this particular genre, there are also those who criticize her for failing to harness the region’s dark power. Sara Galvan accuses Tar of borrowing aracters from more worthy southern writers, even though she “publicly declines the ‘southern’ mantle.”⁷ e story of e Lile Friend begins to unwind on Mother’s Day when Charloe Cleve Dufresnes discovers the body of her only son, Robin, hanging by the ne from a rope tied to a bran of the tupelo tree in the family’s bayard. e event, whi is described in the novel’s prologue, actually happens twelve years before the novel begins. However, it is the central image of the novel, as the mysterious murder affects everyone in the family. Robin’s murderer is never found and the Cleves, representatives of the declining southern aristocracy, never successfully recover from the sho. e father of the family moves to Tennessee, where he starts a new life with a mistress. e mother, a fragile southern belle, loses interest in the world around her and dris through her days buried in grief and suffering from constant headaes. us the upbringing of Harriet and Allison, her older sister, is delegated to Charloe’s energetic mother, Edith, and her sisters, Libby, Ta, and Adelaide. Harriet is the main protagonist of the novel. Besides books and an eleven year-old neighbor named Hely, Harriet has no friends. Inspired by a teaer in the Baptist Sunday sool whi Harriet is forced to aend who teaes ildren about the importance of 4. See Hana Ulmanová, “American Southern Literature,” in Lectures on American Literature, by Martin Proázka et al. (Praha: Karolinum, 2002), 225–37. 5. See Laura Miller and Adam Begley, eds., e Salon.com Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Authors (New York: Penguin, 2000), 168. 6. Katharine Viner, “A Talent to Tantalise,” Guardian, October 19, 2002, 20. 7. Sara Galvan, “Donna Tar’s Confused Lile Friend,” Oxonian Review of Books, no. 2 (2005), hp://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/2-3/2-3-5.htm.

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having a plan in life, Harriet resolves to find the murderer of her brother and kill him. us she gets involved with the Ratliff family, the representatives of “white trash,” because she suspects one of them of being her brother’s murderer. roughout the novel Tar reveals the grimness of the southern town and its aracters. e following excerpts unveil the thematic compositional elements that Tar uses to portray the 20th-century South – a region that has anged dramatically yet is still unable to let go of its “lost cause” mythology. 1. Racism e parallel existence of the “peculiar institution” of slavery on the one hand and deeply rooted religion and its reflection in everyday spirituality on the other is probably one of the most difficult ambiguities to comprehend about the South. e South’s racial practices have for years been the subject of criticism. As Griffin and Doyle articulated it, “Race is but the most poignant expression of how the South as an American problem became formulated and reformulated almost with ea new generation.”⁸ In e Lile Friend, the tendency to perceive the blas’ “otherness” is most explicit in the Cleves’ interaction with Ida Rhew. When Harriet’s mother resolves to disarge Ida, Harriet and Allison seem to be the only persons who realize how unfair it is. When Harriet tries to make her aunts be advocates for Ida, she meets with opposition. “I know you love Ida, sweetheart, but I think your grandmother may need to have a lile talk with her. Ida hasn’t done anything wrong, it’s just that colored people have different ideas – oh, Harriet. Please,” said Tay, wringing her hands. “No. Please don’t start with that again.”⁹

2. Religion and Spirituality Everyday spirituality was inherent in all the aempts to provide an authentic portrayal of the South. Evangelicalism, whi developed in the eighteenth-century South as the religion of protest by the lower class, had by the second half of the nineteenth century become the mainstream religion. “Religion . . . claimed to hold the ultimate truth and the key to eternal life; to reject it was to reject the Southerner’s only explanation of the meaning of the universe and humankinds’ place within it.”¹⁰ Besides aending Sunday sool, Harriet from e Lile Friend is also required to aend the camps organized by the ur, whi she strongly despises. Historically in the South, ur camps were a significant part of ur life, a time of reunion and strengthening of loyalty to the ur and local community of believers. Tar somewhat ironically describes the Baptists’ earnest effort to bring ildren to Christ during these camps. 8. Larry J. Griffin and Don H. Doyle, eds., e South as an American Problem (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 6. 9. Donna Tar, e Lile Friend (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 227. Hereaer cited in text as LF. 10. Ted Ownby, Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 15.

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Camp Lake de Shelby was Hely’s – and Harriet’s – greatest terror. It was a Christian ildren’s camp they both had been forced to aend the summer before. Boys and girls (segregated on opposite sides of the lake) were compelled to spend four hours a day in Bible study and the rest of the time braiding lanyards and acting in sappy humiliating skits the counselors had wrien. (LF 52)

3. Family Heritage e family is a good baground against whi authors can portray their perception of the South, and thus the way the authors treat the family oen reflects their treatment of the whole South. e image of a modern southern family that Tar provides is rather unflaering. On the one hand, the Cleves are a prominent family with a long family history, and on the other, they represent the omnipresent image of the fading gentility of the South. ey take pride in their long family history yet their present lifestyle is far from the shining glory of the past. e Cleves, like most of the old families in Mississippi, had once been rier then they were. As with vanished Pompeii, only traces of these ries remained, and they liked to tell, among themselves, stories of their lost fortune. . . . Judge Cleve had come badly out of the crash of ’29; and he had made, in his senility, some disastrous investments. . . . So the big house, whi had been in the Cleve family since it was built, in 1809, had to be sold in a hurry to pay off the Judge’s debts. (LF 37)

4. Poverty For years, economic bawardness and poverty were phenomena that led to the perception of the South as an economically depressed area. e economic revival of the South did not take place until aer World War II. e poorest of working-class whites are a wellestablished subject of moery and degradation in southern literature. ey have been described as lazy, simple-minded, and oen violent. Even today this class of people is referred to as “white trash.” Grandmother Gum is the family matriar of the white-trash Ratliff family. Danny Ratliff, the person whom Harriet resolves to murder (believing that he is the murderer of her brother) secretly hates his grandmother and accuses her of instilling low self-esteem and low expectations in his and his brothers’ world outlook. “It’s good you don’t expect mu, Danny, because you won’t be disappointed.” It was the main lesson in life she had drilled into her grandsons: not to expect mu from the world. e world was a mean place, dog eat dog (to quote another of her favorite sayings). If any of her boys expected too mu, or rose above themselves, they would get their hopes knoed down and broken. (LF 319)

5. Violence Violence has long been one of the most striking images of the South. e two contradicting images of a southerner – especially male – are the image of a fighter and that of a deeply religious person. e tension between the two of these creates mu of the distinctiveness of the region. e most oen used defense of personal honor, whi was one of the highest values of the Old South society, was a duel, code duello. Besides duels there were more cruel forms of dealing with unresolved issues. ese were, however, mostly connected with

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lower-class society – the feuds, lynings, and arivari. In e Lile Friend, the violence of the white trash is addressed through the Ratliff family. Farish, the oldest brother is the cruelest of all the brothers and yet, paradoxically, his grandmother’s darling. Farish, with absolutely no expression in his face, reaed into his hip poet and retrieved a large bla wallet aaed by a ain to a belt loop of his coveralls. . . . “at’s a lot of cash, my friend,” said Odum. “Friend?” Farish laughed harshly. “I only got two best friends.” He held up the wallet – still thi with bills – for inspection. “See this? is here is my first friend, and he’s always right here in my hip poet. I got me a second best friend that stays with me too. And that friend is a .22 pistol.” (LF 205)

It is important to point out that in her own peculiar way Tar allenges some aretypal perceptions of the five phenomena generally identified as southern. is is best seen in her approa to portraying the impact of religion in the South and her approa to portray the South’s violence. As a representative of the contemporary generation of southern authors she shis from exploring the theme of slavery and its devastating impact on the conscience of white southerners and rather employs herself with emphasizing the ridicule of religion void of its divine origin – God’s grace shown in his desire to redeem fallen humanity. In comparison to the subtle irony of Faulkner or Welty, Tar is mu more explicitly ridiculing of the nominal Christians in e Lile Friend, particularly Baptists. e perception of violence is another peculiarity in Tar’s fiction. Instead of a traditional approa to the theme – confining the element of violence to racial tensions or to the behavior of the lower-class poor whites – Tar scrutinizes violence creating a middle-class ild aracter whose violence is at first implicit and hidden but later transcends the subliminal world and eventually results in aempted murder. Even though e Lile Friend is Tar’s only novel situated in the South, and it is not known whether she will ever publish another southern novel, from the very first page to the last the novel meets all the criteria of southern fiction, and being set in the 1970s, it provides readers with a picture of the dramatically developing and anged South of the twentieth century. is brief analysis based on aracteristics that are typical of southern culture has proved the adequacy of using the cultural approa for the interpretation of this particular novel and its usefulness in helping students understand the uniqueness of literature of the American South. Works Cited Brenkusová, Ľubica. “Donna Tar in the Context of Southern Literary Tradition in American Literature.” PhDr. thesis, Matej Bel University, 2004. Galvan, Sara. “Donna Tar’s Confused Lile Friend.” Oxonian Review of Books, no. 2 (2005), hp://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/2-3/2-3-5.htm. Griffin, Larry J., and Don H. Doyle, eds. e South as an American Problem. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995. Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaes to Literature. 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Miller, Laura, and Adam Begley, eds. e Salon.com Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Authors. New York: Penguin, 2000. Ownby, Ted. Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865–1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Sontag, Susan. “Against Interpretation.” In Against Interpretation and Other Essays, 3–14. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1964. Tar, Donna. e Lile Friend. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. Ulmanová, Hana. “American Southern Literature.” In Lectures on American Literature, by Martin Proázka, Justin inn, Hana Ulmanová and Erik S. Roraba, 225–37. Praha: Karolinum, 2002. Viner, Katharine. “A Talent to Tantalise.” Guardian, October 19, 2002.

“Lessening Englishness”: Traditional Values at the Beginning of a New Millenium Jana Javorčíková Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Tajovského 51, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic. Email: javorcikova@v.umb.sk Abstract: Whenever the increasingly vague, yet still frequently used term of “Englishness” is being discussed, not only monarism, patriotism, royalism and conservatism, but also tea at five, pet-loving and perhaps bowler hats might be immediate associations for many people. However, many of these values, traditions and viewpoints, su as the proverbial “British” conservativism and patriotism in the context of a new multicultural shaping of British society, prove to be irrelevant or dated at the beginning of the 21st century. is paper discusses the relevance of traditional British/English values and symbols as seen by three present-day writers and experts in cultural studies. Keywords: Britishness; monarism; patriotism; royalism; conservatism; values

Some countries have very clear, easily definable identities, and their aracteristic traits evoke an extensive set of associations in the minds of many. e Americans, for example, are oen and without mu hesitation aracterized as “optimistic, outgoing, friendly, informal, loud, rude, boastful, immature, naive, hardworking, aggressive, judgmental, moralistic, superficial, extravagant, wasteful, confident they have all the answers, politically naive and/or uninformed, ignorant of other countries, disrespectful of authority, wealthy, materialistic, generous, impatient, always in a hurry.”¹ Some other countries’ inhabitants are also associated with certain aracter traits– the Fren, for example, are oen aracterized as “artistic lovers” or the Germans as the “meticulous and pedantic.” On the other hand, some countries – say, Canada, or Slovakia, struggle mu harder to define their identities in a concise manner. Among many reasons that might account for this fact, some stand out – both Slovakia and Canada have a relatively short history (just over one hundred years ea) as sovereign nations, both have been overshadowed by a larger, beer-developed neighbour (the USA and the Cze Republic respectively) whi, especially in Canada has arguably resulted in a national “inferiority complex.”² Neither of them has been involved in any great pan-national major war occurring on their territory (except for the partial involvement of Slovakia in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, and the Riel Rebellions in 1869 and 1885 in Canada) that could help the nation to unite. Identity-wise, today, Great Britain stands somewhere in the middle of the road. Not su a long time ago it was easy to define its received traditional values, whi invariably included conservatism, royalism, emotional detament, class-consciousness 1. L. Robert Kohls, Survival Kit for Overseas Living (Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1979), 8–9. 2. See Andrew H. Malcolm, e Canadians (1985; Toronto: Bantam Books, 1986), 78.

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and fondness for customs su as pet-loving, weather-discussing, and drinking tea at five.³ ese values or habits, taken for granted for many years by outsiders, have not only been studied by professional sociologists and anthropologists but also illustrated or parodied in hundreds of films or novels, including the famous collection of observations by a Hungarian living in Britain, George Mikes, entitled How to Be an Alien: A Handbook for Beginners and More Advanced Pupils (1946). However, as a result of the many dramatic political and social anges Great Britain has undergone in the last two centuries, this easily graspable concept of “Englishness”⁴ and its traditional values have started to lessen. British superiority has been questioned since Britain lost its supremacy over its colonies (in 1947 India gained it independence and many other colonies followed) and was not able to maintain its standing in the Suez Crisis (1956) and the Falklands War (1982). British royalism and monarism has also been de-mythologised by the catastrophic marriage of Charles and Diana, whi finally ended in divorce. Even the essence of traditional “Englishness” has been questioned since the massive waves of immigration to Britain whi started in 1945 and intensified in 1961.⁵ Other phenomena that might also have influenced the persistence of the traditional British values include multiculturalism, the reshaping of cultural values and a postmodern aitude to life whi has led to a plurality of values and opinions. Many novels, both serious and comic, illustrate the phenomenon of “lessening Englishness.” Humorous novels however do not focus on the tragic side of the loss of values. ey deal with the topic of Englishness indirectly, showing episodes from the ordinary lives of present-day Britons, their problems, gains and losses. In the baground of these stories, however, the state of “Englishness” and the present day aitude towards traditional values are very well illustrated. Moreover, perhaps due to their light banter, many of these comic novels have become bestsellers and sold hundreds of thousands or millions of copies.⁶ Perhaps the number of copies sold reveals their relevance. Taking a selective approa, four fields of values (supremacy and xenophobia; patriotism and monarism; conservatism and class-consciousness and emotional detament) were analyzed using three best-selling comedic novels by contemporary British authors – Sue Townsend’s e Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ (1982),⁷ Wendy Holden’s e Full Monty (1998) and Ni Hornby’s About a Boy (1998). ese three novels look at English society and some of its “traditional values” in the last three decades.

3. See Peter Bromhead, Life in Modern Britain (London: Longmans, 1962), 3–14. ese aributes were also listed as “typical British values” in many Eastern-European countries in the last four decades of the 20th century and were even referred to in course books. 4. In spite many solars use terms “Britishness” and “Englishness” as synonyms, we incline to prefer the term “Englishness” in this analysis. 5. See Bromhead, Life in Modern Britain, 224. 6. About a Boy sold more than one million copies. See Steve Crawshaw, “Ni Hornby: Mad About a Boy,” e Independent, May 26, 2001. e Secret Diary sold nearly five million copies. See Garan Holcombe, “Sue Townsend,” in Contemporary Writers in the UK (British Council, 2004). e Full Monty became an international success, translated into many languages and even adapted into a musical and a film. 7. Further mentioned as e Secret Diary.

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Although a prolific writer and playwright, Sue Townsend (born in 1946 in Leicester) has aieved her greatest fame for her series of novels about the troubled teenager Adrian Mole. One novel from this series, e Secret Diary, takes the form of a diary depicting one year in the life of a well-read teenage boy who faces many present-day problems of British teenagers: troubled love, bullying, a generation gap between himself, his parents and grandparents, the split-up of his parents and subsequent reunion, and many others. e sequels show how Adrian’s life anges as he grows into a young adult, a mature man and finally a father-of-two. Ni Hornby (born in 1957 in Maidenhead) has wrien several novels on life in middleclass north London dysfunctional families in the 1990s. One of these novels, About a Boy, depicts life from the perspective of a ten-year old boy named Marcus. e story opens just aer Marcus’s mother has aempted suicide and Marcus has been befriended by the extravagant and ri thirty-six year old Will Freeman. Unlike Marcus’s ex-hippie mother, Will seems to understand Marcus’s problems at sool, whi include bullying and “outsiderism” and helps him to overcome them. All ends well when Marcus finds new friends and his mother learns to come to terms with being a single parent in London. Wendy Holden (born in 1965 at Cleheaton, West Yorkshire) started her career as a magazine and newspaper columnist. She has wrien fieen novels, including e Full Monty (1998), whi owes its fame to its caty topic – a group of desperate Sheffield laid-off middle-aged men decide to help themselves financially by puing on a striptease programme imitating the American striptease group “e Chippendales.” is potentially absurd plot grows more and more realistic as the reader learns about the various problems caused by the unemployment that had led these men to their somewhat desperate decision – the loss of the man’s position in the family as a breadwinner, the loss of ildren aer divorce and the loss of sexual appetite. ite surprisingly, the show becomes an eventual success and some of their personal problems get solved too. is trio of novels, e Secret Diary, e Full Monty and About a Boy, share a central topic (problems of families seen through the eyes of teenagers or both teenagers and adults in e Full Monty), a seing (England), and humorous tone. What they also share are many illustrations of the everyday lives of English families and many episodes from their daily routines, whi offer an excellent insight into the current state of the perceived traditional British values, help the reader to understand Britain and some of its priorities at the beginning of a new millennium, and serve as a practical cultural tool when encountering British culture, visiting Britain, or learning its principal language. “Traditional British values” as Reflected by Present-day British Humorists British Supremacy and Xenophobia Great Britain has been traditionally viewed as the “Empire of the World.” Peter Bromhead, a renowned expert on cultural studies writes: “In 1900 it was not absurd to regard London as the centre of the world, and ildren learned certain phrases whi expressed in simple terms the truths whi the British regarded as paramount: ‘e Sun never sets on the

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British Empire; India is the brightest jewel in the Imperial Crown; and Britannia rules the waves.’” However, Bromhead further adds that “su phrases are obviously now unrealistic, and there is no place [even though there may still be a place for nostalgia for these values] in the modern world for the aitude they express.”⁸ Indeed, lessening of former British supremacy might be connected with its loss of financial supremacy. Holden, in e Full Monty, briefly but lucidly comments on this phenomenon: . . . gone were the golden days of working men’s clubs in cities like Sheffield; when there was one at every corner and you had to queue at the door to get in on a weekend. Alan’s father, from whom he inherited the job, used to clear over a thousand quid a night in the 70s, and that was when a thousand quid was a lot of money. He and his staff couldn’t pull the pints fast enough, while the punters were still [lining] up at the door. Nowadays, he’d be happy if he made five hundred a week.⁹

Modern problems su as unemployment have definitely le the formerly excessive “English ego” looking insecure and perhaps have replaced a sense of “Englishness” with more urgent problems. e Secret Diary, e Full Monty and About a Boy generally support this aitude. Some aracters occasionally uer a remark on “How proud [they] are to be English!”¹⁰ but none of the depicted British aracters displays any real aitudes of superiority towards other nations or towards immigrants living in Britain. Adrian Mole’s family lives on the same street as an Indian family, the Singhs, and an Irish family, the O’Learys. In spite of their different habits (wearing saris) and appearance (skin colour), the Moles family gets on very well with the Indians and so do the other tenants. In e Full Monty Dave’s wife Linda even admits she would not hesitate to have an affair with a “bla man” (FM 100). About a Boy shows a more direct, and also a more violent, scene of racial discrimination in Britain. A group of hooligans periodically bullying Marcus follows him to a local shop, run by an Indian, Mr. Patel. ey contemptuously shout at the owner, “Oi, Mohammed,” and plunder his store while harassing other customers.¹¹ is scene very well illustrates the essence of racism – it is not the majority of the general public that displays hatred towards foreigners; these are hooligans who are just looking for an easy target in ildren, for example, or anybody else visibly different. e proverbial British sense of superiority is thus not a major issue in any of the three bestsellers; and it may not be an issue in present-day British public or private life either any more, although one would hesitate to feel secure in this opinion. Patriotism, Monarchism and Royalism e British have traditionally been reported to be very patriotic and proud of the constitutional monary and the royal family. e fact that their monary has been 8. Bromhead, Life in Modern Britain, 219. 9. Wendy Holden, e Full Monty (New York: Harper Collins, 1998), 129. Hereaer cited in text as FM. 10. Sue Townsend, e Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ (1982; London: Penguin, 2002), 137. Hereaer cited in text as SD. 11. Ni Hornby, About a Boy (New York: Penguin, 1998), 43. Hereaer cited in text as AB.

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preserved until the present suggests pride in the een, as did the massive turnout for een Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee in 2002.¹² What one cannot fail to notice when reading e Full Monty and About a Boy is the la of almost any note of royalism or patriotism. Holden, in e Full Monty, mentions the een just once when Gerald needs some qui help for his specific form of stage fright. His friend advises him to think of the most boring thing he can come up with and as a list of samples provides “. . . double glazing salesmen, . . ., gardening, e een’s Spee, [or] Dire Straits double album” (FM 168). About a Boy offers exactly the same indifferent aitude towards the royal family during the Christmas Eve gathering: “Aer they wated the queen on TV (nobody wanted to, apart from Lindsey’s mum, but whatever old people wanted they got, in Marcus’s experience), Clive rolled a joint . . .” (AB 183). us, both families consider the royal family either boring or do not even think about it at all. On the other hand, the royal family and the een play a more substantial role in e Secret Diary. ere are many references to them, and one of the diary entries describes the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana. However, Adrian’s remarks are oen directly or indirectly ironic: “e een looked a bit jealous. I expect it was because people weren’t looking at her for a ange,” writes Adrian aer seeing the Royal Wedding (SD 137). On the other hand, he reports seeing the wedding seven times with his grandmother (SD 140), so the ceremony certainly held some appeal for both young and old. ere is also a certain understanding and compassion for the monary in e Secret Diary. Adrian remarks that “Mr. Lucas and my mother were laughing at the dog’s new haircut whi is not very nice, because dogs can’t answer ba, just like the Royal Family” (SD 13). is remark proves the royal family is a common bu of humor among people of a certain social class and age, and yet they care about them in their own way. To conclude, openly demonstrated British royalism does not occur mu in the lives of the depicted English families. at could be symptomatic: love of Britain or of the een is not, perhaps, something the present-day British openly and frequently discuss anymore. However, when the een has a birthday, some of them organize a street party. at is certainly not what other nations, for example the Slovaks, do on their President’s birthday. us English monarism is, perhaps, more strongly rooted than nationalism of some other nations. Conservatism British conservatism has been long discussed, and it is perhaps the first association that comes to some foreigners’ minds in connection with the phrase “Englishness.” Bromhead examines British conservatism in great detail and draws aention to the reluctance of British people to adopt reforms su as the introduction of the metric system (whi came into general use in 1975), the same reluctance to adopt the twenty-four-hour clo for railway timetables (adopted in the 1960s), the decimalization of the currency (adopted in 1971) and preferring the Fahrenheit to the Centigrade barometric system.¹³ Other 12. See Jennie Bond, Elizabeth: 80 Glorious Years (London: Carlton, 2006), 156–67. 13. See Bromhead, Life in Modern Britain, 4.

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illustrations of British conservatism include adhering to traditions and using traditional appliances, su as open coal fires instead of central heating, and adhering to traditions in various private organizations. In e Full Monty, e Secret Diary and About a Boy the most obvious deviations from traditional values include family constellations, the juxtaposed positions of men and women in the family and a relatively liberal and tolerant aitude to hom*osexuality and so drugs. Family constellation is one of the maers in whi the families presented in the three novels do not adhere to either British or general Western tradition. Ea of the novels shows a dysfunctional family that faces modern family problems su as adultery (e Secret Diary, e Full Monty), divorce (About a Boy, e Full Monty), ildren born out of wedlo (e Secret Diary), unemployment and families without a steady income (e Secret Diary, e Full Monty) and even serious maers su as aempted suicide (About a Boy) and the imprisonment of one of the family members (e Full Monty). e traditional patriaral model of a complete family, with the father who is the head of the family and the principal breadwinner and the mother who is basically a functional housewife has been abandoned in all the novels. Men have mostly lost their superior standing, due to unemployment or to the emancipation of women, or both. Families, moreover, do not entail only a father, mother and ildren any more. A group of people representing a “family” that gather at Christmas in the novel About a Boy includes “Marcus’ [divorced] Dad, Clive, his girlfriend, Lindsey, and his girlfriend’s mum, six of them altogether” (AB 177). Hornby further comments on this phenomenon: Will did not know that the world was like this. As the product of the 1960s second marriage he was labouring under the misapprehension that when families broke up some of the constituent parts stopped speaking to ea other, but the setup here was different: Fiona and her ex seemed to look ba on their relationship as the thing that brought them together in the first place, rather than something that had gone horribly wrong and driven them apart. It was as if sharing a home and a bed and having a ild together was like staying in adjacent rooms in the same hotel, or being in the same class at sool – a happy coincidence that had given them the opportunity for an occasional friendship. (AB 177–78).

Judging from Townsend’s, Holden’s and Hornby’s observations, modern British family does not mean mother, father and ildren any more. However, there is no social stigma aaed to any of the divorced families or those living in other set-ups. e only taboo subject was alleged ild abuse and the subsequent almost paranoid reaction to it. A Child Protection Team immediately intervened when the rehearsing striptease group was identified by a passing policeman and brought to the police station. e team was afraid Nathan’s father could be some kind of paedophile (FM 173). Fiona, the single mother in About a Boy, reacts in the same paniy manner when she discovers that her twelve-year old son is secretly visiting thirty-six-year old Will in his apartment (AB 128). us, English liberalism as far as this family is concerned is not limitless and still has some zero-tolerance areas. hom*osexuality is another issue that has traditionally been demonized. Townsend, Holden and Hornby however suggest that reactions to hom*osexuality vary from individual to individual and can be taken as a sign of personal rather than national conservatism. In e Full Monty, quite a conservative aitude is shown when Guy and Lomper come out. Even the most open-minded of the group, Gaz, seems disturbed: “ey’re holding

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hands!”, Gaz told his friend, his “eyes wide” (FM 197). e omniscient narrator of the story further explores the main aracter’s mixed feelings: “Like Dave, he [Gaz] was still in the Dark Ages when it came to hom*osexuality. Although he knew it went on, it was never flaunted in the social circles in whi he mixed, and he had certainly never seen two grown men publicly displaying su an aitude”. ite surprisingly, even Dave, a middle-classman, felt “somehow threatened” by it “although he had no idea why” (FM 197). e Secret Diary also shows certain alarm among middle class people who learn that somebody is a hom*osexual: “Mrs. Swallow asked creep Lucas how his wife was. Lucas told her that his wife had le him for another woman. en everyone blushed and said what a small world it was and parted company. My Mother went mad at Lucas. ‘How do you think I feel living with a lesbian’s estranged husband?’” (SD 150). is heated reaction proves there still might be some social stigma aaed to hom*osexuality among middle-class families. However, aer the initial reaction, nobody commented further on the subject. Nor did they evince contempt for hom*osexuals and lesbians or take any action against them. About a Boy depicts hom*osexuality as a very natural thing a person should not even bat an eyelid about. Suzie, one of the single mothers, introduces Will to other members of SPAT (Single Parents – Alone Together) Association and to their life stories. “Let’s see who’s here. . . e woman in the denim shirt over there? Her husband went because he thought their lile boy wasn’t his. Ummm . . . Helen . . . boring . . . he went off with someone from work . . . Moira . . . he came out . . . Susannah Curtis . . . I think he was running two families . . .” (AB 40). A similarly liberal aitude towards non-traditional lifestyles, including the use of so drugs, is shown in the novel About a Boy. Even though Marcus’s mother protests, his father rolls a joint right in front of his twelve-year old son, whi he had reportedly done “plenty of times” (AB 184). Marijuana is also frequently smoked among “actors, writers and directors,” and it was also the way in whi Willy started one of his friendships – he used to “buy dope off [his friend] years ago” (AB 193). However, Adrian Mole’s father has a diametrically opposite aitude and even throws away the scented burning wood Adrian had bought to remove the smell of paint his room. Once again, no general conclusion can be drawn from these different reactions and the reader has to assume that the tolerance of the English towards so drugs varies from individual to individual. Class-consciousness and Deference versus Emotional Detachment and Aloofness Traditionally, “English society was fairly rigidly stratified, and ea man knew its place in it,” writes Walter Bagehot.¹⁴ e dramatic political, social and cultural anges in the middle of the 20th century led to an ostensible increase in “democracy” and “egalitarianism.” Even though in general the three novels may suggest that British society has become more democratic, they also show a certain concept of class has been preserved to the present. 14. Qtd. in Bromhead, Life in Modern Britain, 6.

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e Secret Diary, About a Boy and e Full Monty depict various classes of British society. Will Freeman (About a Boy) belongs to the upper class. He has inherited a substantial sum of money from his father, who has composed a Christmas evergreen song and does not have to work at all. He spends his days looking for pastimes whi invariably include visiting upscale music shops, branded clothes shops and aing up women. He lives at a “good address” in a modern apartment and drives an expensive car. Moreover, he makes his sense of class and “being in” very obvious. e Moles, Fiona and Marcus on the other hand, belong to the middle, or lower middle, class. e Moles live in a house in a regular housing site and work in a variety of jobs, including vendor maine tenicians, river bank maintenance workers or heat collector salesmen. Fiona is a music therapist who lives in an apartment in London. e Full Monty depicts a mu lower social class, as far as the main aracter is concerned. He is an unemployed factory worker who has also served time for pey crimes and who is constantly penniless and struggling to get some money to pay for his son’s allowance. To obtain money he starts various risky businesses, including stealing scrap metal from an abandoned factory and puing on a striptease performance. Gerald, another stripper in e Full Monty, represents quite a different social class. He used to be an upper-middle class foreman in the steelworks, but unemployment has levelled his social position with Gaz and the rest of the group. Even though he still wears a suit and a tie he is not very different in aitude from his former workers. At the same time he quite enjoys his straddling of social classes: “is dancing caper had been the one time in his life when he’d been really free of all that, the responsibilities, the constraints of his marriage, his position, his so-called ‘standing’” (FM 209). ere is class consciousness in all three novels, but it is inevitably more subtle and less easy to pin down than class consciousness in Pride and Prejudice, Howard’s End or Jane Eyre. For many reasons, including the ostensible democratization of British society and an increased awareness of the perceived rights of different individuals in society, it is perhaps not one’s social “standing” that maers most nowadays, but rather one’s access to financial assets. Conclusion e Secret Diary, About a Boy and e Full Monty give an interesting insight into the lives and minds of a small sample of present-day English people and their families. ey indirectly yet very clearly cast light on the state and relevance of many lingering traditional values that have been for a long time considered “traditional.” However, the three novels also demonstrate some aspects of English values, su as patriotism, monarism, conservatism, class-consciousness and traditional English aloofness. In this way they serve as a very good cultural tool for foreign readers. Using fiction to try and understand the mentality of other nations is always a lile fraught with danger, and even an experienced reader should be aware of possible risks. First, all three novels are pieces of fiction. eir primary role is to entertain, fantasize and mystify, not to serve as any kind of sociological insight. However, they might be a useful medium with whi to grasp the zeitgeist of present-day England, mu beer than other sources su as opinion polls or statistics.

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e second risk lies in making general conclusions from individual cases. All readers should be aware of the fact the subjects of the novels are to some degree imaginary, especially that of e Full Monty. But is it not the writer’s task to find the most aractive story line and develop it? On the baground of su a storyline however, some serious information regarding cultural or psyological phenomena can be transmied. At the same time, a different set of novels would perhaps bring up completely different views of the very same English values. However, as Barker points out, according to narrative theory, in cultural studies there should not be any text superior to the others; ea text is a narrative and thus “makes claims to be a record of events” and therefore “plays a part in cultural studies.”¹⁵ Another issue raised by the three novels is that of the very essence of the “Englishness” of the traditional values. For example, conservatism is both an English and a continental value, whi may be said to have had its heyday in the period roughly ending in the 1950s. Also, the mentality and lifestyle of cosmopolitan, fast-paced London might be very different from life in semi-unemployed Sheffield or some nameless lile English town. Hornby suggests this, saying: “It [bullying] wouldn’t have happened in Cambridge, he didn’t think, but what he couldn’t work out was whether Cambridge was different because it wasn’t London, or because it was where his parents had lived together, and where, therefore, life was simpler . . .” (AB 206). Clearly defined and easily graspable national identity is a privilege of not many nations nowadays, except perhaps of those who can derive their identity from very strong historical traditions, su as Spain or Italy or define themselves against some common counterpart, su as Slovakia versus former Czeoslovakia or Serbia versus former Yugoslavia. Perhaps the lessening of strong national identities, not the one heavily advertised by politicians and nationalistic parties, but the one people encounter in their everyday lives, is a phenomenon symptomatic of the present-day globalized, cosmopolitan, and postmodern way of life rather than an idiosyncrasy typical of some people or nations. us “lessening of Englishness” might not be an entirely British phenomenon but a more universal problem of the modern age. Works Cited Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: eory and Practice. 3rd ed. London: Sage, 2008. Bond, Jennie. Elizabeth: 80 Glorious Years. London: Carlton, 2006. Bromhead, Peter. Life in Modern Britain. London: Longmans, 1962. Crawshaw, Steve. “Ni Hornby: Mad About a Boy.” e Independent, May 26, 2001. hp://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/ni-hornby-mad-about-theboy-686011.html (accessed July 1, 2009). Holcombe, Garan. “Sue Townsend.” In Contemporary Writers in the UK. British Council, 2004. hp://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p= authC2D9C28A18dac23605uLr31DC862 (accessed June 21, 2004). 15. Chris Barker, Cultural Studies: eory and Practice, 3rd ed. (London: Sage, 2008), 35.

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Holden, Wendy. e Full Monty. New York: Harper Collins, 1998. Hornby, Ni. About a Boy. New York: Penguin, 1998. Kohls, L. Robert. Survival Kit for Overseas Living. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1979. Malcolm, Andrew H. e Canadians. 1985. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1986. Townsend, Sue. e Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾. 1982. London: Penguin, 2002.

ELT Methodology

Bringing English as an International Language into the Classroom Kateřina Řepová Language Centre, Masaryk University, Žerotínovo náměstí 9, 601 77 Brno, Cze Republic. Email: repova@fi.muni.cz Abstract: e purpose of this paper is to raise awareness of the existence of a variety of English called English as an International Language (EIL) and to focus on the implications this has for English language teaing. Aer briefly introducing Karu’s “Circles of English” that offer a working paradigm for the classification of English uses around the world based on the spread of the language, this paper points out that non-native speakers of English are in the majority and that they use English as a lingua franca for international communication. is new variety of English is being extensively studied to provide a description of its aracteristic features, some of whi are listed in the text. e paper then addresses the pedagogical issues connected with EIL (especially the problem of intelligibility) and what can be done in the classroom. Ultimately, the paper argues that although the theoretical resear into EIL has not provided any immediately applicable teaing materials so far, individual teaers can still bring the EIL element into their classrooms if they are willing to spend time on adapting resources that are not primarily aimed at teaing English. Keywords: English as an International Language; English as a Lingua Franca; varieties of English; non-native speakers; English language teaing

English as an International Language ere are about two billion people in the world who speak English.¹ To understand today’s global position of English and the wide diversity of its uses around the world, several models of its spread have been proposed (Strevens 1992; McArthur 1998; Görla 1990). Probably the most famous of these are Karu’s “Circles of English” with whi the speakers of English can be defined as falling into inner, outer, or expanding circles (Karu 1992). Very briefly, the three circles can be described as follows: e inner circle represents the traditional cultural and linguistic bases of English in places where it is spoken as a native language. e outer circle refers to countries, usually former colonies, where the institutionalized varieties of English are spoken as a second language and where English serves important social functions, su as in education or administration. e expanding circle encompasses countries where English is normally spoken as a foreign language because it has no official status there and is restricted in the domains of its use. e majority of English speakers today are from the outer and expanding circles, and English is not their mother tongue. As Strevens pointed out, in today’s world English is taught “mostly by non-native speakers of the language, to non-native speakers, in order to communicate mainly with non-native speakers” (Strevens 1992, 41). 1. Depending on the source used, various numbers can be found (see, e.g., Lewis 2009).

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e predominance of non-native speakers in English-medium communication has led to the development of a new variety of English known as English as an International Language (EIL).² It is a variety of English that is used as a lingua franca for international communication between speakers of different language bagrounds. It is used for a multitude of purposes, su as tourism, business and finance, entertainment, academic purposes etc., and is aracterised by a core of features common to all varieties of English, without only locally comprehensible usages (e.g., “fortnight,” “public sool”; Erling 2005, 41). ese core features are being intensively studied. Jennifer Jenkins has played a seminal role in describing the phonological system of EIL. She gathered data from interactions among non-native speakers of English in order to find out whi aspects of pronunciation cause intelligibility problems when English is used in international communication. From her findings, she drew up a pronunciation core and described its features (Jenkins 2000, 2002). It needs to be emphasized that Jenkins’s core is an indication of the minimum requirements, a sine qua non, for international intelligibility (i.e., for the learners’ productive target), rather than an actual variety spoken in the classroom. e main features are identified as follows: — — — —

All the consonants are important except for θ/ð sounds. Consonant clusters are important at the beginning and in the middle of the words. e contrast between long and short vowels is important. Nuclear (or tonic) stress is also essential. is is the stress on the most important word (or syllable) in a group of words.

On the other hand, many other items whi are regularly taught on English pronunciation courses appear not to be essential for intelligibility in EIL interactions (e.g., various features of connected spee). Barbara Seidlhofer has pioneered work on the lexicogrammar aspect of EIL³ features (see, e.g., an overview in Seidlhofer et al. 2006). e compilation of a corpus is now in progress at the University of Vienna (Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English, VOICE) under her supervision. estions under investigation include (Jenkins et al. 2001, 15): — What emerges (if anything) as common features, irrespective of speakers’ first languages and levels of proficiency? — What seem to be the most relied-upon and successfully employed grammatical constructions and lexical oices? 2. When discussing English as an International Language, two other labels are usually encountered: English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and World Englishes (WE). WE is an umbrella term that refers to any variety of English spoken around the world: “standard and non-standard, mother-tongue and other-tongue, dialect, pidgin, creole, lingua franca . . . ” (McArthur 2004, 5). Although ELF is sometimes taken to be synonymous with EIL, it is usually used to mean “an additionally acquired language system that serves as a means of communication between speakers of different first languages . . . but whi is not the native language of either” (Seidlhofer 2001, 146). is use of the term highlights the fact that in the world today communication in English oen does not involve L1 speakers of the language at all (Jenkins 2007). 3. She herself prefers to use the ELF term.

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Once available, a description and codification of EIL use would constitute a new resource for the design of English instruction (Seidlhofer 2001, 150). is can have enormous pedagogical implications as [t]here really is no justification for doggedly persisting in referring to an item as “an error” if the vast majority of the world’s L2 English speakers produce and understand it. Instead, it is for L1 speakers to move their own perceptive goal posts and adjust their own expectations as far as international (but not intranational) uses of English are concerned. . . . [T]his also drastically simplifies the pedagogic task by removing from the syllabus many time-consuming items whi are either unteaable or irrelevant for EIL. (Jenkins 2000, 160)

Seidlhofer lists several features whi are normally considered mistakes but do not cause any miscommunication (Jenkins et al. 2001): — — — —

Using the same form for all present tense verbs, i.e., no third person singular marker. Not puing a definite or indefinite article in front of nouns. Treating who and whi as interangeable relative pronouns. Using isn’t it? as a universal question tag.

As Jenkins and Seidlhofer (2001) point out, the time needed to tea and learn these constructions bears very lile relationship to their actual usefulness: successful communication is clearly possible without them. Furthermore, work is also being carried out in the pragmatics of lingua franca communication (e.g., House 1999), or its syntax (e.g., Meierkord 2004). Teaching English as an International Language English has traditionally been taught as a foreign language (EFL) and it might be useful at this stage to remind ourselves of the main points of the EFL approa as concisely summarized by Gnutzmann (1999, 162–163): EFL prepares learners to communicate with native speakers of English in English-speaking countries; it is based on the linguistic and sociocultural norms of native speakers of English and their respective cultures; and the model language is based on standard English, generally British or American. e ultimate goal of this approa is to “create” someone who is, ideally, indistinguishable from a native speaker. On the other hand, the EIL approa to teaing aempts to prepare learners to communicate with both native and non-native speakers of English from all over the world. It is neutral in regards to the different cultural bagrounds of the interlocutors and does not base communication on any particular national linguistic standard of English (Sharifian 2009). Most importantly, it brings about a ange in the ultimate goal of English language teaing: it strives for full competence rather than “native-like” mastery (McKay 2002; Ur 2008). e concept of competence is quite liberating for learners, and teaers, as competence, unlike nativeness, is aievable. Under EFL, many non-native teaers think that they are inferior to native-speaker teaers and oen feel compelled “to spend undue time repairing their pronunciation or performing other cosmetic anges to sound native” instead of focusing on being successful teaers (Canagarajah 1999, 84). It would be mu more

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useful if they concentrated on the fact that they can provide an imitable role model of successful learners and competent English users to their students (Medgyes 1992, 1994). Another important aspect of EIL is that learners do not have to give up their national identities in pursuit of “being-like-a-native-speaker,” whi is the assumed desire of every learner in traditional EFL. Karu and Nelson (2001, 18) allenge this automatic assumption when they ask: if a typical American has no wish to speak like, or be labelled as, a British user of English, why should other users feel any differently? e question now stands: how to bring the theoretical resear on EIL into actual classroom practice? e first issue that needs to be addressed is work on aitudes to “nonnativeness,” and not just learners’ but also teaers’: geing across the message that “it is okay not to sound like a native speaker” may well be the most difficult task facing EIL practitioners. “Foreign” accents seem to carry a label of inferiority, but is it not impossible to define “foreign” in the case of an international language? An international language by its definition belongs to everyone and no one can have exclusive ownership of it (Holliday 2005; Jenkins 2007; Widdowson 2003). e terms “native” or “foreign” become irrelevant. What maers is mutual intelligibility of speakers who want to communicate successfully with ea other. Concerns have been expressed that teaing anything other than native varieties of English will lead to the lowering of standards, and to the emergence of many varieties that will become unintelligible and thus undeserving of the label English (see, e.g., an overview in Karu and Nelson 2001). Other researers maintain that there have always been English-speaking people in some parts of the world whose spee has not been intelligible to other speakers of English and that this is a natural phenomenon when any language becomes so widespread (Smith 1992). Smith further argues that “it is not necessary for every user of English to be intelligible to every other user of English. Our spee/writing in English needs to be intelligible only to those with whom we wish to communicate in English” (Smith 1992, 75). He suggests that intelligibility is, in fact, a threelevel phenomenon comprising of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and interpretability (Smith and Nelson 1985). Intelligibility, in the narrow sense, means word/uerance recognition. If one recognises that what is heard or read is English, then the language is intelligible to him or her. Comprehensibility means recognition of the meaning of a particular word/uerance. Finally, interpretability refers to the apprehension of intent, purpose, or meaning behind an uerance (for example, understanding that in an appropriate context “it’s hot in here” means “please open the window”). Smith argues that it is this last level, interpretability, that is “at the core of communication and is more important than mere intelligibility or comprehensibility” (Smith 1988, 274). Contrary to the traditional beliefs held in the English language teaing field, Smith asserts that native speakers are not the sole judges of what is intelligible, nor are they always more intelligible than non-native speakers (Smith 1992, 76). He maintains that the greater the familiarity a speaker (native or non-native) has with a variety of English, the more likely it is that he or she will understand, and be understood by, members of that spee community.

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is view was supported by a study of groups of native and non-native speakers of English who judged intelligibility of audio-taped passages of several different varieties of English, both native and non-native (Smith 1992). e results showed that familiarity with several different English varieties made it easier to interpret cross-cultural communication in English. Native speakers (from Britain and the United States) were not found to be the most easily understood, nor were they, as subjects, found to be the best able to understand the different varieties of English.⁴ Smith concludes that being a native speaker does not seem to be as important as being fluent in English and familiar with several different varieties and that “the increasing number of varieties of English need not increase the problems of understanding across culture, if users of English develop some familiarity with them” (Smith 1992, 88). One conclusion that can be drawn from this resear for teaing EIL is that learners should be exposed to a number of varieties of English to facilitate their understanding of speakers from different parts of the world. e criteria for oosing the varieties may range from the number of speakers of a given variety to the frequency with whi learners will come into contact with it. For example, a company trading with India will probably be more interested to learn about Indian English than, for example, about New Zealand English in its English courses. As well as ensuring that a wide variety of both native and non-native Englishes is available in spoken and wrien forms in the classroom, it is also important to oose model language situations that focus on contexts of use relevant to international speakers of English. is can be aieved if teaing materials present aracters (i.e., model speakers) not only from countries where English is spoken as a native language but also from learners’ own culture so that they possess enough resources (e.g., in terms of vocabulary) to act as informants on their culture in international seings. is will equip them to be able to express their own identity in English (Gupta 2001). Furthermore, model dialogues and texts need to represent and refer to the international use of English. Finally, as has been stressed throughout this paper, the model language should be based on international usages rather than on any particular native dialect. Unfortunately, none of the ongoing resear has as yet been translated into practical teaing materials, so teaers are le to their own devices if they want to incorporate the EIL perspective into their lessons. e Internet is an invaluable source of help here but it, of course, requires teaers to put a lot of effort and time into adapting the materials they find for teaing purposes. For example, newspaper articles from different countries may be compared and examined for differences. Besides wrien texts, audio files and video clips can enable students to experience different varieties of English (see, e.g., the Spee Accent Arive or the International Dialects of English Arive; a particular favourite with my students is Amy Walker’s 21 Accents YouTube video).

4. It is interesting to note that it has been suggested that all speakers need training for effective international communication and that “the day may not be all that far off when native speakers of English may need to take crash courses in W[orld] E[nglish]” (Rajagopalan 2004, 117).

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Teaers can make use of the online sear facility of the aforementioned ViennaOxford International Corpus of English to find out if a particular mistake their students make commonly occurs in other speakers as well (of course, what is to be considered a mistake in EIL is another question; see Jenkins above). e Internet also provides opportunity for actual interactive, intercultural, and intervarietal communication through various discussion forums and at rooms. To conclude, there are now more non-native than native speakers of English, and they use English to communicate with other non-native speakers, oen without native speakers’ presence (Crystal 2003), and it is therefore possible to speak about English as an International Language. As EIL is a variety of English in its own right, it requires its own pedagogical goals and didactic means for aieving them, some of whi have been outlined in this paper. It is a great advantage of EIL that it provides a space where speakers can be culturally, politically and socially neutral (Modiano 2001) and, accordingly, approaes to the teaing of EIL need to be culturally sensitive to the diversity of contexts in whi English is taught and used in the world today. Works Cited Canagarajah, A. Suresh. 1999. Interrogating the “Native Speaker Fallacy”: Non-Linguistic Roots, Non-Pedagogical Results. In Non-Native Educators in English Language Teaing, ed. George Braine, 77–92. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Crystal, David. 2003. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erling, Elizabeth J. 2005. e Many Names of English. English Today 21, no. 1: 40–44. Gnutzmann, Claus. 1999. English as a Global Language: Perspectives for English Language Teaing and for Teaer Education in Germany. In Teaing and Learning English as Global Language: Native and Non-Native Perspectives, ed. Claus Gnutzmann, 157–69. Tubingen: Stauffenburg Verlag. Görla, Manfred. 1990. Studies in the History of the English Language. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Gupta, Anthea Fraser. 2001. Teaing World English. Mextesol Journal 25, no. 2: 41–55. Holliday, Adrian. 2005. e Struggle to Tea English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. House, Juliane. 1999. Misunderstanding in Intercultural Communication: Interactions in English as Lingua Franca and the Myth of Mutual Intelligibility. In Teaing and Learning English as Global Language: Native and Non-Native Perspectives, ed. Claus Gnutzmann, 73–89. Tubingen: Stauffenburg Verlag. Jenkins, Jennifer. 2000. e Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, Jennifer. 2002. A Sociolinguistically Based, Empirically Researed Pronunciation Syllabus for English as an International Language. Applied Linguistics 23, no. 2: 83–103.

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Jenkins, Jennifer. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Aitudes and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, Jennifer, and Barbara Seidlhofer. 2001. Bringing Europe’s Lingua Franca into the Classroom. e Guardian Weekly, April 19. hp://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/apr/19/languages.highereducation1. Jenkins, Jennifer, Marko Modiano, and Barbara Seidlhofer. 2001. Euro-English. English Today 17, no. 4: 13–19. Karu, Braj B. 1992. Models for Non-Native Englishes. In e Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, ed. Braj B. Karu, 48–74. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Karu, Braj B., and Cecil L. Nelson. 2001. World Englishes. In Analysing English in a Global Context: A Reader, ed. Anne Burns and Caroline Coffin, 9–25. London: Routledge. Lewis, M. Paul, ed. 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 16th ed. Dallas, TX: SIL International. Also available online at hp://www.ethnologue.com/. McArthur, Tom. 1998. e English Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McArthur, Tom. 2004. Is It World or International or Global English, and Does It Maer? English Today 20, no. 3: 3–15. McKay, Sandra Lee. 2002. Teaing English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Medgyes, Peter. 1992. Native or Non-Native: Who’s Worth More? ELT Journal 46, no. 6: 340–49. Medgyes, Peter. 1994. e Non-Native Teaer. London: Macmillan. Meier, Paul, ed. 2009. International Dialects of English Arive. hp://web.ku.edu/~idea/. Meierkord, Christiane. 2004. Syntactic Variation in Interaction Across International Englishes. English World-Wide 25, no. 1: 109–32. Modiano, Marko. 2001. Ideology and the ELT Practitioner. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11, no. 2: 159–73. Rajagopalan, Kanavillil. 2004. e Concept of “World English” and Its Implications for ELT. ELT Journal 58, no. 2: 111–17. Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2001. Closing a Conceptual Gap: e Case for a Description of English as a Lingua Franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11, no. 2: 133–58. Seidlhofer, Barbara, Angelika Breiteneder, and Marie-Luise Pitzl. 2006. English as a Lingua Franca in Europe: Challenges for Applied Linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26: 3–34. Sharifian, Farzad, ed. 2009. English as an International Language: Perspectives and Pedagogical Issues. Bristol: Multilingual Maers. Smith, Larry E. 1988. Language Spread and Issues of Intelligibility. In Language Spread and Language Policy: Issues, Implications, and Case Studies, ed. Peter H. Lowenberg, 265–82. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Smith, Larry E. 1992. Spread of English and Issues of Intelligibility. In e Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, ed. Braj B. Karu, 75–90. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

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Smith, Larry E., and Cecil L. Nelson. 1985. International Intelligibility of English: Directions and Resources. World Englishes 4, no. 3: 333–42. Strevens, Peter. 1992. English as an International Language: Directions in the 1990s. In e Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, ed. Braj B. Karu, 27–47. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Ur, Penny. 2008. English as a Lingua Franca and Some Implications for English Teaers. Paper presented at ETAI Summer Conference in Jerusalem, Israel. hp://www.etai.org.il/handouts/etailectP_Ur08.ppt. VOICE. 2009. e Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (version 1.0 online). Director: Barbara Seidlhofer; Researers: Angelika Breiteneder, eresa Klimpfinger, Stefan Majewski, Marie-Luise Pitzl. hp://voice.univie.ac.at. Walker, Amy. 2008. 21 Accents. hp://www.youtube.com/wat?v=3UgpfSp2t6k. Weinberger, Steven H., ed. 2009. e Spee Accent Arive. hp://accent.gmu.edu/. Widdowson, Henry G. 2003. Defining Issues in English Language Teaing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Development of Communication Strategies in Communicative Language Teaching Adriana Pčolinská Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Comenius University in Bratislava, Šoltésovej 4, 813 34 Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Email: [emailprotected] Abstract: is paper analyzes communication strategies and their development in the process of foreign language teaing from the standpoint of communicative language teaing. It presents a taxonomy of strategies that prove to be of great importance in successful communication, taking into consideration some fundamental notions that have their origin in the field of pragmatics and discourse analysis. With this knowledge it is possible to focus on the nature of communication in the context of the classroom environment, redefining the concept of authenticity and proposing a set of pedagogical implications, stemming from the study of both verbal and non-verbal communication. Keywords: communication; English language teaing; communicative language teaing; communication strategies

Introduction e rise of the communicative approa has triggered increased aention on authentic communication in the context of foreign language teaing. e theoretical foundation of this approa lies in the theory of communication that studies basic tenets of interaction that hold true for effective and everyday communication, taking into consideration the nature of an ongoing communicative continuum, i.e., situational context. Human interaction is a highly individual process, at least in terms of interpretational processes that are an inevitable prerequisite for a desired communicative output. at is why the process of spee production needs to be perceived as a whole, and why communication strategies need their own discipline. The Process of Speech Production and Communication Strategies To beer understand the process of interpersonal communication, a dynamic model of spee production has been devised. It emphasises the fact that successful communication (of a listener and a hearer) requires constant monitoring of a given situational context with all its variables that considerably influence the oice of lexical items as well as communication strategies. Interpersonal communication is in fact a communicative continuum within whi various communicative variables operate. Su variables include power relations, social roles, self image, etc., all of whi influence verbal and non-verbal communication. e greater the awareness of these influences, the more effective the communicative behaviour will be. e model consists of two fundamental levels: a metacognitive level and a level of discourse production. Metacognitive level relates to the ability of a speaker (or a hearer) to

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realize a set of communicative variables (requiring the activation of cognitive processes). In other words, it is essential to activate mental processes that are interpretative in nature, and these processes determine the final spee actualisation in the form of linguistic output (the level of spee production). What Presupposes Effective Communication? In order to manage the communication process, it is necessary to fulfil the following criteria that stem from the dynamic model of spee production. e criteria in question are as follows: 1. Seing of some communicative goal – it is necessary to realize where communication will lead. e communicator also needs to know possible ways how to aieve his/her communicative intention. As a result, it is possible to select appropriate cohesive devices that can emphasize the importance of an argument being used, etc. 2. Taking over social roles – what is of immense importance is the so-called ‘social distance’ that determines communication in all its respects (the oice of lexis, conversation style, management of interaction, body language, etc.). 3. Awareness of ‘oneself’ - ea individual has expectations regarding his/her selfimage. ese expectations directly influence self representation as well as expectations connected with the language behaviour of interlocutors. 4. Interpersonal relationships – these are closely connected with social roles. In the context of foreign language teaing, the speaker should distinguish between symmetric and asymmetric relationships that dictate the nature and the quality of communication in terms of linguistic expressions and conversation style paerns (e.g., formal and informal communication). What Should a Teacher Bear in Mind? All the previously mentioned elements of the metacognitive level of spee production are subservient to situational, cultural and historical contexts that are materialized in the form of specific language means and communication strategies on the level of discourse production, i.e., verbal and non-verbal communication. As an illustration, the following demonstrates how the individual components of the metacognitive level (subservient to interpretational processes) actualize in verbal communication and thus should form the locus of teaers’ instruction. 1. e seing of communicative goals equals the so-called management of interaction. is means the speaker has the right to make a oice of what is going to be discussed and to what extent. Adequate development of strategic sub-competence can be of great help here as the speaker can indicate dissatisfaction with the flow of conversation, or he/she can redirect its flow. 2. Taking over social roles determines the oice between symmetric and asymmetric relationships between (or among) people involved in communication, whi has a direct impact upon the communicative behaviour of an individual. In other words,

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communication between a parent and a ild will be different from a conversation between two friends. 3. One’s self-image can be judged in terms of the so-called positive or negative face (Yule 1996). ese are notions taken from pragmatics. In the case of positive face, the individual needs to be constantly reminded of his/her belonging to some social group. Generally speaking, these people prefer a friendly and rather direct approa, when being addressed (e.g., Can you lend me a pen?). On the other hand people with the so-called negative face need to have their independence within conversation. When addressing them, the speaker is expected to use a great number of polite expressions (e.g., Sorry for bothering you, but would you be so kind and lend me your pen?). 4. Interpersonal relationships, similar to social roles, can operate on a two-part distinction: formal and informal. Students of a foreign language have to be reminded of the fact that differences in style are obvious not only on the level of lexis, but also on the level of syntax (sentence level) and even more on a discourse level. In the informal style ellipsis and reduction (pragmatic, phonological, syntactic, morphological) are frequently used. The concept of authenticity in relation to speech production e notion of authenticity has been considerably re-evaluated since the rise of the communicative approa. is point of view is also held by Krams (1993, 184) who states that “We need to measure what goes on in the language classroom, not against some problematically defined criterion of authenticity, but against whatever communicative and cognitive goals are accepted as appropriate in a particular educational context.” It is inevitable to clarify the notion of authenticity in the operational stage of the teaing process (as opposed to its planning stage). is dynamic phase includes various activities and tasks in whi students are engaged. To make sense of this issue, a wider perspective is needed. It is necessary to take into account su opposites connected with the teaing process like skill-geing and skill-using, pre-communicative and communicative activities, rules of context and rules of code, etc. Skill-using, communicative activities, or rules of contexts are terms used to describe learners trying to accomplish various communicative ends. On the other hand, skill-geing, pre-communicative activities and rules of the code are supposed to prepare learners to put the language to authentic use. One may thus assert that authentic activities are only those where the learner is communicating some message, where some genuine communication takes place. In all other instances authenticity is not possible since any activity is contrived in the sense that it is aimed at language learning and, as a result, its value may be questioned especially by the so-called naturalistic language teaing methodologies. However, while the pre-communicative or skill-geing activities are not authentic in themselves, they are definitely directed at providing learners with the kind of knowledge necessary to put the language to authentic use. What is more, when questioning the authenticity of various classroom activities, the authenticity of information-gap activities may also be called into question. Beyond a doubt, they are designed to promote genuine communication, but in

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the language classroom context, they are still aimed at language learning. As Repka and Halušková (2005) note, it is almost impossible to aieve one hundred percent authenticity in a language classroom environment. However, the classroom language instruction can shorten a lengthy process of natural language acquisition, where there is nobody to correct mistakes and the learner runs the risk of negative fossilisation, i.e., of a wrongly acquired rule. at is why it is advisable to distinguish different levels (or stages) of authenticity. Brown and Menase (2005) define three types of task authenticity: 1. Genuine task authenticity – exists when learners engage in tasks for reasons immanent to real world situations. is supports an increased inclusion of communicative situations, i.e., the situational principle of the communicative approa (cf. Halušková 2008). 2. Simulated task authenticity – in this case, there is some aempt to copy real life situations, however, the focus is on language learning. 3. Pedagogical task authenticity – there is no aempt to copy real life communicative situations. e primary aention is paid to the completion of some pedagogical (language) task. 4. Tasks play a crucial role in the successful development of speaking skills. Tasks determine the behaviour of language teaers as for the lesson planning, seing of goals, oice of teaing methods, etc. As Nunan (1989, 11) explains, it is essential for a language teaer to be aware of the tasks’ components. .Goals .Input .Activities

.Teaer Role . .Task

.Learner Role .Seing (Nunan 1989, 11)

To sum it up, when planning a lesson it is recommended to bear in mind the nature of communication and to oose adequate authentic activities. Activities of this kind, however, should be perceived as a multifaceted factor of the teaing process that can exhibit various degrees of authenticity. us authenticity is a quality having a status relative that to the students’ proficiency level. is point of view is, in fact, in full compliance with Krashen’s (1982) input hypothesis (i+1). Examples of Communication Strategies Based on the Dynamic Model of Speech Production For beer illustration, the following is a sample of conversation gambits that function as communication strategies (Keller and Warner 2002).

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Opening communication strategies To be honest, . . . ; at reminds me of, . . . ; It’s my opinion that, . . . ; To my mind, . . . ; What I’m more concerned with is . . . ; is shouldn’t be passed around, but, . . . ; If I were you, . . . ; Why not . . . ; How about . . . Linking communication strategies I’m perfectly happy with . . . ; How come . . . ; What bothers me is . . . ; at’s very kind of you.; at may be so, but . . . ; As a rule, . . . ; Very true, but . . . ; Generally speaking, . . . ; By and large, . . . ; In my experience, . . . ; To give you an idea, . . . Responding communication strategies Are you pulling my leg?; I thought so.; at’s news to me!; Me too!; What a pity!; Well, let me think.; Let’s put it this way.; Are you with me?; Is that clear?; OK so far?; Would you mind repeating that?; Would you mind saying that again?; at’s very kind of you.; Do you really think so? Conclusion is paper analyses the nature of the process of spee production, stemming from knowledge of the theory of communication, pragmatics, linguistics and language teaing methodology. It emphasizes the fact that regardless of students’ proficiency level, language instruction should be aimed at the development of communication strategies, known as the so-called conversation gambits. e use of su strategies insures that teaers will meet the expectations of students as target language users. Works Cited Brown, Steven, and Lionel Menase. 2005. Defining Authenticity. hp://www.as.ysu.edu/~english/BrownMenase.doc (accessed July 29, 2006). Halušková, Adriana. 2008. Uplatňovanie princípov komunikatívneho prístupu v procese cudzojazyčnej výučby. Praha: Alfa. Keller, Eric, and Sylvia Warner. 2002. Conversation Gambits: Real English Conversation Practises. Boston: omson Heinle. Krams, Claire. 1993. Context and Culture in Language Teaing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krashen, Stephen. 1982. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon. Nunan, David. 1989. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Repka, Riard, and Adriana Halušková. 2005. A Course in English Language Didactics. Bratislava: Retaas. Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Collocation Errors in the Written Part of Slovak School-leaving Exams Emília Prekopová Department of Languages, Faculty of Social-Economic Relations, Alexander Dubcek University of Trenčín, Študentská 2, 911 00 Trenčín, Slovak Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: In recent years lexical errors have become more disruptive in wrien or oral communication than grammatical errors. is paper deals with collocation errors, the most frequent kinds of lexical errors made by students at secondary sools. Twenty-five essays that were a part of the wrien sool-leaving exam were collected and analyzed to identify various collocation errors. e results are presented in a table. e data suggest the potential role teaers can play to help students minimize errors in forming common collocations or unks. is in turn will help students be more precise in their language usage. Keywords: collocation error; unk; lexical approa; interlingual transfer; minimizing of collocation errors; error analysis; sool-leaving exam

Progressing from level to level in language learning does not mean just learning new words and new grammar, as is typical in foreign language learning in Slovakia. Rather, oosing words carefully in certain situations is more serious and important than oosing grammatical structures (Harmer 1991). Lewis (1997, 15) explains: “fluency is based on the acquisition of a large store of fixed or semi-fixed prefabricated items.” James (1998, 152) also agrees that the correct usage of collocations “contributes greatly to one’s idiomaticity and nativelikeness.” Experienced teaers tend to agree with these statements, realizing that the lexical component of language is as important as the grammatical aspect. Further, it is necessary to emphasize the significance of collocations in language learning because effective communication depends on word oice. Slovak pupils/students need to learn collocated expressions because of the frequency with whi they appear in English. Collocated expressions pose a allenge in learning English as a foreign language but not using them can lead to misunderstanding. Collocations fall into different categories. Lewis (1997) proposes these: 1. weak strength: ese are words whi co-occur with a greater than random frequency, e.g., white, red or rosé wine; 2. strong strength: A large number of collocations are strong or very strong, e.g., rancid buer; 3. medium strength: ese are words that go together with a greater frequency than weak collocations, e.g., hold a meeting. ere are open collocations and restricted ones. In open collocations, the words can cluster with a wide range of other words, whereas in restricted collocations words are fixed. Some authors use two classifications for word combinations: grammatical and

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lexical. Grammatical collocations combine a main word with a grammatical word su as noun + preposition (resear on), verb + preposition (depend on), adjective + preposition (suspicious o). Lexical collocations are combinations of two or more words and, according to Hill (2000, 50), contain the following elements: Adjective + Noun: heavy traffic Noun + Noun: a bank account Verb + Adverb: appreciate sincerely Adverb + Verb: strongly suggest Adverb + Adjective: extremely generous Verb + Adjective + Noun: learn a foreign language Verb + Preposition + Noun: speak through an interpreter Acquisition and correct production of word combinations is a mark of an advanced level of proficiency in a language. e criterion for defining collocation errors is a discrepancy between the conventional lexical unks of the native speakers and the language used by EFL learners. Lennon (1991, 182) defines an error as “a linguistic form . . . whi, in the same context, would in all likelihood not be produced by the learner’s native speaker counterpart.” Collocation errors can be roughly classified into three main categories: 1) improper combination of nounnucleus and its collocator; 2) improper combination of verb-nucleus and its collocator; and 3) others (the improper prepositional phrases, the improper combination of adjectivenucleus and so on). Twenty-five essays wrien as a part of sool-leaving exams were collected and analyzed. English commands (proficiency) at this stage of education, that is, aer 8 to 10 years of instruction, should be B2 according to the Common European Framework of References for Language. As intermediate EFL learners, B2 students can use a great number of individual words correctly. erefore, spelling mistakes and some grammatical errors su as tense disagreement, subject and verb disagreement were ignored in the analysis. As for the incorrect grammatical collocations, errors found in the essays were made by selecting or adding an incorrect preposition, with most errors appearing to be the result of a negative interlingual transfer from the Slovak language. Examples include: addicted by (to), bored from (with), congratulate to (on), in (on) the phone, sense for (of) humour, proud on (of), depend from (on), eat on (for) breakfast, surprised from (at), angry on (with) you, have (be on) a diet, laugh from (at) me, hope in (of) sth, according (to) John, similar with (to) him. To help students avoid making su errors, we recommend that the teaers explain to the students that grammatical collocations su as prepositions are shown in the dictionary in bold type at the beginning of an entry, before the definition. Examples of common lexical mistakes found in the students’ essays include: repair (correct) the mistake, make (do) homework, visit (aend) the sool, visit (aend) a course, communist side (party), on the right side (page), tell the right (truth), medium (means) of communication, crowded (heavy) traffic, become (get) wet, obtain (get) advice, revise

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(retake) the exam, repeat (resit) the exam, make (pass) the exam, rain hardly (heavily), dear (expensive) PC, sleep strongly (heavily), touristic (tour) guide, correctly (exactly) the same, current (contemporary) aritecture, drive (ride) the horse, ride (drive) a car, a strong (nasty) cough, his strong sides (strengths), healthy (sound) sleep, get (make) friends, mother language (tongue), maternity (mother) tongue, enough (rather) lazy, big (great) love, establish (start) a family, give (put) a book on the table, give (put) a question, expensive (high) price, king (royal) family, strange (foreign) language, light (easy) way, a high (tall) person, fully (completely, totally) mad, a hot (warm) kiss, hotel customers (guests), empty (blank) paper, near (close) friends, write early (soon), a train catastrophe (disaster), big (capital) leers, health (common) sense. As stated above, students commit errors when producing lexical collocations in English when they make an interlingual transfer from Slovak, e.g., bring a baby (give birth to a baby). Collocation errors also are made when synonyms are confused (visit and aend, allow and permit), and when pupils/students do not realize that English words may convey different meaning in different contexts (the bank of a river, a bank investment). Additional factors contributing to collocation errors among secondary sool students are neglect of collocation in ESL instruction and insufficient exposure to the target language. Further, English collocations are based on convention, and not necessarily on the compatibility of the meanings of the individual items. Learners who are not aware of these conventions may produce unacceptable combinations. Number and Percentage of Incorrect Grammatical and Lexical Collocations Found in Essays Type of collocation errors Grammatical Lexical verb + noun adverb + adjective verb + adverb adverb + verb adjective + noun noun + noun Total (grammatical + lexical)

Number of collocation errors 46 101 38 8 3 5 41 6 147

Percent (%) 31,29 68,71 37,62 7,92 2,97 4,95 40,59 5,94 100

e data show that a large proportion of lexical collocation errors are occupied by adjective + noun errors and verb + noun errors, whi account for 40,59% and 37,62% respectively. Learning collocations leads to increased wrien and spoken fluency. Teaers should emphasize collocations in their teaing, especially those types that students have difficulties in learning as observed in this study. Our analysis confirms that learners cannot combine words correctly without having previously read or practiced them. Teaers should encourage their students to read a lot in English, as it is commonly understood that collocations are beer acquired through reading. Recently, people are beginning to realize that learning by heart has value. “Memorized unks of language or formulaic uerances associated with particular communicative contexts furnish the learner with a ri and reliable ‘vocabulary’ of ready-made expressions whi contribute significantly

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to his or her overall mastery of the language” (Widdowson 1989, 128). us, collocations should be systematically taught at sool, and the earlier the beer. is can help learners to minimize collocation errors. Works Cited Harmer, Jeremy. 1991. e Practice of English Language Teaing. London: Longman. Hill, Jimmie. 2000. Revising Priorities: From Grammatical Failure to Collocational Success. In Teaing Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical Approa, ed. Miael Lewis, 47–69. Hove: Language Teaing Publications. James, Carl. 1998. Errors in Language Learning and Use: Exploring Error Analysis. London: Longman. Lennon, Paul. 1991. Error: Some Problems of Definition, Identification, and Distinction. Applied Linguistics 12, no. 2: 180–96. Lewis, Miael. 1997. Implementing the Lexical Approa: Puing eory into Practice. Hove: Language Teaing Publications. Widdowson, Henry G. 1989. Knowledge of Language and Ability for Use. Applied Linguistics 10, no. 2: 128–37.

Students’ Errors in Word Formation Exercises Blanka Babická and Josef Nevařil Department of English, Faculty of Education, Palaý University, Žižkovo nám. 5, 771 40 Olomouc, Cze Republic. Email: blanka.babi[emailprotected]; [emailprotected]

Abstract: e paper deals with the analysis of typical errors students of English make in word formation exercises. alitative and quantitative analysis is based on students’ results in word formation exercises in the entrance test and a later exam at the Department of English, Faculty of Education, Palaý University, Olomouc. e most common types of errors are presented and some conclusions for the development of students’ language proficiency are drawn. Keywords: word formation; errors; error analysis; language proficiency; entrance test; exam test

Developing students’ language proficiency is one of the key aims of the studies at the Department of English, Faculty of Education, Palaý University in Olomouc (henceforth DE). At the end of the baelor studies, students should rea the C1.2 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (henceforth CEFR). In order to ensure the fulfilment of the desired aim, students’ communicative competences and skills are cultivated through all the subjects. Realising the complexity of this process, it is imperative to make sure that the theory and practice of language teaing as well as language learning go constantly hand in hand. Bearing in mind the fact that language learning is an ongoing process, it is the teaer’s obligation to reflect on their and their students’ aievements regularly. Word Formation Our students’ language proficiency is eed annually in the language practice exam. is examination incorporates the testing of the language skills and language in use. e language in use part draws on English in Use of Cambridge Exams and tests “the ability to apply knowledge of the language system, including vocabulary, grammar, spelling and punctuation, word-building, register and cohesion” (Cambridge ESOL 2003, 2). What this article investigates is one part of the language in use subtest – a word formation gap-filling exercise. Su an exercise is text-based and students’ task is to complete ea gap with a new word derived from the word given. A word formation task tests students’ knowledge of lexis as well as structure. Besides applying word formation rules, students’ “understanding of the text beyond sentence level” (Reviewing FCE and CAE 2007, 2) is also required. us, the successful completion of the task involves a combination of both reading comprehension and sufficient awareness of word formation principles, whi makes the task intrinsically communicative. e word class and derived forms are important aspects of word knowledge (ornbury 2006, 240). Generally, the awareness of word formation principles proves to be an effective

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facilitator of both receptive and productive skills development. e practical application of these principles broadens students’ active vocabulary and enables them to be more precise when expressing themselves. In addition, the awareness of word formation enhances effective contextual guesswork (Taylor 1990, 2; Gairns and Redman 1986, 48). From what was mentioned above it is obvious that a word formation gap-filling task exhibits sufficient validity to be included in a language proficiency test (it measures exactly that). On top of that, it is also reliable as well as practical as the questions are productive and relatively open-ended but still, it is easy to distinguish a correct answer from an incorrect one. Analysis Since the number of students the DE can accept ea year is limited, there is a need to select successful applicants on the basis of a wrien entrance test results. A word formation gapfilling exercise was used in the DE’s entrance exam for the first time in 2007. Because of this, a thorough analysis of the results in this subtest was made. e analysis showed a strong correlation between the overall scores and the scores gained in the word formation sub-test, i.e., this sub-test tested the applicants’ proficiency consistently with the rest of the test. As the word formation gap-filling exercise was found to be an integral part of the entrance test, it has also been included in progress and aievement tests during the baelor studies (Babiá and Nevařil 2008). To gain feedba on the student’s progress towards the end of the first year of their studies, it was decided that the analysis of the students’ results in the word formation task in the exam test would be beneficial. In particular, an error analysis was conducted in 2008, and the errors of the first year students were compared to those made by the applicants the year before. e aims of this analysis were (a) to find out whi items are generally most problematic; (b) to compare the applicants’ and students’ problems; (c) to investigate the students’ progress; (d) to gain ideas for future teaing and testing. As mentioned above, one of the aims of the analysis was to find out whether there was any progress in the students’ skill to apply and use word formation rules aer one year of their studies at the DE. Basically, students’ awareness of word formation principles is developed in all the subjects during the first year. e approa to teaing word formation can be divided into overt and covert. e overt approa is applied mostly in linguistic disciplines – in morphology and partially in phonetics and phonology. Especially, in morphology lessons students study the theory and examples of word formation in English and practise different types of word formation. e overt approa is typical in the lessons of language practice, language skills and literature. ese subjects tea students to benefit from the knowledge of word formation mainly by supporting their contextual guesswork; students are also encouraged to experiment with word formation and read authentic English texts. Of course, these two approaes might overlap, whi is typically the case of language practice where students might be taught word formation explicitly or implicitly while acquiring their language skills. Overall, it is obvious that the input that students are exposed to in the first year is quite extensive so, theoretically, there should be a noticeable

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improvement in their performance in a word formation gap-filling exercise. Let us look at the results of the analysis now. e analysis is based on the results of 203 applicants in the entrance test and 49 students in the language practice exam at the end of the first year. It is important to state that in both cases the word formation gap-filling exercise was just one part of a complex exam. ere were altogether four parts in the entrance test (multiple-oice cloze, error correction, word formation and reading comprehension) and word formation was one of two exercises in the language in use part of the language practice exam, whi also consisted of speaking, reading and listening. e entrance exam was at the B2.2 level and the language practice exam at the C1.1. level. Given the different number of the applicants and students, the results cannot be considered as entirely corresponding and cannot be fully compared, still, the findings gave us at least some insight into the students’ language proficiency development. Overall Results e total number of points that could be reaed in the word formation subtest in the entrance test and exam was 10 and 8 respectively. As can be seen in Table 1, there is a slightly positive ange at the end of the first year as all the students gained at least one point in the exercise, while in the entrance test, 6% of the applicants earned zero points (see Table 2). However, the majority of the students gained either four or five points (altogether 58%), whereas the desirable results would be rather six or more points for the majority of the students. On the other hand, it seems that the distribution of the percentage per the number of points is more or less regular and indicates that the task discriminates well between more and less proficient language users. Table 1: Exam Test Results Points Earned 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Percentage of Students 2% 6% 14% 29% 29% 16% 2% 2% 0%

Table 2: Entrance Test Results Points Earned 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Percentage of Applicants 6% 5% 12% 14% 13% 15% 10% 8% 5% 4% 6%

Most Difficult Items To find out whi items in the word formation subtest were the most difficult for the applicants/students, the facility value (FV), i.e., the percentage of the students who answered the item correctly, was calculated (see Examples 1–2 below).

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Entrance Test (1)

Brakes too were extremely (1) , so (2) before any danger. 1) ineffective (noun → adj. + neg. prefix); FV = 1 2) drivers (verb → noun + pl.); FV = 11

had to slow down well

Exam Test (2)

e successful applicants will have a proven record of (1) in fund-raising, excellent (2) skills . . . 1) effectiveness (noun → noun, 2 suffixes); FV = 6 2) management/managerial (verb → noun / adj., 2 suffixes); FV = 12

It is clear that the most difficult items involve the use of more than one affix. Error Analysis e greatest interest of the authors of this article lies in the examination of the errors the applicants and students made. It was evident from the answers to the particular items that some of them are not completely wrong or illogical. erefore, we decided to investigate three major groups of errors: partially correct answer / non-existent word; partially correct answer / existing word and task not fulfilled / unanged word. Partially correct answer / non-existent word e answers falling into this category included words whose form shows that the particular affix or affixes are typically used with the word class (e.g., an adjective) or meaning (e.g., the negative) needed, but the word itself does not exist in English (see Examples 3–6). is category of errors comprised 82 out of the total 939 of the incorrect answers in the entrance test (8.7%), the most common ones being: (3)

(4)

Brakes too were extremely ineffective (effect), so drivers had to slow down well before any danger. *uneffective; *uneffectable Men’s caps and ladies’ hats kept dust off the hair, while veils or goggles were absolutely essential (essence) to protect the eyes. *essencable; *essencive

In the exam test, it was 44 out of 171 incorrect answers (25.7%): (5)

(6)

e successful applicants will have a proven record of effectiveness (effect) in fundraising, excellent managerial skills . . . *effectivity; *effection e director has overall responsibility for the artistic side of a production and must conduct all the rehearsals (rehearse) . . . *rehearsments; *rehearsions

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Su errors possibly imply that a student making them understands the context sufficiently and tries to fill in a meaningful answer but las the knowledge to be able to complete the gap with an existing English word. Sometimes there is clear negative transfer from the Cze language as in Example 5 (the Cze word being ‘efektivita’). It can be deduced, from the higher percentage of this type of error in the exam test, that the students endeavoured to experiment with the word forms more than the applicants. Partially correct answer / existing word is category stands in opposition to the previous one. is type of error involved creating an existing word of the correct word class but the meaning or the grammar did not fit the surrounding context. is type of error was identified in 283 out of 939 incorrect answers (30.1%) in the entrance test, e.g.: (7)

(8)

Brakes too were extremely ineffective, so drivers (drive) had to slow down well before any danger. *driver So driving was an exhausting (exhaust) experience. *exhausted

Example 7 above is a typical example of an answer whi is almost correct but the applicants misread the context where the plural must be used. It might also show inadequate grammatical knowledge aracteristic for Cze learners – leaving out articles before singular countable nouns. is error occurred in 50 cases, that is approx. 25% of all the applicants. One of the very frequent errors is shown in Example 8. e confusion of the -ed and -ing adjectives can be oen observed regardless of different proficiency levels. In the exam, this category is formed by 40 out of 171 incorrect answers (23.3%), e.g.: (9)

. . . excellent managerial skills and will have demonstrated leadership (lead) skills through the practical implementation of projects. *leading; *leader’s (10) Your lecturers (lecture) are all qualified professionals who are also commied and enthusiastic. *lectors Generally, it can be said that students making this type of error have theoretical knowledge but an insufficient reading skill as they probably misunderstand the overall context. ere is a slight decrease in the number of this kind of error when the entrance test and exam are compared, whi might indicate that the students were a lile more successful at taking the context into account than the applicants. Both the above mentioned categories display the everlasting clash between accuracy and fluency in foreign language teaing. From the communicative point of view, learners using su either existing or non-existent words in similar context would, most likely, be

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understood by their listeners/readers and thus the communicative goal would be aieved. Nevertheless, the message would still be somewhat wanting in precision. Learners at the B2 or C1 level of proficiency, especially those training to become English teaers, should be able to express themselves with a higher level of accuracy, to minimize the risk of misunderstanding on the listener’s side. At the C1 level, learners’ errors should be “rare and difficult to spot” (Council of Europe 2001, 114). Task not fulfilled / unchanged word is group includes the answers where the applicants and students did not ange the given word at all, although it was clearly stated in the task instructions. As can be seen, there is no significant difference between the number of su answers on the entrance test and the exam. is might be a bit surprising given the fact that students, aer one year of their training, should be more familiar with both how word formation works and also this particular type of gap-filling task. is type of error might be aributed to the la of understanding of the text, insufficient grammar/vocabulary knowledge or simply, to the la of aention paid to the task itself. e entrance test revealed 81 out of 939 incorrect answers (8.6%) belonging to this category, e.g.: (11) If the engine kied ba during this activity, the result for those who weren’t careful could be a broken (break) thumb or wrist. *break e exam contained 16 out of 171 incorrect answers (9.4%) in this group, e.g.: (12) You can oose a programme at an appropriate level from a wide oice (oose) of subjects. *oose Conclusion In conclusion, the comparison of the results in the two tests showed that the questions that proved most difficult for both the applicants and the students were those requiring adding more than one affix and those involving a spelling ange in the word root. As far as the students at the end of their first year are concerned, they, perhaps surprisingly, still had difficulty puing theory into practice, given the number and type of errors they made. However, a certain effect of the training can be observed in the partially correct answers. On the one hand, the students seemed to experiment with deriving words, and they appeared confident enough to handle the language and venture into its previously unexplored areas. Additionally, the students seemed to understand the context sufficiently, whi shows that their reading skills improved. On the other hand, the data may suggest that all the information from all the disciplines became mixed up; the students did not know how to sort it and use it properly. is leaves us, the teaers at the DE,

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with a difficult task for the future. We should find su ways to incorporate meaningful practice of the word formation principles into our lessons to make students fully realize that what they learn in one subject is interconnected with what they learn in the others. us, students should be able to make use of their knowledge wherever needed. It is important to point out that although word formation exercises cannot provide feedba about learners’ language proficiency in its complexity; they offer a valuable insight into learners’ aievement. Exercises su as these may serve as valid, reliable and practical indicators of learners’ progress. From what has been already mentioned it follows that the ability to use word formation correctly contributes significantly to the development of linguistic competences. By eing on this ability regularly, teaers gain reflection on their teaing and ideas as to what to focus on in remedial work. Used as diagnostic means, word formation exercises provide an invaluable opportunity for both teaers and students to learn from their mistakes. Works Cited Babiá, Blanka, and Josef Nevařil. 2008. Word Formation in the Entrance Test – Statistical and Error Analysis. Paper presented at the ATE ČR international conference “English for Life,” September 12–14, in České Budějovice, Cze Republic. Cambridge ESOL. 2003. Certificate in Advanced English 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Council of Europe. 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaing, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gairns, Ruth, and Stuart Redman. 1986. Working With Words: A Guide to Teaing and Learning Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, Linda L. 1990. Teaing and Learning Vocabulary. New York: Prentice Hall. ornbury, Sco. 2006. An A-Z of ELT. Oxford: Macmillan Education. University of Cambridge. 2007. Reviewing FCE and CAE 8 (August 2007), hp://www.cambridgeesol.org/assets/pdf/fcecae_review8.pdf.

Motivating Young Learners in Acquiring English through Songs, Poems, Drama and Stories Eva hom*olová Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Tajovského 40, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic. Email: hom*olova@v.umb.sk

Abstract: In the European Union, competence in foreign languages is a generally accepted goal. at is one of the reasons why teaing English to young learners is becoming more widespread throughout Slovak sools. e author deals with some pedagogic and psyological aspects of teaing English to young learners. As beginning a foreign language at an early age creates a number of allenges for both teaers and learners, special aention should be paid to methods, approaes and teniques used in the classroom. e author wishes to stress the importance of motivational tools su as poems, songs, games and drama activities that are considered suitable for this specific age group. Keywords: young learners; motivation; Total Physical Response (TPR); games; songs; poems

Introduction Young learners are a very specific group of learners, comprised of pre-sool learners, usually ages 2–5 (very young learners), or early primary sool learners, usually ages 6–8. e discussion over when it is suitable to introduce a foreign language is both old and ongoing, and the “right age” is still hotly contested among experts, but usually in Slovakia the acquisition of a second language begins in the first years of primary sool, leading therefore to the focus of this study on language acquisition among early primary sool learners. Theoretical Background Over the last two decades teaing English to this specific group of learners has anged a lot. Educators, professionals and teaers have become more focused on ildren and consequently also on methods and approaes to be used in teaing them a foreign language. Introducing a foreign language in the early years of primary sool goes hand in hand with current trends in the European Union, where the ability to communicate in at least two foreign languages is becoming a necessity. One of the well-known theories in favor of an early start with foreign language teaing is the Critical Period Hypothesis first developed by Lennenberg (Hanušová 2009). is hypothesis argues that the loss of the innate ability of foreign language acquisition is due to developmental anges in the brain. Lennenberg established the ideal period for foreign language acquisition between the age of two years and puberty (Hanušová 2009). Many authors (Harmer 1993; Kryszewska 2008; Farkašová et al. 2001) stress that the basic methodology feature of teaing young learners is to create conditions that

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would be similar to learning a mother tongue. In other words, to create su a learning environment in whi acquisition will predominate over conscious learning. Unlike learning, in acquisition unks of language are absorbed in a natural, non - conscious way. is process is similar to that by whi a mother tongue is acquired. Resear on second language acquisition has revealed that learners pass through stages of acquisition that are very similar to those of first language learners. is does not mean that there are no differences due to the learners’ native language, but the differences are less striking than similarities (Lightbown and Spada 1996). According to psyologists and educators, the first seven years in the life of any ild are crucial and extremely important as s/he develops intellectually, physically emotionally and socially. It is necessary to keep in mind the general aracteristics of young learners as it can serve as a starting point for language education. — — — —

Intellectual aracteristics; Physical aracteristics; Emotional aracteristics; Social aracteristics.

In general ildren are holistic learners. “[ey] respond to language according to what it does or what they can do with it, rather than treating it as an intellectual game or abstract system” (Phillips 1993, 5). ey are primarily interested in what they can do with language “here and now” as they like to manipulate it in the same way as they manipulate their mother tongue. In general, young learners are curious, and “new language” triggers this curiosity. Yet, they need frequent anges of activity (e.g., listening, coloring, doing drama activities, singing) as they cannot concentrate for a long time (Harmer 1993). ey need a lot of encouragement, praise and positive feedba from the teaer all the time. Language teaing can also make use of learners’ imagination, fantasy and creativity. Moreover it combines “all in one” - other sool subjects, learners interests and hobbies su as physical activities, drama, singing, playing games, coloring, drawing, competitions, simple projects, reciting by heart, toys, pets, cuing and mating pictures, etc. ese general aracteristics of ildren have a direct implication on planning lessons and teaing. Total Physical Response One of the successful and commonly used methods with young learners is the Total Physical Response method (TPR). is method is based on comprehension and postpones foreign language production to reduce stress and pressure on ildren. Its founder, James Asher, based the method on principles used to acquire a mother tongue: listening (being exposed to language), understanding and physical responding. In the classroom it is the teaer who issues commands in the foreign language, and then ildren respond with

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an appropriate physical action together with him/her. Aer learners become familiar with these commands, they continue to respond to commands without the teaer. New commands are oen combined with the ones practiced before. Asher (2000) stresses the following aspects of the method: — understanding the spoken language must come before speaking; — understanding is developed through body movements; — listening creates readiness to speak. TPR activities su as pointing, drawing, guessing, performing physical actions, picture work, story telling and acting etc. are responded to very well by ildren as they are similar to activities and games they like. Motivation Disregarding the age of learners, there exist many individual factors whi directly or indirectly affect language learning, su as self-esteem, motivation, anxiety, learning styles, etc. Of further importance is motivation of young learners. According to the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaing and Applied Linguistics, motivation “is considered to be one of the primary causes of success and failure in second language learning” (Riards et al. 2002, 344).| Motivation is what every teaer has to take into account if they are concerned about creating the best possible acquisition / learning environment for ildren. In general the environment they are used to at home and the new social environment at sool should be as similar as possible. In other words what motivates ildren at home can be successfully applied in the classroom whatever subject is taught. Language teaing and learning has a great advantage over other subjects as learners can “do things with new language” similarly as they do with their mother tongue. Nevertheless young learners in the first years of formal sooling are still learning concepts and developing skills in their mother tongue, whi affect their ability to acquire a target language (Lojová 2008). Teaers should be aware of how they acquire their mother tongue best. Although there exist many theories how this happens it is probable that ildren acquire the language best through play, fun, songs, rhymes, stories and cooperation with others. If the teaer can guarantee that learners will find pleasure, leisure and affection in the second language, the ild will naturally acquire the target language without almost any effort. Games Games are specific foreign language resources that offer all that ildren need: fun, engagement, spontaneity, creativity and enjoyment. ese are essential requirements to make language learning and teaing a bit easier and more similar to the real world of ildren. Being involved in games opens an important pathway to language learning not only because it grants the opportunity to use the language in a flexible and meaningful way but also and above all because it nourishes both the intellect and the soul (Valicenti and Conte 2006). It is possible to build simple games using very lile language (e.g., Simon

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says . . .) Learners engaged in a motivating game want to participate and in doing so they are mentally and physically engaged and allenged. When playing, all the learner’s aention is directed towards the outcome of the game and in this unconscious effort of being in action, acquiring language takes place. Moreover, any game played in the classroom strengthens the development of cooperation, relationship between learners and the teaer, and social behavior and at the same time, it offers an opportunity for a limited language production. Poems, Rhymes and Chants Another area of ildren’s literature to be considered are poems and nursery rhymes. ey are part of the cultural tradition but many are also wrien contemporarily. ey are based on rhythm, humor, playing with words and creativity and play an important role for the language acquisition of young learners. In poems, rhymes and ants English words appear in a natural context whi can be understood even though learners do not understand individual words. As ildren have a strong tendency to imitate and memorize, poems, rhymes and ants provide an excellent context for their mental development. In general it is not important to analyze texts too closely. Learners do not have to understand all the words to enjoy the text, learn it by heart and be ready to repeat it many times. Children’s Songs Many researers (Halliwell 1992; Griffee 1986; Ur 1996) have found that ildren’s songs have aracteristics that help learning a second language: — — — — — —

they oen contain common, short words; the language is easy; there is a frequent repetition of words and grammar (similar to drilling exercises); they have a caty tune; they contain rhythm and rhyme; they can be accompanied by physical action or gestures (clapping, dancing and/or playing simple instruments stimulates memory); — they bring spontaneity and a good mood into the classroom. Singing songs again and again creates automaticity that is so important in language learning. Repeatedly practicing the same unks of language creates secure bridges to later language production. Stories Stories and fairy tales are effective tools for early language learning/acquisition. Story telling is one of the activities ildren love in the mother tongue and it can be made use of in foreign language classrooms. In general, stories meet the emotional, psyological and cognitive needs of young learners. A good example of a story for ELT is one whi includes ain structures, rhyming words, repetition, action words and sound words. Action words make ildren physically involved and facilitate understanding. In other words, ildren

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actively receive, enter the story, identify with the aracters and actively participate. Moreover they acquire language in a non-stressful way. e teaer should guide learners’ understanding by the way s/he tells the story. is way s/he enables ildren to learn strategies for making meaning. Halliwell (1992) stresses the ildren’s ability to grasp meaning whi can be strengthened the same way as in their mother tongue by using intonation, gestures, facial expressions, actions etc. Summary Learning and teaing a foreign language is a big allenge. In a word, to undergo this process successfully the participant needs tools that work. ese tools can be provided by conditions under whi language learning is not only possible but also desirable. A positive learning environment created by suitable methods, approaes, motivation and enjoyable activities can bring foreign language learning into learners’ lives. rough foreign language acquiring and learning, young learners receive the opportunity to expand their thinking, to acquire global awareness, to extend their understanding of language as a phenomenon, and later to rea an advanced proficiency level in that foreign language. Works Cited Asher, James J. 2000. Year 2000 Update for the Total Physical Response, Known Worldwide as TPR. In e TPR Source. Brea, CA: Berty Segal. hp://www.tprsource.com/asher.htm (accessed June 30, 2003). Farkašová, Eva, Beáta Menzlová, and Květa Biskupičová. 2001. Jazyky hrou. Bratislava: Orbis Pictus. Griffee, Dale T. 1986. Songs in Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halliwell, Susan. 1992. Teaing English in the Primary Classroom. London: Longman. Hanušová, Světlana. 2009. Foreign Language Teaing and Learning at an Early Age. Lingua Viva 8, no. 5: 9–16. Harmer, Jeremy. 1993. e Practice of English Language Teaing. London: Longman. Kryszewska, Hania. 2008. Books for English Children an Inspiration for Teaing English as a Foreign Language. Humanising Language Teaing 10, no. 3 (June): hp://www.hltmag.co.uk. Lightbown, Patsy, and Nina Spada. 1996. How Languages are Learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lojová, Gabriela. 2008. ality Versus antity in Foreign Language Primary Education. In ELT in Primary Education, ed. Gabriela Lojová and Eva Kostelníková, 31–38. Bratislava: PdF UK. Phillips, Sarah. 1993. Young Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Riards, Ja C., Riard Smidt, Heidi Kendris, and Youngkyu Kim. 2002. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaing and Applied Linguistics. 3rd ed. London: Longman. Ur, Penny. 1996. A Course in Language Teaing: Practice and eory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Valicenti, Mónica, and M. Laura Conte. 2006. Ploys to Play. Humanising Language Teaing 8, no. 3 (May): hp://www.hltmag.co.uk.

Intercultural Aspects of Teaching Foreign Language Realia Alica Harajová Language and Comunication Institute, University of Sladkovicovo, Fučíkova 269, 925 21 Sládkovičovo, Slovak Republic. Email: [emailprotected]

Abstract: is paper concerns the increasing intercultural awareness of pupils and students. is topic is of a high importance in an era of increasing globalization. Modern society now requires the development of intercultural competence, whi should be perceived as a means in the process of increasing foreign language proficiency. Foreign language teaing, especially information on culture, creates favourable conditions for accomplishing this task. Keywords: intercultural awareness; intercultural competence; foreign language teaing; intercultural learning; intercultural communication

Three Approaches to Realia e academic discipline of realia started in the 20th century, aer World War I, in England and America. In Germany it began in the 1930s. An emphasis was put on foreign language teaing and the teaing of literature. Literature was considered as a vehicle for the transmission of foreign culture. However, in the 1950s, the role of foreign language teaing anged. Mutual understanding among nations was ensured through the language, and the content of realia supported this understanding. Realia offered knowledge on the culture and society of a target language spee community in the form of factual knowledge that fulfilled only a subordinate role in the teaing process. In this cognitive approa to the teaing of realia, culture was represented by literature, music, fine arts, etc. e main aim was to provide the local colour of a given country and to acquire and reproduce facts. In the 1970s, people were familiar with social anges and scientific news conspicuous for all aspects of everyday life. e perception of language meant one step forward – linguistics was no longer perceived only as a system, but as a medium through whi things can be expressed and communicated. e teaing of realia reaed new qualitative dimensions. e culture of a given country was reflected in su notions likedaily life, hobbies, sports, health, travelling, shopping, etc. e function of realia is no longer subservient to other aspects of foreign language education, but has instead become an inseparable part of su education. Nowadays it is recognised as an independent scientific discipline directly connected with language teaing. In the context of foreign language teaing, the teaing of realia takes a form of intercultural approa (also as intercultural – communicative approa) where foreign

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culture is taught from the point of students’ own culture and own life experiences. is intercultural approa became part of sool curricula in the 1990s. Cognitive, communicative and intercultural approaes to the teaing of realia emerged one by one and in spite of this, none of them are derived from the previous one. Elements of these three approaes cannot be applied separately in various methodological procedures. e task of realia within an intercultural approa can be aracterised as follows: — to provide sufficient knowledge in order to understand the language behaviour in another language context; — to study the lives of people from the target language culture; — mediation of target language culture; — information on realia should always enable a comparison with the mother tongue culture. e European Union now has 27 member states, a fact that offers many people new opportunities. At present, migration within member states is increasing especially among young people that take advantage of the opportunity to study and work abroad. However, E.U. expansion has also led to an increased desire to protect cultural differences, whi are still perceived as valuable. Intercultural Learning Markus Bieele and Alicia Padrós (2003, 75–76) distinguish four fields within the intercultural approa that lead to the development of communicative competence. e fields in question are: — — — —

exercises of perception; activation from strategies to discovery of meanings; cultural comparison competence; the ability to produce discourse within intercultural situations.

Exercise of perception is not an objective and neutral process, as it is influenced by numerous factors, e.g., clié that does not have to be necessarily negative but represents a kind of example to follow. at is the way the access to information has to be guided by the teaer. Clié cannot be easily reduced, but the purpose is to learn how to work with it. Discovery of meanings is essential in the process of developing intercultural competence because the meaning of words is connected with society and its culture. Learning occurs through associations, recognition of pictures and revelation of correct word meanings. Cultural comparison competence is a rather problematic maer due to various processes that come into play like differentiation, generalisation and observation. e ability to produce discourse within intercultural situations is distinguishing verbal and non-verbal communication that has been neglected for a long period of time. Non-verbal signals, mimics, gestures and postures are directly imparted within the process of communication in order to avoid misunderstanding.

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Bernd-Dietri Müller (1993, 63–76) describes communicative competence in the context of interculture as follows: — an insight into human cognition and behaviour, especially communicative behaviour and culturally based behaviour (to develop the sense of “otherness”); — the ability and readiness to take over foreign cultural perspectives; — knowledge on dimensions within whi it is possible to differentiate cultures; — special knowledge in order to identify various communicative styles in interaction; — the ability to explain different communicative behaviours on the basis of deeply rooted cultural artefacts; — the ability to understand meanisms of communication and to reduce the feeling of uncertainty and to avoid stereotypes; — the ability to manage communication strategies with limited language means; — the ability to notice and to handle misunderstanding in the process of communication, stemming from different cultural conventions influencing language behaviour; — the knowledge of strategies mitigating misunderstanding in communication. Realia – Goals, Teaching Content Realia as a component of foreign language teaing has several functions that are dependent on teaing practice and are also dictated by it. e goals of realia can be fulfilled through a mediation of facts about the target country. It is also essential to deepen the knowledge of literature, music, language and everyday communicative situations. It is necessary to preserve the knowledge of realia in order to refer to it in the process of intercultural comparison. Intercultural knowledge can also trigger students’ interest in the target language. e task of the teaer is to keep students alert so that they can make use of the acquired knowledge and, at the same time, feel stimulated and motivated to learn something new. It is up to the teaer to make use of his/her own knowledge and present it in an effective way. In doing so, it is important to take into account students’ interests and needs and to integrate the incoming information within the existing knowledge system. e importance of the English language both in the United Kingdom and in the United States invites a contrastive presentation of realia. is also holds true for other languages, for instance the German language being an official language in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, or the Spanish language used in Spain or in parts of the Americas and the Caribbean, etc. In the teaing process, a great number of topics, e.g., from geography, state law, art, or linguistic differences, can be used. When selecting teaing material, it is essential to remember that students should not be instructed in encyclopaedic knowledge but rather should be introduced to the general flair for the target language culture. e teaer should use authentic texts, both wrien and spoken. Realia and the ability to communicate In order to improve the knowledge of realia, it is important for the language teaer to enable students to work with vocabulary, to read and listen and interact in the target language.

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Theories in Practice

Working with vocabulary improves the connection between language and culture. e student needs to be familiar not only with the meaning of a word. He/she also needs to know its grammatical, graphical and phonetic forms. Lexis, in this case, is more socially oriented, as it contains topics like politics, education, industry, commerce. Reading with comprehension enables the reader to gain new knowledge regarding the target spee community. Su texts can be longer. e task of the teaer is to help students to reveal hidden meanings related to target language realia. e development of reading skills should go hand in hand with the development of the ability to gain new information. Newspapers and magazines that can easily capture readers’ aention are especially suitable to this purpose. Listening with comprehension has to be carefully planned and prepared as it is more difficult than reading with comprehension. It consists of the following stages: before, during and aer listening stage. Texts for listening comprehension can provide information on realia, e.g., TV and radio broadcasts, daily news, commentaries, interviews, literarybased interviews, or radio plays. Realia materials like pictures, photos, maps, or photos with typical landmarks, videos, TV broadcasts support all above-mentioned activities. Listening is closely connected with speaking and writing. Aer listening or reading, the learner should have a ance to express his/her opinions through discussion. Discussion on realia in a foreign language also presupposes an appropriate introduction of the topic. In this case, open questions related to topics su as unemployment, drug addiction and problems of the youth oen stimulate discussion. Factual information is not important here. What counts is one’s own opinion and the ability to interpret things in a personally meaningful way. Works Cited Bieele, Markus, and Alicia Padrós. 2003. Didaktik der Landeskunde. Fernstudieneinheit 31. Münen: Berlitz. Müller, Bernd-Dietri. 1993. Interkulturelle Kompetenz: Annäherung an einen Begriff. Jahrbu Deuts als Fremdsprae 19: 63–76.

Název:

eories in Practice: Proceedings of the First International Conference on English and American Studies September 9, 2009 Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Cze Republic

Editoři:

Roman Trušník Katarína Nemčoková

Vydavatel:

Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlíně Nám. T. G. Masaryka 5555, 760 01 Zlín

Vydání:

první

Vyšlo:

2010

Náklad:

200 (125 výtisků, 75 CD)

Tisk:

Tribun EU s.r.o., Gorkého 41, 602 00 Brno ISBN 978-80-7318-823-8 (tisk) ISBN 978-80-7318-914-3 (CD)

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