Search

Sotto questo titolo è apparsa nell'autunno del 1999 un'antologia curata dai quattro editori,. contenente 29 brani ( ad opera dei curatori e altri collaboratori). Le linee direttrici sono esposte nella prefazione (Preface, 2 pagine introduttive fuori paginazione). La base è l'antologia Early Romance Texts: An Anthology (1980) di Rodney Sampson, definita invaluable, ma ormai di difficile accesso. Perciò, con la presente scelta di testi si cerca di ovviare a questa situazione. Ci sono però determinati limiti: infatti, sono stati tralasciati i testi più noti, canonici, già bene studiati, ma nel contempo si è desistito anche dall'includere soltanto testi finora non pubblicati. In tal modo si è scelta una via di mezzo, includendo i testi meno noti e meno discussi, tutti pubblicati, è vero, già prima ma in places now considered relatively obscure e parecchio tempo (perfino tutto un secolo) fa. La struttura di tutti i contributi è identica: ad una succinta introduzione (dati essenziali sul relativo testo) seguono il brano, i commenti, la bibliografia e la traduzione inglese. In tal modo l'antologia è coerente, di facile orientamento ed altrettanto facili confronti tra i singoli testi, il che è di notevole importanza scientifica e pedagogica. Infine, i curatori fanno risaltare il ruolo delle ricerche filologiche negli studi più propriamente linguistici.

The subsequent three papers in the present volume (viz. Snedec', Teržan's, and Trobevšek-Drobnak's) have arisen from the research in historical syritax conducted since 1986 by us in the Department for Germanic Languages and Literatures of the University of Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, under the advisorship of J. Orešnik.

L'Università Autonoma di Barcellona ha inserito fra le sue Publicacions del Departament de Filologia Hispànica il volume che reca il titolo citato e che è desti­ nato ad avere carattere periodico (p. 6). Nel Prologo (pp. 5-6) i curatori affermano che fino agli anni 70 la linguistica «en aquest nostre país» non era arrivata al grado di maturità che permettesse la formazione di una scuola né di un sufficiente numero di ricercatori. Dall'inizio della scorsa decade le cose sono cominciate ad andare me­ glio: nel giugno del 1983 è stato spedito un invito a collaborare al volume miscella­ neo (qui recensito) e a Sitges è stato o ganizzato un colloquio internazionale dedica­ to ai problemi di linguistica teorica e agli aspetti (sincronici e diacronici) della lingui­ stica romanza che presentano interesse teorico. Il volume recensito raccoglie tredici contributi, di cui sei sono stati presentati al colloquio citato. Con le parole dei cura­ tori (collaboratori dell'Università Autonoma di Barcelona /U. A. B./: Joan Masca­ ró, Anna Bartra, Josep M. Brucart, Josep M. Nadal e Gemma Rigau): «d'aquesta manera volem fer plataforma que contribueixi a la consolidació, al nostre país, d'aquella pràctica científica "normal" que esmentàvem abans» (p. 6). Insomma, si cerca, e si riesce, a portare la linguistica catalana ed ispanica ad un livello internazionale e nel contempo si presentano i suoi risultati al pubblico linguistico mondiale.

The article discusses Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a disruptive power, i.e., a power that – as the dictionary SSKJ states – “because of its otherness, its visionary conception in relation to the status quo, acts boldly and unexpectedly”. At the beginning of the paper, the theoretical background of AI tools is presented, along with some examples of the potential and problems of their use in foreign language teaching. The use of AI-powered tools in foreign language teaching must be thoroughly considered, researched, and regulated at national and supranational levels – e.g., the ethical aspects of using AI in teaching, intellectual property, data protection, and the actual impact of AI-assisted learning. Beyond these challenges, it is worth highlighting, exploring, and, above all, exploiting the potential of AI-based tools and the potential and constructive use of these tools in and for foreign language teaching. In the second part of the paper, the selected AI-based tools suitable for foreign language teaching are briefly presented and analysed through a use case. The advantages and disadvantages of these tools and their use for language learning, chatbots (including ChatGPT), AI-based tools for writing and text proofreading (grammar and spelling), and machine translation tools are illustrated using examples. Despite the advantages, disadvantages, and problems that the use of AI-powered tools entails, the paper aims to highlight their benefits and potential with regard to optimizing users’ — i.e., teachers and learners – time, and, above all, we want to encourage their constructive use.

This paper is an attempt to develop a design-oriented approach to ELT coursebook evaluation, with a particular focus on the internal organization of coursebook units at both intra-unit and inter-unit levels. We believe that looking at coursebooks from the position of the materials designer sheds some additional light on ELT coursebook evaluation. The design-oriented approach to ELT coursebook assessment proposed in the paper goes well beyond the immediate, and often superficial, ‘check-list’ methods commonly used to help teachers select coursebooks. In other words, the design-oriented approach to ELT coursebook assessment enables teachers an insight into ‘the architecture’ of textbooks. On this ‘journey to the centre of ELT textbooks’, we try to highlight how language teaching materials have been resolving the conundrum of the dynamic combination of the What (content), and the How (pedagogy/methodology). In presenting a materials design process, we start off with the assumption that there has always been a broad basis of theoretical and pedagogical notions that can inform the content and organization of ELT coursebooks, and upon which coursebook writers can build when designing instructional materials. The article then discusses three stages of the design process, offering a more detailed analysis of the complex issue of unit structure at intra- and inter-unit levels. We explore different formats of unit structure, its components, ways of creating coherence throughout the unit, and its underlying methodology/pedagogy. The last point prompts the conclusion that today’s ELT materials are produced in response to a perceived market demand that is often at variance with the latest theoretical developments in ELT.

This paper analyses morpho-syntactic interference errors committed by learners of French as a foreign language in four Tanzanian universities: UDSM, UDOM, DUCE and Makumira. The paper has three specific objectives: (i) to identify morpho-syntactic interference errors, (ii) to account for their sources and (iii) to recommend a corrective treatment. The study included a total of 61 respondents. The data was collected through learners’ written texts in French from which a corpus was developed. The study was guided by the interlanguage theory and the error analysis approach. Data analysis was qualitative. The findings reveal that errors included the use of nouns with English origins (18.87%), omission of prepositions (36.79%) and absence of determiners (44.34%). The findings further show that these errors are due to previously acquired or learned languages: Swahili, ethnic community languages and English. Different recommendations are given following the findings. As regards the use of definite and indefinite articles in French, teachers should provide a guided reading of different French texts through which learners will be able to understand how articles are used. To master the use of prepositions, teachers should encourage learners to read a variety of texts in French as this can make them understand and internalize the different prepositions. Moreover, through regular exercises on word formation in French, learners may be able to familiarize themselves with French nouns, hence internalizing their forms. Finally, the learning of French nouns should be done in context.

Literature is an open concept and a creative art which expresses human history, experiences, imagination, observations, predictions and suggestions at a particular time in a given society. Either as fiction or non-fiction, literature can be rendered in both spoken and written words. It is often argued whether literature is for itself or the development of the society that produces it. This study, therefore, interrogates how the selected Francophone African novels, namely Sembène Ousmane’s Les bouts de bois de Dieu, Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre, Ferdinand Oyono’s Le vieux nègre et la médaille, Aminata Sow Fall’s La grève des bàttu, Patrick Ilboudo’s Les vertiges du trône and Fatou Keïta’s Rebelle, depict the function of literature. The novelists are selected because of their inclination towards the social transformation paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to raise people’s awareness and mobilize them towards positive change. Based on close reading, the paper is built around Marxist theory which is interested in the class struggle as demonstrated in a literary text, with a view to deconstructing the existing capitalist tendencies in a given society. The findings reveal that the selected novels are focused on the poor conditions socio-politically, economically, culturally and psychologically that exist both during and after the colonial era. The paper concludes that literature helps readers to cope with the socio-cultural, political, economic, religious and other challenges of their immediate as well as remote environments through the process of self-discovery. As such, positive social change is possible through literature.

The paper gives a comprehensive insight into the peculiarities of concept profiling through defining the related etymological domains. The aim of the paper is to reveal the peculiarities of the profiling of the concepts GOOD / EVIL and JUSTICE through elucidating their source domains from an etymological perspective. The choice of the analysed ethical concepts is stipulated by their higher contextual actualization frequency, as compared with the other ethical concepts, according to the data obtained from British National Corpus. The research method of trajector / landmark alignment used in this work is based on R. Langacker’s views on the profiling of concepts in language utterances and on the tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The novelty of this approach consists in the fact that it was elaborated and tailored for the analysis and explanation of the onomasiological principles of ‘wrapping’ abstract ethical concepts into the language form. The underlying idea is that abstract categories were conceptualized on the basis of background central life experience and knowledge of concrete things. It is argued that such things were the source domains in ontological cross-domain mappings for the target ethical concepts. The current research into the source domain etymons of the ethical categories made it possible to determine the underlying images, which are the core for drawing metaphorical correspondences between source and target concepts. The etymological layer of source domain lexicalizers revealed the intrinsic psychological mechanisms of human cognition and perception of the world, which consist in the inherent proclivity of the human mind to make metaphorical parallels in the direction from daily, central experience to complex abstract ideas and notions. The results made it possible to develop the matrix model of the analysed concepts, which was further developed into a ‘conceptual edifice’ multi-layer model, which reveals the conceptualization paths along which the human mind classifies and categorizes abstract ethical ideas.

This paper deals with the question of the formation of Croatian adjectives with the prefix među-. While such adjectives were very rare in late 19th and early 20th century, an analysis of relevant lexicographic works and digital corpora demonstrated that their number started to become larger in later 20th century, culminating in recent decades. Today, the [među-N-Suff]Adj derivational pattern is a productive, accounting for 134 adjectives with a frequency of ten occurrences or more retrieved from the largest extant Croatian web corpus, hrWaC. On the basis of an analysis of available older lexicographic works and digital corpora, it can be concluded that među- prefixed adjectives first entered into Croatian as loan translations (calques) of Latin(ate) and German terms. According to more recent lexicographic works and digital corpora, later on, and especially in recent decades, which coincided with a growing English influence on Croatian, među- prefixed adjectives were probably produced as equivalents of English inter- prefixed adjectives. The number of među- prefixed adjectives, as well as the variety of semantic domains in which they are used, testify to the fact that the [među-N-Suff]Adj pattern is well-established and productive in contemporary Croatian. The analysis of Croatian među- prefixed adjectives in this paper could contribute to shedding more light on the question of morphological borrowing phenomena in general.

The following paper discusses contemporary challenges of providing access to formally accredited higher education programs in the United States of America, and on a smaller scale also in Slovenia. It interprets the recent college admissions scandal within the historical framework of American educational policies, paired with its traditional social practices. In the initial sections, the paper provides a brief historical overview of the development of American (higher) education, the beginnings of which date as far back as the early 17th century. Back then, the very concept of formal and publicly accessible education was in its developmental stages. By focusing on a selection of historical aspects and educational trends within the American national context, the paper unveils the related expectations and attitudes toward acquiring formal education in the past. It lists a number of historically relevant changes, which have been implemented over the past century within the American educational system at state and federal levels. The latter have contributed to the development of contemporary approaches to education and have affected recent attitudes toward formal education in American society. The paper includes statistical data on enrolments and graduation rates in institutions of higher education in the United States and Slovenia, which offers an insight into the rising enrolment and graduation trends, and relates the figures to the importance of accessibility of education as an equalizer that should provide equality of opportunity for all, irrespective of social background or economic power. The accrued data and related research results support a favorable trend in accessibility of formal education in both countries, the US and Slovenia. This is an important finding, particularly in the context of the college tuition scandal, as it might at first sight create the impression that some of the highly valued and formally accredited institutions of higher education were subject to the influence of a powerful elite. The research results therefore support the trend of the educational system and the accrued knowledge assuming the role of the equalizer in leveling out certain aspects of social inequality.

The paper is a narratological study that problematizes the graphic or textual demarcation between the preface to the novel as a secondary text and the novel as a primary text. Methodologically, it draws on the study Thresholds (Seuils, 1987) and attempts to explain Genette’s structural and functional definition of prefaces, especially those that the French structuralist labels as pseudo-editorial, through more recent studies on the frame narrative (e.g. Abbot 2004, Fludernik 2009, Wolf 2006). On one hand, it outlines the possibilities of the above-mentioned structural categories coinciding, while on the other hand it points to the presence of an independent, broader fabula in both the preface and the frame narrative. In particular, it focuses on the problem of the functional image of certain prefaces in the Enlightenment novel, analysing the prefaces to Prévost’s Manon Lescaut and Marivaux’s The Life of Marianne, while taking Cervantes’s Don Quixote as a historical starting point. The chosen examples demonstrate how and why the boundary between the preface and the novel became blurred in the 18th century, a time when the novel as a narrative genre was articulated and established. One of the main, if not the only, functions of the pseudo-editorial preface, which is per definitionem fictional, is to create the impression of authenticity, with the preface-writer most often using the topos of a found manuscript. However, it turns out that its “dramatization” goes beyond the textual boundaries of the preface and continues in the novel itself, proving that the graphic image of the preface as a paratext no longer corresponds to its functional image. Even if we can trace a similar narrative strategy in both Baroque and Enlightenment novels, it is necessary to distinguish between the reasons for it application. Don Quixote is an example of artful, dynamic, “ingenious” composition and parodies the preface as a rhetorical convention. The fictional nature of the Enlightenment novel, however, inevitably rests on an impression of verisimilitude, and consequently the preface, the privileged place where these two characteristics meet, becomes a full-fledged literary component of the narrative work.

This paper analyses the grammatical gender errors committed by learners of French as a foreign language in four Tanzanian universities: UDSM, UDOM, DUCE and Makumira (University of Dar es Salaam, University of Dodoma, Dar es Salaam University College of Education and Makumira University). The paper has three specific objectives: (i) to identify grammatical gender errors, (ii) to account for their sources and (iii) to propose a corrective treatment. The study included a total of 61 respondents. The data was collected through learners' written texts in French from which a corpus was developed. The study was guided by the error analysis approach and interlanguage theory. The data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings show that grammatical gender errors were found with regard to the masculine definite article (29.73%), the feminine definite article (24.32%), the masculine indefinite article (22.97%), the feminine indefinite article (16.22%) and possessive adjectives (6.76%). These findings show there is a need to help learners of French as a foreign language in the context of Tanzania using the recommended strategies.

This paper investigates transfer in the use of English intensifiers by Croatian students of English. Since transfer is an important factor in second language acquisition and is very common in different areas of language use, it has been the subject of various studies. In this paper, we focus on lexical transfer investigating its effects on the use of intensifiers among first-year undergraduate university students of English at Zadar University, Croatia. The aim of this cross-sectional study is to examine whether there is a connection between the use of intensifiers in L2 and L1, i.e. whether the knowledge of intensifiers in L1 Croatian influences learners' use or knowledge of intensifiers in L2 English. Intensity is a basic human cognitive category and has an important function in communication. Specifically, the speaker expresses emotions or an attitude towards a topic using intensifiers. Furthermore, intensifiers are used in different collocations modifying adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. However, this study focuses only on intensifiers that appear in adverb-adjective collocations, and their use is observed in a relatively large group of language learners at a single point in time. Relevant data are collected using questionnaires as well as cloze-tests and translation tasks which focus on semantics and collocation.

The aim of the paper is to give a critical summary of the traditional and more alternative techniques and activities for pronunciation practice recommended in the literature. In the past few decades the theoretical approaches to teaching pronunciation have changed considerably, from giving a strong focus on the accurate production of individual speech sounds to shifting the focus onto the greater communicative relevance of connected speech and intelligibility. Approaching L2 pronunciation teaching is not an easy task, and it needs to be systematically dealt with. The paper discusses several decisions teachers need to make when choosing activities for pronunciation practice: selecting the type of phonological structure to practice, deciding on the speech mode, determining the structural level of practice, focusing on a particular type of instruction, establishing the degree of control of the structure that is practiced, and choosing which cognitive skill to enhance while practicing. With regard to the various techniques for teaching pronunciation, the analysis shows they have adapted accordingly in line with the different trends. Hence, while traditional activities such as automatic repetition, ear-training and explicit phonetic instruction are still considered effective, additional priority is given to activities for raising phonological awareness, communicative activities and techniques that adopt an interdisciplinary approach.

This paper presents a study of the influence of orthography and phonemic transcription on the pronunciation of the four GB vowels /e/, /æ/, /ʌ/, and /ɜ:/ by Slovene university students of English. The paper also examines the relation between the perception and production of the four vowels in question by comparing the perception results of the same vowels from a previous study and the production results of this study. The results indicate a positive influence of phonemic transcription on the production of the examined vowels, whereas the influence of orthography on the pronunciation is confusing and leads to pronunciation errors. The results also confirm the findings of the perception study that the most difficult vowel contrast to maintain is between /e/ and /æ/. Interestingly, the perceived vocalic substitutes do not match the pronunciation substitutes for these two vowels. While the pronunciation of /e/ is excellent, its perception is still confused with /æ/.

This paper examined the topic of Low Vowel Lengthening in Hungarian, which is a term describing the short-long alternation that low vowels show. After an introduction of the vowel system and phonotactics of the language, two main criteria were identified that an analysis of LVL has to satisfy: (i) being able to explain suffixes that do not trigger LVL, yet interact with the stem and (ii) being a close-fitting model for other phenomena related to linking vowels, as well (the need for the latter rose from a functional motivation). From the two possible groups of analyses (lengthening and shortening approaches), it was lengthening that proved to be a more suitable account for the phenomena. Examples of both were given with explanation and evaluation on the two criteria. Finally, the empty-V approach suggested in this paper was also tested against these criteria.

Discontinuous foci – cases in which the focus as expected by semantic or pragmatic considerations is not a single constituent within the phrase marker – are not commonly discussed in the formal literature on focussing. This paper proposes to use Unalternative Semantics to analyze such foci. Unalternative Semantics is a novel framework for calculating focus alternatives from metrically annotated trees (instead of trees with Fmakers); this format naturally lends itself to the modelling of discontinuous foci. The paper compares this approach to other, alternative options involving F-markers and argues in favor of the F-less treatment.

In this paper, I discuss the distribution of bare singular indefinite nominals in Russian. I argue that these nominal phrases are full-fledged indefinites and can have both specific and non-specific indefinite interpretations. However, their appearance in the preverbal subject position is not common. I argue in this paper that this restriction exists because a specific interpretation, or, in other words, a referential reading, required for this position cannot be unambiguously established with BSgs without any additional sentential specification. Additionally, I discuss some consequences of my proposal, such as BSg subjects of individual-level predicates, and BSg subjects in thetic judgments.

Content and coherence are the categories most difficult to evaluate fairly when raters use analytic scoring scales. Readers inevitably interpret texts in their own idiosyncratic ways, depending on their knowledge, experience, ethical considerations, and other personal biases that they cannot completely set aside when grading a text. This is also true for descriptors, which are themselves short texts. To make matters worse, due to the very nature of writing but also the lack of consensus among experts in discourse research, writing theory, and writing assessment, descriptors are categorized vaguely and inconsistently. As a result, raters seeking useful evaluation criteria are confronted with descriptors that cover the same concept, such as “relevance”, being categorized in one set of criteria as relating to the content of the written text and in another as belonging to the category of coherence. Nevertheless, the objectivity of the evaluation of written work can be increased. The article examines the relationship between content and coherence, which is reflected in the way the two concepts are defined in the relevant literature, as well as in some descriptors used in two grading scales used in Slovenia. The empirical part of the paper presents a case study involving 46 secondary school teachers, whose responses to a questionnaire confirm the subjectivity of the understanding of individual descriptors and the need for adequate training of teachers in the use of analytic scoring scales, regular standardization in the schools where they work, evaluation of the assessment scales they use and their possible adaptation.

The paper is based on the idea of the usefulness of contrastive linguistics and linguistic awareness for the development of competence and (meta)linguistic awareness in Spanish at university level, in the case of Serbian university students. The concept of linguistic awareness is briefly presented, based on the works of Schmidt 1990, Hawkins 1999, Rieder 2000, Bailini 2009, De Villa 2018 among others. The term is understood as a cognitive activity or a capacity for metalinguistic reflection, on the one hand, and, on the other, as an approach to foreign language learning (halfway between a structuralist and a communicative approach), which allows students to become “highly motivated self-taught” individuals who as such “enjoy a greater power of adaptation at the cultural level through the use of critical reflection” (De Villa 2018: 163, 172). Therefore, we advocate a cognitive approach to languages in contrastive linguistics classes to raise students’ awareness concerning the use of their own language as well as a foreign language (in this case Spanish). In order to test our hypothesis, we conducted an anonymous survey among students on the approach and usefulness of the course “Introduction to Spanish-Serbian Contrastive Analysis” taught at the University of Belgrade. The results show a very high satisfaction with the method used in class.

The paper presents the results of an experiment whose purpose was to study the attitudes towards six L1 varieties of English by Slovene students of English. Using the verbal guise test, the participants were exposed to audio clips of Received Pronunciation (RP), General American (GA), Scottish English (ScE), Irish English (IrE), Australian English (AusE) and New Zealand English (NZE). They were required to complete a two-part questionnaire. In part one, they were asked to rate, on four-point Likert scale, statements about the cognitive, affective and aesthetic traits of the speakers, as well as the linguistic traits which they believed contributed most to their attitudes to a particular variety. In part two, they had to rank the six tested varieties indicating their general order of preference, their relative familiarity with the varieties and the appropriateness of the varieties for teaching to Slovene learners of English. The results of the study confirm the findings of numerous other similar studies in giving preference to the two best-known global standard varieties (RP and GA) over the other varieties.

This essay proposes to present and analyse the pictures or representations of Paris in Ernest Hemingway’s, Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s and Gertrude Stein’s different works. The theoretical framework of the piece is geocriticism by which the author attempts to discover how these works contributed to the literary construction of the French capital. The other objective of the essay is however to show the birth of a Parisian literary myth. After giving a brief overview of recent spatiality studies, the paper explains in-depth the geocritical method by the analysis of certain extracts of the different literary perceptions of Paris in the twenties, written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald (Babylon Revisited), Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast) and Gertrude Stein (Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Paris, France). The latter approach can help to shed some light on the reasons why these expatriates (American and British writers, artists) came to Paris in the first place and what attracted them so much. Later on, the paper explains that the artists of the Lost Generation were disoriented and aimless after the war, so they headed to Paris to find some ‘old’ values and rebuild their lifes. These authors found there a new and very inspirational atmosphere, new friends, new goals, they started interesting publishing initiatives and searched for their proper literary voices. In the meantime, by representing the always exciting and crowded Parisian life, they created a literary myth of Paris which considers the city as safe haven for artists and writers – saying that Paris is a never resting “moveable feast”.

In the teaching of foreign languages, complex-clause syntax does not seem to have had an established role over the last 20 years, especially within the communicative approach and, of course, the CEFR. It was previously part of methods which stressed formal approaches to foreign languages and their being taught, but not of natural, acquisition-based methods. With the communicative approach, two important premises were introduced: authentic texts and grammar as a tool when necessary. This is one probable reason why explicit, complex-clause syntax is hardly mentioned in the CEFR, even though it is implicitly present in descriptors, even though it is particularly recognisable in those for writing skills, and even though we know that it can be used for all four skills, as well as to guide learners towards some self-directed learning about language features. To date, in the era of the communicative approach, not much is known about the role of complex-clause syntax in foreign/second language classrooms, in particular from the learners’ viewpoint. In order to bridge this research gap, the paper analyses a questionnaire among learners in secondary schools that looked at their perspectives regarding the (possible) role of syntax. The examined aspects consider its role for the four skills, and the benefits of knowing syntax; implicitly, the paper touches on some affective factors and related methodological approaches, along with problems concerning the teaching of syntax. The findings are based on quantitative data; an evaluation of the need for complex-clause syntax is included, and some pedagogical implications are presented.

The paper proposes unlocking the potential of translation for foreign language teaching (FLT) by seeking to create synergies with the related discipline of translation science (TS). This aim is in keeping with the guidelines for language teaching provided in the Common European Framework of Languages, which introduced a model of communicative competences including communicative language competences as those which enable a person to act by drawing on specific linguistic means. First, an overview of the changing status of translation in FLT is presented – from its being considered a fundamental teaching method and basic skill in the Grammar-Translation Method, to its being all but outlawed in more recent communicative and task-based approaches, to its final rehabilitation in recent decades. It is then shown that, in the development of FLT, the parallel evolution of TS somehow failed to be acknowledged and, consequently, the opportunity to create valuable synergies between the two disciplines was missed. Following the stance of authors who have advocated the use of translation in FLT, it is argued that translation can effectively supplement the development of the four traditional language skills and, moreover, that some of the insights developed by TS can effectively be integrated into FLT as strategies aimed at enhancing leaners’ cross-cultural communicative competences. To this purpose, selected insights from TS (e.g. the functional approach and the skopos theory, the cultureme model, the theory of memes) are discussed and their potential for creating synergies with FLT are explored. Finally, the paper discusses the omnipresence of different forms of translation and interpreting in contemporary societies and shows that this naturally and logically calls for a systematic inclusion of translation in FLT.

The present paper draws on the report of a five-year project that aligned the Slovenian national exams in English to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (CEFR). Discussed here are the key findings of the relating project, carried out by the National Examination Centre, a central institution for external assessment in Slovenia, for the following exams: the Vocational Matura (for technical secondary schools, vocational-technical schools, and vocational courses) and the General Matura (for general secondary education programmes). The focus of the paper is on the interpretation of the findings of the project, the significance of relating the aforementioned exams to the CEFR, the implications of project results for future language test development and, most importantly, the impact of the findings on the development of secondary school-level English education programmes in Slovenia.

The aim of this paper is to look at how The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) can facilitate research of pragmatic competence development. Central to developing pragmatic competence are the language functions (or speech acts) and the conventions of politeness. In particular, we focus on how Macedonian learners of English at B2 level express their disagreement, and we put their performance in relation to the functions and the politeness maxims postulated in Vantage (van Ek/Trim 2001) and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001). Data for the analysis was compiled by means of a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) consisting of nine tasks which required the students to express an opposing view to the one given in the tasks. In our analysis, we classified disagreement as strong, weak, direct and hints. We focus on the linguistic means that learners used to express and to modify their disagreement. In particular, we discuss the use of lexical and syntactic modifiers, putting more emphasis on the use of modal verbs and I think. We end the paper with a conclusion that the CEFR and the accompanying books provide a valuable tool not only because they list the exponents of the functions, but also because they explain the principles that these exponents are motivated by. Finally, we raise two issues that we believe are important for further consideration. One is development of further research across all levels with the aim of better understanding the processes governing the acquisition of pragmatic competence. The other is developing research on what teaching methods and techniques should be employed to facilitate it.

This paper investigates the upwards intensifiers (adverbs of intensifying) in the English, German and Croatian language. Intensity as an important human cognitive category, and language expressivity is differently treated in grammars and dictionaries of all three languages, especially with respect to different degrees of intensity. In this paper we argue that it is possible to model a typology of upwards adverb intensifiers in the three languages, according to their morphosyntactic and semantic aspects. When it comes to intensifiers, it is necessary to describe which collocates are modified by intensifiers and which semantic fields the collocates belong to. The results of the corpus analysis based on Harry Potter novels show that all the three languages express the category of the upwards intensity in the same way: the number of intensifiers is similar, the collocates mostly belong to the same semantic fields and word classes, they have similar syntactic functions.

South Tyrol is a part of Northern Italy where a large German-speaking minority lives. In 1972 the local population was granted the right to use the minority language with the public administration, in court and in all realms of public life (DPR 672/1972). An urgent need for a clear and consistent German legal language that faithfully reflected the Italian legal system ensued. The task of responding to such terminological emergency was assigned to a commission of six legal experts and translators (DPR574/1988), who were to officially validate (i.e. standardise) the German language equivalents to the existing legal and administrative Italian terms. The use of the newly standardised terminology is mandatory for all public bodies. After about 20 years of activity, the proposed paper aims at analysing the results obtained and difficulties faced by the Commission during their daunting task of creating a German language terminology to express the concepts of Italian law with a constant view to the neighbouring well-established German speaking legal systems. The paper will illustrate the decision-making process, term selection criteria and strategies of neologyas well as discuss the procedural problems and terminological inconsistencies on the basis of real examples.

In postgraduate interpreter training, the main objective of the course is to help trainees develop various competences, from linguistic, textual and cultural competence, to professional and specific interpreting competence. For simultaneous interpreting (SI), the main focus is on mastering the SI technique and strategies as well as on developing and strengthening communicative skills, which is discussed and illustrated with examples in the present paper. First, a brief overview is given of all the necessary competences of a professional interpreter with greater emphasis on specific interpreting competence for SI. In the second part of the paper, various approaches are described in terms of acquiring specific skills and strategies, specifically through a range of exercises. Besides interpreting entire speeches, practical courses should also consist of targeted exercises, which help trainees develop suitable coping strategies and mechanisms (later on almost automatisms), while at the same time "force" them to reflect on their individual learning process and interpreting performance. This provides a solid base on which trained interpreters can progress and develop their skills also after joining the professional sphere.

This paper deals with the autonyms or the widespread, orthographically indeterminate use of italics and quotation marks in Slovene translations of three of Houellebecq’s novels, which have been elaborated by three different Slovene translators. Autonyms are divided into three main categories according to whether they convey the words of definite or indefinite individuals, the language of the narrator himself or the concepts and values of the whole society. Within the framework of a style often qualified as “white”, the extended use of italics and quotation marks with function of autonymic connotation allows the author to transmit to the reader very fine semantic nuances and contributes to the richness of his work. Like metaphorical networks, stylems such as the recurrent and extended use of italics and quotation marks require from the translator a preliminary work of interpretation and the development of a coherent strategy making it possible to preserve intact the function of these elements in the narrative. Although the three translations analysed can be considered as globally faithful to Houellebecq’s texts and made possible the notoriety of the French writer in Slovenia, none of them is distinguished by a rigorous and coherent treatment of autonymic connotations indicated by non-normative use of italics and quotation marks. The most frequent and damaging anomalies are the maintenance of these visual signs where the expressions indicated in French do not have to be in Slovenian or, on the contrary, their elimination where it is perfectly possible and appropriate to maintain them for the detailed understanding of the text. The author draws attention to possible solutions and opts for the elaboration of a consistent translation strategy for the treatment of the analysed elements.

This paper deals with some of the pragmatic characteristics of indefinite pronouns, specifically about the potential for expressing a negative attitude or stance by using them. The results of a quantitative survey will be presented exploring to what extent the potential to express a negative attitude using indefinite pronouns has been mastered. The research questionnaire consisted of two parts and examined the respondents’ command in terms of both comprehension and production of the pragmatic properties of indefinite pronouns in Croatian as a second language (CL2), and the examples used in the questionnaire were taken from the hrWaC 2.0 corpus (Ljubešić and Erjavec 2011). The research was conducted among students of CL2 at the levels B2 and C1 (N=60) who attended the programs of Croaticum – Centre for Croatian as Foreign and Second Language, University of Zagreb in the 2019/2020 academic year. The results obtained in this research can be applied in the development of learning materials intended for teaching the semantic and pragmatic features of indefinite pronouns in the instruction of CL2. They show that the pragmatic level needs to be included more thoroughly in the teaching of CL2 because its mastery is an essential component of language competence, especially at higher levels. The pragmatic properties of IP should also be taught, as should idiomatic expressions with IP. It is necessary to not only teach from an explicitly grammatical approach, but also to teach lexically in such a way that includes the pragmatic level, because IP have great pragmatic potential.

As a result of the widespread use of online technologies and vast opportunities for the use of English in everyday online life, the field of online informal learning of languages, in particular English, has attracted a new wave of research attention. Nevertheless, the number of corpus studies in this field remains low. More specifically, to date no research study has focused on the suitability of the language input to which online users are exposed while performing online activities with regard to the development of language skills in English as a language for specific purposes. In order to bridge this research gap, the objective of this paper is to apply the corpus approach to examine whether watching a medical television series may have an effect on the development of medical Maritime English for future deck officers. The results indicate that in terms of lexical density, lexical diversity, terminology, and word clusters, watching a medical television series may have a limited effect on the development of medical Maritime English for future deck officers. However, future research should examine whether watching television series may have an effect on the acquisition of typical speech patterns in spoken maritime communication, which are closely related to everyday spoken communication. Importantly, the results also seem to indicate that online informal learning of English cannot replace all segments of the formal learning of English for Specific Purposes, but can significantly contribute to the development of general English competence, which is a precondition for the further development of discipline-specific language competence.

The framework of this paper is Natural Syntax initiated by the author in the tradition of (morphological) naturalness as established by Wolfgang U. Dressler and Willi Mayerthaler. Natural Syntax is a pseudo-deductive linguistic theory, and this is its most recent version. The naturalness judgements are couched in naturalness scales, which follow from the basic parameters (or "axioms") listed at the beginning of the paper. The predictions of the theory are calculated in what are known as deductions, the chief components of each being a pair of naturalness scales and the rules governing the alignment of corresponding naturalness values. Parallel and chiastic alignment is distinguished and related to Henning Andersen's early work on markedness. The basic idea is to illustrate how a (pseudo)deductive theory of syntax performs if it insists on avoiding abstract solutions, and in particular on excluding any generative component. In this paper the framework of Natural Syntax is applied mostly outside its original domain; namely, to the morphological behaviour of the imperative in various languages.

The framework of the paper is Natural Syntax initiated by Janez Orešnik in thetradition of (morphological) naturalness as established by Wolfgang U. Dressler and Willi Mayerthaler. The basic tenets of Natural Syntax are described at the beginning of the paper. Natural Syntax is here applied to aspects of Old Indian synchronic verbal morphonology and verbal morphosyntax: (1) Causative -áya- verbs in Rig Veda and Atharva Veda. The root vowel a is short in closed syllables and long in open syllables. (2) Rig Veda and Atharva Veda contain 31 intransitive and 175 transitive -áya- verbs. (3) Rig Veda and Atharva Veda do not contain any causative verbs to the basic transitive verbs. (4) Post-Vedic double transitive verbs (the early construction) contain an obligatory accusative corresponding to the subject of the base verb, and an optional accusative corresponding to the object of the base verb. (5) Post-Vedic double transitive verbs (the late construction) contain an obligatory instrumental corresponding to the subject of the base verb, and an accusative corresponding to the object of the base verb. (6) The accusative mentioned in (5) is not obligatory. The data have been taken from Jamison (1983), a monograph about Old Indian -áya- verbs.

The paper examines the syntactic status of the negative marker in standard Slovenian and its Pannonian dialects in terms of the grammaticalisation process known as Jespersen's cycle. Assuming that Jespersen's Cycle can be observed synchronically, the paper focusses on the correlation between the morpho-phonological strength of the negative marker and the syntactic derivation of negative clauses. The data analysis identifies at least three different stages of Jespersen's cycle in modern Slovenian: (i) the clitic-likenegation, (ii) the bipartite negation, and (iii) the adverb-like negation, the first occurring in standard Slovenian and the latter two in the Pannonian dialect group. In terms of the generative syntactic derivation, the analysis proposes that the negative marker occupies three different structural positions: (i) the head of the Negation phrase (clitic-like negation), (ii) the specifier of the Negation phrase (adverb-like negation) or (iii) both syntactic positions (bipartite negation). In addition, the paper explores the question whether the syntactic position of the negative marker determines the semantic interpretation of multiple occurrences of negative elements, in particular, the negative concord and the double negation interpretation. The analysis shows that in Slovenian the morpho-phonological properties of the negative marker and its structural position bear no consequences for the semantic interpretation of multiple occurrences of negative elements.

In this paper I analyze verb-locative constructions in Romance. Even though not allowed in standard Romance languages, which have maintained and codified the classical Latin prefix system, these constructions are widely attested in non standard varieties, that are scarcely (or not at all) regularized. In this paper I deal in particular with a northern Italian variety, Trentino, where locatives, combining with some classes of verbs (unaccusative verbs and transitive activity verbs) can express not only concrete direction and metaphorical direction, but also aspect (the result of an activity or the progress of a process); in other words, they can express an abstract, more grammaticalized feature of direction. In fact, Trentino verb-locative constructions can express a specific phase of the development of an event, often the result (end-point) of an activity, or the start-point, or the progress, or the intensity of the activity itself. I argue that in Trentino (and in other similar dialectal varieties) locatives can function as grammatical markers both for arguments (in combination with motion verbs) and for aspect (in combination with verbs involving the feature of an abstract path). In a more general context, I note that locatives in combination of verbs function as goal/result markers in those varieties that tend to spell out markers of functional elements, frequently generating a repetition (doubling) of the same feature. Finally, I compare Romance and Germanic constructions, noting that diachronic, grammatical and typological differences (with particular reference to Talmy's distinction between verb-framed languages and satellite languages) confirm the independence of Romance verb-locative constructions.

This brief paper has two related purposes. First, it represents a response to Ledo-Lemos' criticisms (2003) of the theory of the origin of the Indo-European feminine gender presented in Shields (1995 and elsewhere) - a theory based on the established typological principle that demonstratives (in this case, a demonstrative in *a) are key in the emergence of gender systems because of their dual role as anaphora and attributive modifiers. Second, this paper includes critical commentary about Ledo-Lemos' own hypothesis regarding the origin of this Indo-European grammatical category, grounded in the specialization of "relational adjectives." Objections to the latter involve his reliance on unmotivated analogical reanalysis and paradigmatic specialization.

The paper implements the framework of Natural Syntax and treats various phenomena bearing on transitivity using the language material of ergative languages. In each case one ergative and one antipassive constructions are compared, and certain properties of such pairs are predicted. It is new in the paper that it is necessary to distinguish less or more transitive antipassive constructions. In the more transitive ones the agent and the patient are coded with the ergative case, the absolutive case, the nominative case, or the patient is integrated (at least to some extent) into the corresponding verb. More transitive antipassive constructions and the corresponding ergative constructions remain transitive. Because transitivity represents an unnatural environment, the alignment of the corresponding naturalness values is chiastic. The remaining antipassive constructions are less transitive, so that any pair consisting of such a construction and of the corresponding ergative construction withdraws from the unnatural environment of transitivity, and hence the alignment of the corresponding naturalness values is parallel. Another unnatural environment is represented by the patient just in case that its syntactic, not semantic, properties are treated. Consequently the alignment of the corresponding naturalness values ischiastic. The paper discusses 18 ergative languages, mostly from the Caucasus and the Pacific Ocean.

There is a growing need for the development of at least some academic vocabulary in students of EFL (studying English for teaching and non-teaching purposes), if one of the main aims of EFL study is to produce competent users of English. Students are expected to read and understand advanced professional texts, not simply to successfully complete their degrees but to become a part of educated society, and to be able to meet the demands placed upon their knowledge in a prefessional environment. The reading and understanding of professional texts can be a highly demanding activity because of the number of academic and professional terms such texts include. This paper exemplifies the usefulness of a gap-fill exercise, as one among a range of options for developing and testing academic vocabulary in a professional context. The exercise was compiled with AWL gapmaker based on a professional review text, which includes academic items of vocabulary. The gap-fill exercise was used with two groups of EFL students in the same year of study and installed at two difficulty levels for two reasons: to test students’ existing knowledge of academic vocabulary, and to enrich it through the analysis of words in context/co-text relation using a concordancing program. The paper compares the answers of both groups to determine the most problematic entries (incorrect answers), and to provide the possible reasons for them. Further, contextual clues are taken into consideration as a helpful source for determining correct entries, and tested with the concordancing program. Besides the emphasis on the usefulness of such gap-fill exercises combined with corpus for the development and enrichment of academic vocabulary, the paper also emphasizes the importance of guiding students in how to search for different grammatical and other contextual clues to make correct inferences, and how to use concordances to support or reject the claims.

Natural Syntax is a developing deductive theory, a branch of Naturalness Theory. The naturalnessjudgements are couched in naturalness scales, whichfollow from the basic parameters (or «axioms») listed at the beginning of the paper. The predictions of the theory are calculated in deductions, whose chief components are apair of naturalness scales and the rules governing the alignment of corresponding naturalness values. Parallel and chiastic alignments are distinguished, in complementary distribution. Chiastic alignment is mandatory in deductions limited to unnatural environments. The paper deals with English interrogative main clauses. Within these, only the interrogatives containing wh-words exclusively insitu constitute an extremely unnatural environment and require chiastic alignment. Otherwiseparallel alignment is used. Earlier publications on Natural Syntax: Kavcic 2005a,b, Oresnik 1999, 2000a,b, 200la-f 2002, 2003a-c, 2002/03, 2004. This list cites only works written in English.

This paper investigates a special use of the verbs of speaking in Greek, in which a personal verbal form of a verb of speaking is accompanied by a participle of ano­ ther verb of speaking. The latter is used pleonastically because the clause would be grammatical if the participle were omitted; cf. Chr. J. Mal. 15, 13, 31:'0 8s: Zvwv &.xoucrcx.c; btwµ6crcx.'t'o "Ai::ywv &.yvoc.1v 't'v xcx.'t'a: 'l"A"Aou xcx.ccx.crxw v. 'But when Zeno heard, he swore, saying that he knew nothing about the conspiracy against Illus.' In the first part I present the use of such pleonastic phrases in Greek with a special emphasis on their use in three Early Byzantine prose writings (in the Chronicle of John Mala/as (Chr. J. Mal.), in Pratum Spirituale (Prat. Spir.), and in Vita Theodori Syceotae ( Vita Th. Syc.), all belonging to the 6th/7th century AD). The pleonastic phrases are studied in terms of their inner structure and in terms of their syntactic properties. In the second part of the paper an attempt is made to interpret these properties from the perspective of Naturalness Theory.

The paper resumes a topic the author approached in severa[ instances beginning with 1987: some specific terms referring to the semantic sphere Herrscherschafi. In Romanian, ban, jupîn, stăpîn and probably also cioban reflect the indigenous Thracian substratum; these forms also reflect the archaic Indo-European Herrschersujfzx -n-. In Slavic, their equivalent forms ban, župan and stopan reflect either a Late Thracian or (Proto-)Romanian influence. Equally Rom. vătaf reflects the substratum influence, whereas Slavic vatah, vatak, vataš reflects the same borrowing. On the other hand, Slavic gospodƄ, belongs to the archaic Proto-Slavic core elements, while cěsaŕƄ, reflect a Germanic influence. Finally, Rom. boier is an East-Romance innovation derived from bou 'ox' and initially meant 'owner of cattle = rich man', a traditional association between cattle-owners and richness. The word had a large distribution from the early Middle Ages until late in the 20th century. In a paper written some 15 years ago (Paliga 1987, in Linguistica, Ljubljana) 1 dared suggest that a series of Romanian and Slavic terms referring to social and political organisation, specifically ban (1) 'master, local leader' and (2) 'coin, money' (2nd sense derived from the lst one),jupîn (formerly giupîn) 'a master', 'a master, a lord', cioban 'a shepherd', rather reflect a compact etymological group of Pre-Romance and Pre-Slavic origin (including cioban, incorrectly considered a Turkish influence, seemingly starting from the erroneous, but largely spread hypothesis that intervocalic -b- in Romanian would rather suggest a newer origin 1 ). To these, on another occasion, I added the form vătaf,vătah (also with parallels in some Slavic languages, Paliga 1996: 34-36) and on another occasion 1 analysed the form boier, also spread in many neighbouring languages, which has often been considered either of unknown origin or again of Turkic (not Turkish, i.e. Ottoman) origin (Paliga 1990; see also our main studies gathered together in a single volume, Paliga 1999).

This paper discusses an aspect ofthe old (probably obsolescent) text-book wisdom conceming the Indo-European ablaut, namely the (once generally accepted) assumption that the o-grade is younger than than the e-grade: the o-grade arose from the e-grade whenever the latter was not accented (under certain additional conditions). The aim of this paper is to show that accented e-grade and unaccented o-grade constitute a possible state of affairs in natura! languages. To this purpose, 1 will make use of Naturalness Theory as currently practised especially in Austrian linguistics (see Dressler 2000), and in my own surroundings at the University ofLjubijana (cf. Orešnik 2001). Naturalness Theory operates with naturalness scales which ascribe greater or smaller naturalness to language units and categories. One of the leading theoreticians in the field ofnatural morphology, Austrian-based Willi Mayerthaler, distinguishes two kinds ofnaturalness, sem- and sym-naturalness (cf. Mayerthaler 1981 etc.). Since 1 will make use of sem-naturalness only in the present paper, and as the latter is very similar to traditional markedness, I will refrain from discussing the difference between sem- and sym-naturalness. 1 will use the bare term naturalness, and set up the follow-ing approximate equations: more natura! = less marked, less natural = more marked. The predicate natural will be abbreviated as 'nat' in scales.

This paper shows that the distribution of (non‑)finiteness in the South Slavic languages reflects an implicational scale along an independently attested semantic complementation hierarchy (e.g., Givón 1980). We suggest that in the South Slavic languages, finiteness is triggered by clausal agreement features associated with different syntactic heads. Building on a complexity approach to the complementation hierarchy, we propose that cross-linguistic variation in finiteness and variation across different types of complements are the result of language-specific differences in the distribution of agreement features. More broadly, we conclude that there is no (universal) semantic correlate of (non‑)finiteness and, contra cartographic approaches, that finiteness is not confined to a particular domain in the clause. Following Adger (2007), we argue that finiteness can be distributed over all clausal domains.

In this paper we consider several instances of the Slovenian affix ov, which surfaces in many, apparently unrelated contexts. Here we focus on (i) ov in verbs, where it can act as an imperfectivizer or a verbalizer, (ii) ov found in possessive adjectives and kind adjectives derived from nouns, (iii) ov which precedes the adjectiviser (e)n in denominal adjectives, and (iv) ov in nominal declension (acting as a genitive case ending in dual and plural or as a dual/plural augment). Building on the observation that certain affixes function either as inflectional or as derivational (see Simonović and Arsenijević 2020), and working within a Distributed Morphology approach which postulates that derivational affixes should be analyzed as roots (e.g. Lowenstamm 2014), we argue for a single multifunctional ov. This ov is a potentially meaningless root that can take as a complement other roots (thus forming a “radical core”) or phrases, resulting in different structures and consequently different stress patterns and meanings, but can also act as an Elsewhere allomorph, whose insertion is guided by an interplay of phonological and morphological constraints.

The paper proposes an analysis of the correlation between the semantic and prosodic properties of the suffix -ie and of its variation across the South Slavic languages. Empirical facts about the suffix are outlined, and previous analyses are presented and confronted with empirical and theoretical problems. A slight modification of the analysis of Arsenijević (2010) and Simonović and Arsenijević (2014) enables its combination with the model from Simonović (2019, 2020). The combined analysis neatly accounts for the facts. A model of the variation in the behaviour of the suffix across South Slavic languages is formulated in terms of the modified analysis.

In this paper, we survey some of the inflected and periphrastic volitional mood paradigms in South Slavic with a focus on Bulgarian data. Our review confirms typological observations in the literature that volitional mood paradigms tend to ‘fracture’, in that the cross-categorisation with different person/number features leads to systematic associations with different meanings and, typologically, frequent associations with different forms. This makes it difficult to argue that non-existent inflected forms are gaps in the inflected paradigm. Because of this periphrastic volitional mood forms that exist alongside inflected forms have to be seen as independent (syntactic) paradigms, rather than forms that fill missing cells in inflected paradigms, i.e. the product of feature intersection. Like more canonical periphrases, however, syntactic volitional mood forms are non-compositional and exhibit an organisation akin to the content-form paradigm organisation of inflected paradigms developed in certain inferential-realizational approaches to morphology. Following some recent formalisations, we suggest a tentative analysis of the most productive periphrastic volitional mood forms in Bulgarian based on the assumption that their properties are constrained partially by the morphology and partially in the syntax.

Globalisation has produced not only denser, but also linguistically more complex communication networks. Multilingual practices have transformed the academic and professional lives of language learners, and imposed new requirements on LSP teaching. This article foregrounds genres in multilingual globalised contexts. Genres have been recognised as one of the key focuses of LSP. Although previous research highlighted the importance of developing relevant field-specific genre practices, little attention has been paid to the nature of genre repertoires in the field of International Relations (IR). We report on the findings of a qualitative study into genre practices of the IR community. We set out to examine the typical genres of IR in academic and in professional settings. We focus on the languages in which these genres are enacted, and on the transformation of genre practices that occurs as a result of the community members’ trajectories through different academic and professional or institutional contexts. The analysis of genre collections and of the data collected through semi-structured interviews with IR students, professors, and graduates, reveals the rich, diverse, and asymmetrical patterns of genre use in three languages: French, Slovene, and English. The study suggests that the informants’ disciplinary communication has changed considerably over the past twenty years, and that the changes in the genre ecologies require new approaches to teaching about genres. Based on the findings of the study, the paper discusses the challenges of multilingual realities for LSP teachers and genre analysts.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the legal framework regulating the careers of civil servants working for the EU institutions and reveal how the values of equality and diversity are communicated and embedded in their daily lives. The research examines the English language used in the HR legal framework of the EU institutions and explores the linguistic aspects related to equality and diversity management and inclusive language. The starting point of this research is the idea that the European Union is based on the values of democracy, the rules of law and the equal treatment of its citizen, who are celebrated for their diversity. It is thus highly relevant to look at the EU in action and see if it is consistent in the understanding and application of these values. The methodological approach of this research entailed the creation and analysis of a unique corpus composed of all the applicable HR legal provisions in force within the EU institutions, and the examination of the linguistic features (word lists by frequency, concordances, collocations and lexical bundles) of the terminology related to four different areas of equality and diversity – the LGBTI community, gender, the elderly and persons with a disability – with the final aim to take stock of the related developments in the use of the English language. The results indicate that the language used in the EU HRM legal framework is not in line with the EU values of equality and diversity, and the research concludes with highlighting possible improvements of the language used in the corpus.

The primary goal of most EFL students is to achieve fluency in the target language and become autonomous speakers who can react naturally in most situations. To achieve this, mastery of speaking subskills is crucial. The paper aims to identify how well specific subskills, i.e. negotiation of meaning and agenda management, are represented and developed in EFL coursebooks. Twenty coursebooks approved by the Slovene Ministry of Education, Science and Sport for 3rd and 4th year grammar school students are reviewed. The number of all recorded subskills in the reviewed coursebooks suggests that less than a third are covered in each coursebook. Skills in negotiation of meaning are better represented than skills in agenda management in terms of the number of occurrences, the location within the unit and variety of skills. However, there are no significant differences among the remaining teaching elements. The study also indicates that most activities do not contain practice of meaning/form and pronunciation of target phrases. Although communicative activities are mostly present, they lack authenticity and are thus not sufficiently motivating for the target group. The results of the study can serve as a recommendation for secondary school teachers as to the type of speaking subskills, their presence in English coursebooks as well as the detail with which they are covered. Practical teaching advice is given on how the lack of variety in the selected subskills, as well as the quality of related activities can be resolved.