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The purpose of the paper is to point out the possibilities of teaching and learning Slovak as a foreign language. The course Slovak as a foreign language allowed foreign students to overcome problems while studying professional subjects in manufacturing technologies. The goal was the creation of suitable professional study material tailored for technical specialization students. Slovak language teachers used mixed methods and forms of study (face-to-face and online). They tried to improve the Slovak language communication skills of manufacturing technologies students. The results of e-exercises and the final e-test of 120 foreign students in the 1st year of bachelor's studies in the summer semester of 2022 were compared. Later the strengths and weaknesses of students were found. The level of professional Slovak terminology was improved by eliminating the most common mistakes. The Moodle platform was used for learning and teaching Slovak as a foreign language as well as Slovak professional terminology.

Different linguistic classifications of Spanish and Slovak make the differences between these two languages. The genetic criterion classifies languages, clustering them into language families, the largest among which is the Indoeuropean one. The typological criterion divides languages according to their grammatical structures. Meanwhile, Slovak is genetically a Slavonic language, and Spanish is a Romance language. Therefore, they both belong to different language families. Also, according to the typological criterion, Slovak is a synthetic language, and Spanish is an analytic language. Based on a theoretical study of the standard features and differences between the Slovak and Spanish verb systems, we formulated the hypotheses about language interferences, which are accepted or rejected at the end of the research. The current research aims to examine the errors in the use of past tenses by Slovak university students who study Spanish as a foreign language, and then analyze where these errors are due to interference with their native language. The present paper observes what errors students make in using past tenses in Spanish. The research question is: What interferences do Slovak learners of the Spanish language experience in the use of past tenses? We applied scientific methods (an observation, a textual analysis, a synthesis) to conduct the study. The first method was an observation. Applying this method made it possible to gather data by watching the process of doing grammatical exercises in Spanish during classes held from September 2020 to May 2022 for the first- and second-year students at the Faculty of Applied Languages of the University of Economics in Bratislava. These students knew English and were generally better at it than Spanish. We also conducted a textual analysis that primarily looked at the learners' short-text writing skills. We used a form with 30 phrases the respondents needed to complete using past tenses. Then, we assessed the written and spoken communication skills of students. The analysis results show that, on the one hand, most respondents needed help distinguishing between the past continuous and simple past tenses, resulting in misuse. On the other hand, we found some slight errors in phrases in which the present perfect tense was supposed to be used.

The study addresses the research gap of how being a speaker of a Slavic language influences the ability to convey tempo-aspectual meanings in Romance languages by examining personal and impersonal narratives delivered in written and spoken mode by learners of L3 Spanish and L3 Italian with L1 Slovak and L2 English. Narratives are analysed following the methods of interlanguage analysis proposed by Ellis and Barkhuizen [(2005). "Analysing learner language." Oxford University Press] and Salaberry and Comajoan [(2013). "Research design and methodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect." De Gruyter Mouton], such as coding for grounding, frequency analysis of tense forms and lexical aspectual classes, etc. Following the ideas presented by Bayley (2013, Data analysis: Quantitative approaches. In M. R. Salaberry & L. Comajoan (Eds.), "Research design and methodology in studies on L2 tense and aspect" (pp. 357-390). De Gruyter Mouton), binomial logistic regression models were built which showed that (a) the combination of discourse grounding and lexical aspect is of predictive power regarding the appropriateness of participants' choices of morphological marking; (b) the distributional characteristics of morphological marking on telic predicates differs from activities and statives. One of the main differences compared to the results of previous studies, conducted on speakers of Germanic languages, is that the data did not provide enough evidence for morphological marking being used to convey primarily temporal distinctions (see Salaberry, 1999, The development of past tense verbal morphology in classroom L2 Spanish. "Applied Linguistics," 20(2), 151-178. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/20.2.151; Wiberg, E. (1996). Reference to past events in bilingual Italian-Swedish children of school age. "Linguistics," 34(5), 1087-1114. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1996.34.5.1087]) and presented the marking of telic predicates in foreground with perfective morphology as consistent, disregarding the level of participants' performance.

This study reports on the outcomes of internationalising a course on Nutrition for medical students. Two interventions towards internationalised learning experience included: 1) introducing new readings and activities that invited students to consider geographical and cultural factors of dietary recommendations and 2) asking students to suggest an intervention for a hypothetical patient with a nutritional problem through discussing the assigned case in purposefully mixed groups. Changes were made both in the group that predominantly consisted of home students (N = 18) and the group of international students (N = 21). The interventions encouraged an increase in student awareness of the cultural and geographical contexts of nutrition. Students learnt through sharing diverse knowledge and experience and recognised peer learning experience as useful and enjoyable. The innovation achieved more impact in the group of international students than in the group of home students, in which diversity and previous experience from learning in multicultural groups was low.

Reading comprehension (RC) is a multi-faceted construct but is often assessed with a single instrument. Previous research has highlighted that commonly used RC tests are only mildly correlated and vary in the skills they assess, including the differential contribution of oral language and decoding to children's performance. Our study, framed within the Simple View of Reading model, examined the contribution of underlying component skills for multiple RC measures and evaluated whether the contribution of decoding and oral language skills changes according to the RC test used and developmental level. Two hundred Slovak-speaking children were assessed across two time points, using multiple RC tests and measures of decoding and oral language skills. The RC tests showed weak to moderate correlations, echoing findings from other languages. At the end of Year 1, the contribution of decoding and oral language to RC was similar in the Slovak transparent orthography. At the end of Year 2, the contribution of oral language had increased threefold, while decoding remained unchanged from Year 1. Crucially, there were also differences between the tests, with some more reliant on oral language. The results highlight the potential benefits of increasing understanding of the differential effects of the component skills in commonly used RC assessments as an aid to interpretation of children's scores. Such an approach could not only identify children with poor scores, but also pinpoint where weaknesses lie in the underlying components so intervention targets could be formulated accordingly.

Every year, more and more foreign students are enrolled at the Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies in Prešov of the Technical University in Kosice. For this reason, Slovak Language for Foreign Students was introduced as a compulsory subject in the 1st year of bachelor's study. The purpose of the paper was to emphasize the teaching of Slovak as a foreign language and thus help to overcome the problems of foreign students in studying professional subjects. The aim is to provide them with suitable tailor-made study material within the blended form of teaching. Slovak language teachers at the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities used mixed innovative methods and forms of study and tried to increase the language and communication skills of students. The paper compares the results of e-exercises and the final e-test of 140 foreign students from different study programmes in the first year of their bachelor study in the winter semester 2021. Slovak language teachers were able to identify students' strengths and weaknesses based on the results of experimental research. Elimination of the most frequent mistakes will help students to increase the level of technical Slovak language, which they can apply during the study of professional subjects and in future practice in Slovak companies. The university-wide Moodle platform was used for blended learning in teaching Slovak as a foreign language at the Faculty.

The increased demand for bilingual education has resulted in a growing need for professionally and linguistically qualified teachers whose shortage is evident in most Slovak schools. As science subjects form a major part of bilingual school curricula, the aim of our research is to determine the current situation from the combined opinions of in-service and pre-service science teachers. Based on questionnaires and semantic differential, we discuss the most important issues in everyday bilingual science teaching, and also determine the extent to which both pre-service and in-service teachers identify their needs and perceive the challenges in teaching science in English compared to their native Slovak. Our findings indicate that both cohorts of science teachers considered bilingual education time-consuming and difficult, but also beneficial and valuable. Compared to in-service teachers, pre-service teachers demonstrated a greater extent of uncertainty and concerns, and lower emotional satisfaction when teaching in English. The results collected from these teacher cohorts should enhance the quality and content of teacher-training programmes preparing teacher candidates for the needs of current bilingual education in Slovakia.

Introduction: The theory of attachment is widely recognized (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). This theory is based on four basic types of relationships. The sEMBU questionnaire does not focus on the relationships but parental behavior, however, parental behavior is the presentation of the relationship. Our goal was to determine the types of attachment and to obtain information about secure attachment by using cluster analysis. Methods: sEMBU primarily finds out about three basic patterns used in parental behaviour - rejection, emotional warmth and overprotection. We used the 23-item s(short)-EMBU which previously demonstrated to be satisfactory on the samples of students from Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, East-Germany, and Sweden (Arrindell et al., 2001). The Slovak translation of the original sEMBU was published in 2007 (Poliaková, Mojžišová, & Hašto, 2007). Since relationships are closely related to rejection, emotional warmth and overprotection, we tried to find behavioral patterns based on Bowlby's attachment theory. We did not use standard procedures. Using cluster analysis, we also sorted the sample into four groups based on the presupposed attachment styles. Results: Overprotection (father) has the highest share for classification and differentiation in the cluster. Emotional warmth (mother) has the highest share for classification and differentiation in the cluster. We expected to find out that the secure type of attachment prevails over avoidance both in mothers and fathers. Conclusions: Our results surprised us; in the case of mothers, secure attachment did not occur at all. We suggest to continue in the research of the Slovak version of sEMBU focused on the types of attachment, especially on the secure type of attachment.

Word and pseudoword reading are related abilities fundamental to reading development in alphabetic orthographies. They are respectively assumed to index children's orthographic representations of words, which are in turn acquired through the underlying "self-teaching mechanism" of alphabetic pseudoword decoding. Little is known about concurrent growth trajectories of these skills in the early grades among children learning different alphabetic orthographies. In the present study, between- and within-group latent growth models of word and pseudoword reading efficiency were tested on data spanning Grades 1 and 2 from learners of the inconsistent English and consistent Czech and Slovak orthographies. Several language-general patterns emerged. Significant growth was observed for both skills in all languages. Growth was faster for word than pseudoword reading efficiency, and strong lexicality effects that increased over time were obtained across languages. Language-specific patterns were also found. In line with predictions about the costs of learning lower-consistency orthographies, readers of English experienced relatively slower growth on both reading skills. However, their lag was smaller, and evident only at the latter two time points for word reading. In contrast, on pseudoword reading, the English group performed considerably less well than their Czech and Slovak peers at every time point. Thus, weaker decoding skills were the main contributor to the larger lexicality effects of the English group. These findings are considered within the frame of recent theorizing about the effect of orthographic consistency on decoding as a self-teaching mechanism in alphabetic reading acquisition.

The arrival of large numbers of Slovak Roma to Sheffield over a relatively short period has inserted two new languages (Slovak and Romani) into an already diverse, multilingual school environment. Schools face challenges in welcoming the new migrant children, inducting and integrating them and facilitating access to the English school curriculum. This paper draws on longitudinal ethnolinguistic research in one secondary school in Sheffield that has experienced this migration and language situation and responded in a variety of ways. Utilizing an analytical framework based upon "language-in-education planning" (LEP, [Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997, "Language planning. From practice to theory." Clevedon: "Multilingual Matters"]) and "micro language planning" (MLP, [Liddicoat & Taylor-Leech, 2014, "Micro language planning for multilingual education: Agency in local contexts." "Current Issues in Language Planning," 15(3), 237-244]), the various emergent practices are examined. Findings show that the school is engaging in various "unplanned" practices to surmount the language and pedagogical issues, thus highlighting the role of MLP as a necessary part of more macro LEP processes.

This study demonstrates how a single type of sign can be connected to language policy on a larger scale. Focusing on the relationship between language policy and language ideologies, I investigate the private Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Hungarians living in two villages in Slovakia. Through an examination of "beware of the dog" signs, it is shown how such signs can be indicative of different language policies. In Slovakia, the Hungarian public LL is often referred to as a threat to the state language and public order. This ideology is reflected on the LL so that there are mostly Slovak-only public signs in bilingual and Hungarian dominant villages. The private realm is the only significant area where a certain Hungarian dominance is present. In a bilingual village, Hungarians prefer Slovak in their public signage, while in a village with Hungarian majority people invest on having private Hungarian signs by purchasing them in Hungary as well as through hand-making signs. The counter-normativity of having monolingual Hungarian signs is underlined by several factors. First, the language policy referred to as laws have put an emphasis on warning signs. Secondly, a Hungarian language rights leaflet has elevated "beware of the dog" signs as normatively bilingual. Thirdly, the context of Slovakia, engaged in nation building disfavors the public use of Hungarian. This paper illustrates the importance of considering ideologies as reflected in private LL in multilingual contexts in transition.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to obtain information to characterize potential trainees seeking training programs about organic farming in the form of mobile learning. This information is expected to allow for establishing a set of guidelines to design mobile training opportunities that could match the potential clients' wishes. Design/methodology/approach: For this survey an on-line questionnaire was used, translated into the languages of the participating countries (Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Hungary, UK, Italy and Turkey), and in the end 133 consented valid questionnaires were obtained. The data analysis was made with SPSS and included basic descriptive statistics, crosstabs and X[superscript 2] tests, considering a level of significance of 5 per cent. Findings: The results obtained in the present study indicate that designing training programs in organic farming for a wide target population should attend to the differences between countries, which showed to significantly influence the preferences of the possible clients for this type of training. Practical implications: This study provided valuable information for use in the preparation of training programs for adults who want to expand their knowledge on organic farming, in order to prepare courses more in accordance with their preferences. Originality/value: The fact that the study was undertaken in several countries, including North, Central and South Europe, is a positive indicator that globally accepted courses could be implemented successfully. To the knowledge no such work was undertaken up to the present, thus confirming the originality of the study presented.

Integrating the tenets of the social context model of L2 acquisition with insights from the parasocial contact hypothesis, the present paper addresses the role of mass media in L2 acquisition and acculturation among young Hungarian speakers in Slovakia. Questionnaire data were collected among Hungarian-speaking secondary school students (N = 310). The results indicated that integrative orientation guided individuals to seek media content in L2, and that L2 media use was associated with a higher L2 confidence and acculturation. Additionally, and in contrast to our expectations, L2 media use had a greater effect on acculturation and L2 confidence among those who had higher levels of positively valenced contact and lower levels of negatively valenced real-life contact with L2 speakers.

The purpose of this research is to develop a Synergistic Climate Scale (SCS) that can be used in organizations. Firstly prepared with 20 items, the scale was examined by five experts for its content validity, readability and intelligibility. As a result, two items were added to the scale, after experts' views. In the development of Turkish draft form of the scale in line with expert opinions, the form was employed to a sample of 242 master degree students that major in Education Management and Inspection Program co-maintained by Zirve University and Kahramanmaras Sütçü Imam University and 20 master degree students that attend the same program in Harran University; Education Management and Inspection. In total, 262 students filled the draft form. In the development of Slovakian draft form of the scale, it was employed to a sample of 154 participants; that is, 103 teachers and 16 principals getting in-service training in Slovakia Pedagocika Institute located in Vinne District and also 35 academicians working in Ruzomberok Catholic University. The structure validity was tested through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency coefficient was calculated to determine the reliability. As a result of the analysis, it was seen that Turkish form has two factors and 16 items while Slovakian form has 3 factors and 15 items. It is accepted the perceptions of persons toward synergistic climate of the organization will increase as the points got from the scale increase. The reverse is accepted to happen if the points got from the scale decrease.

The purpose of this study was to compare early speech and language development of children with and without cleft lip and/or palate (CLP) in the US and Slovakia from 6 to 24 months of age. Thirty-two children from the US (eight with CLP and eight noncleft) and Slovakia (eight with CLP and eight noncleft) participated in this study. The children were videotaped at four time points for 30 minutes during mother-child interaction with play sets controlled for early-developing sounds in each language. Mean Babbling Level, consonant inventories, number of different words and mean length of utterance were calculated for 6- to 24-month samples. Results indicated that the US and Slovak groups showed similar performance across the ages. Cleft and noncleft groups showed significant differences in acquisition of all of the speech and language measures. High-pressure consonants, particularly alveolar place of articulation, were problematic for children with CLP.

Background: Non-word repetition (NWR) tasks have been found to correlate with language skills and to discriminate between groups of typically developing (TD) children and children with speci?c language impairment (SLI) across languages. Aims: The main aim was to develop an easily-administered NWR screening test that could discriminate between Slovak-speaking TD children and children with SLI. The second aim was to establish if the novel scoring methods for NWR tasks were equally effective at differentiating between the TD versus SLI groups. As Slovak vowels are not reduced in unstressed syllables, it was also sought to establish whether scoring vowels (in addition to the consonants usually assessed in English language tests) would be informative. Methods & Procedures: The paper evaluated the performance of a new NWR task for Slovak-speaking children. Study 1 compared the performance of 60 TD children in three age groups: 3-year-olds ("N" = 20), 4-year-olds ("N" = 20) and 5-year-olds ("N" = 20). Five types of scoring methods were examined: whole-item, number of syllables, syllable structure, consonants, and vowels. Study 2 compared performance on the NWR task administered in Study 1 across three groups of child participants: an SLI group ("N" = 16), a TD age-matched group ("N" = 16), and a TD language-matched group ("N" = 14). Outcomes & Results: Study 1 found an age effect in the TD sample for three out of ?ve of the scoring methods tested (number of syllables, syllable structure, and consonants). Study 2 showed that all ?ve of the scoring methods discriminated between: (1) the group of children with SLI and the TD language-matched (TDLM) sample and (2) the group of children with SLI and the TD age-matched (TDAM) group. Conclusions & Implications: The novel NWR tool reliably differentiated between children with SLI and TD children. Scoring cut-off points which demonstrated high rates of success at verifying true-positives (93.75%) and true-negatives (100%) are provided. The most informative scoring methods for Slavic languages (whole-item scoring and vowels correct) are identi?ed and discussed. (Contains 8 tables and 2 figures.)

Two samples of Slovak women in higher education were surveyed in order to determine the extent to which organizational commitment and life satisfaction are related to personal and work-related attributes. Organizational commitment was found to be related to the work-related attributes of role conflict and role ambiguity. These work-related attributes were not correlated with life satisfaction. A positive relationship was found between Professional Role Orientation and life satisfaction in one of the samples surveyed. Organizational Role Orientation did not correlate significantly with either organizational commitment or life satisfaction. The personal attribute of locus of control did not correlate with life satisfaction but there was a significant correlation between locus of control and organizational commitment in the 1996 Slovak sample. Results are discussed in comparison to findings from similar surveys of U.S. women in higher education and with respect to changes in higher education in post-communist Central and Eastern European countries. (Contains 5 tables and 1 footnote.)

The importance of the existence of the oronym subsystem in the context of class of Slovak proper names is obvious not only in relation to learning about the surrounding world, but also in relation to knowledge about the creation, ultimately the functioning of proper names in general. The toponymic material of the Department of the Slovak Language History, Onomastics and Etymology of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., in Bratislava makes it possible to examine and process toponyms documented from the territory of Slovakia. A very modest representation has, among others, the toponyms Buča or Búča, and in the article we consider the possibilities of their onymic motivation in a wider Slavic language context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural language of the West Slovak Trnava region represents mainly the Catholic line of Slovak national and cultural development, it can be considered as an important stage of fulfilling the needs of Slovak society in the pre-codification period of the cultural development of Slovaks. This process of application of the cultivated national language in Bible translation was also realized in other Slavic nations and is closely related to the codification processes of Slavic national languages. The Slovak confessional development of the second half of the 18th century was also influenced by the struggle for the literary form of the Slovak language. Although language is a national-identifying attribute of a nation, the linguistic diversity of monuments associated with Slovakia, especially the place of their origin, also depends on the linguistic-cultural traditions of the diverse Slovak confessional communities. This linguistic diversity of monuments, however, only proves the multiplicity of the cultural-confessional development of the Slovaks and their linguistic-confessional traditions. The convergent development of the national Slovak language is proof of its function as a unifying means of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian slavist and linguist Valery Alexandrovich Pogorelov, like thousands of his other compatriots, left his homeland as a result of the socio-political changes in Russia in 1917 and the subsequent civil war. In 1923, he moved to Slovakia, to Bratislava, where he began working at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Comenius University. During his stay in Bratislava, V. A. Pogorelov was engaged not only in teaching, he also returned to scientific work. He concentrated his research in the field of comparative philology of the old Slavic languages, the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition and Carpatho-Russian problems. He established working and personal contacts with Slovak scientists and was a member of Slovak scientific institutes. V. A. Pogorelov lived in Slovakia until his move to Munich at the end of 1944, where he spent the last years of his life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of the paper presents a brief glimpse into the history of teaching Polish as a Foreign Language at universities worldwide. Activities of Bristol Association of Polish and Foreign Teachers of Polish Culture and Polish as a Second Language are also mentioned, as well as its role in offering methodological help for teachers and professors of Polish overseas. The paper offers also a presentation of the current model of teaching Polish abroad coordinated since 2017 by the Polish state agency NAWA. The second part of the paper deals with an overview of university centers teaching Polish in Slovakia. The author focuses mainly on the specifics of Polish education program at the Department of Slavonic Languages, Faculty of Arts at the Comenius University in Bratislava, from the synchronic and diachronic point of view. At the end of the paper, some relevant information about teaching Polish at university centers in Bulgaria is mentioned from the comparative, current perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slovak Slavistics is the inseparable part of the international Slavistically oriented research milieu. The 'Jan Stanislav' Institute of Slavistics of the SAS contributes significantly to this research. Since its foundation in 1995, the Institute dedicates already twenty-five years' activity to interdisciplinary research of relations of the Slovak language and culture with other Slavic and non-Slavic languages and cultures in both the national and international cooperation. The present study dedicated to 25th anniversary of the foundation of this Institute points especially to the topical coherences, trends, and needs of the institutionalized Slavistic research contextualized with inevitable processes in the scene of the academic science policy in Slovakia. Despite all the intricate factors of the current scholarly research in the humanities, Slovak Slavistic research represents the scholarly and research area, which brings new findings in various contexts of cultural development of Slovakia. The core research comprises the Old Church Slavonic, Latin, Slovak-German, Slovak - east Slovakian and Slovak - south Slavic relations, including the area of the translation of the Biblical texts to Slovak, as well as the research area of linguistic - cultural and historical coherences of the development of the inter-confessional communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Constantine's Letters / Konštantínove Listy is the property of Institute for Research of Constantine & Methodius's Cultural Heritage and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the early nineteenth century, several Slavic intellectuals believed in a single Slavic nation speaking a single language, though positing various taxonomies of the nation’s component “tribes” and the language’s component “dialects.” Nevertheless, recent scholars, both historians and linguists, prove so extraordinarily unwilling to acknowledge the existence of Panslavism that several falsify the historical record so as to make historical figures conform to modern national and linguistic thinking. This paper discusses Jan Kollár, Ljudevit Gaj, and Ľudovít Štúr as three sample Panslavs, documents the misrepresentation of their ideas in recent historiography, and explores why so many scholars seek to erase Panslavism from the historical record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with preschool language difficulties are at high risk of literacy problems; however, the nature of the relationship between delayed language development and dyslexia is not understood. Three hundred eight Slovak and Czech children were recruited into three groups: family risk of dyslexia, speech/language difficulties and controls, and were assessed three times from kindergarten until Grade 1. There was a twofold increase in probability of reading problems in each risk group. Precursors of 'dyslexia' included difficulties in oral language and code-related skills (phoneme awareness, letter-knowledge and rapid automatized naming); poor performance in phonological memory and vocabulary was observed in both affected and unaffected high-risk peers. A two-group latent variable path model shows that early language skills predict code-related skills, which in turn predict literacy skills. Findings suggest that dyslexia in Slavic languages has its origins in early language deficits, and children who succumb to reading problems show impaired code-related skills before the onset of formal reading instruction. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first section of this article provides a brief explanation of the notion of “Rusyn language” and presents the development of four standard Rusyn languages based on dialects in the countries where Rusyns live. This section also presents linguistic phenomena reflecting the specific location of the Rusyn language in Slovakia, anchored between two Slavic language groups, East and West, and primarily between the Ukrainian and the Slovak languages. The adaptation of Slovak lexemes and expressions dealing with various aspects of modern life to Rusyn phonological and morphological rules is one of the most striking features of the contemporary Rusyn language of Eastern Slovakia. Special attention is paid to linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that back or reinforce the influence of Slovak as a large language upon the Rusyn language in Slovakia as a small language. In the second part of the article, some questions of the sociology of the Rusyn language in Slovakia are presented, for example, its legal situation, and mainly, the usage of Rusyn in some communicative areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]