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The presented article deals with communicative and politeness strategies chosen by Czech native speakers. The method of the research was a discourse completion test; data collected in 2003 and 2011 were compared. Several situations (forms of addressing, thanks, apologies) were presented to the informants, their task was to write down a spontaneous reaction. In relation to Hofstede´s dimensional model several observations were made: power index is getting smaller in formal communicative situations, the use od academic titles declines. There is a rising tendency to individualism and competition, speakers often violate modesty maxim, express their needs and emotions more openly. However, the low tolerance of uncertainty does not allow those tendencies to be manifest in formal situations where there is a great risk of face loss, in formal situations speakers prefer stereotypical formulas and chose indirect strategies.

V článku jsou popsány zdvořilostní strategie, které volí autoři posudků závěrečných vysokoškolských prací, aby zmírnili ohrožení tváře adresáta – autora závěrečné práce. Analyzováno bylo 120 závěrečných vysokoškolských prací (diplomových a bakalářských), obhajovaných na katedře českého jazyka Pedagogické fakulty Univerzity Karlovy v Praze v letech 2009 – 2011. Nejčastěji autoři posudků užívají formy kondicionálu a otázky místo imperativu, vyhýbají se přímému oslovení adresáta a užívají modifikujících adverbií ke zmírnění negativního hodnocení. Kladně hodnotící adjektiva vyjadřují menší míru pozitivní expresivity. Pokud je vyjadřováno negativní hodnocení, bývá zasazeno do kontextu vedle výpovědi pozitivně hodnotící, aby byl zmírněn negativní perlokuční efekt. In the article there are described the ways the authors of assessment of the diploma thesis choose politeness strategies to save the addressee´s face. The research was carried at Faculty of Education, Charles University, Prague, where 120 diploma and bachelor thesis assessments were analysed. The most frequent linguistic means that were used by the authors of the assessment were conditional and questions instead of imperative, indirect forms of addressing and using modifying adverbs.

The aim of the research was to map vocabulary across all age groups interviewed and then assess the results, analyse the information found and compare groups against each other. In the theoretical part of this work, I present specific examples of vocabulary layering, further describing its scope as well as the ways in which it can be enriched. The second chapter of the theoretical section describes the development of child's speech at different times of the first years of their life, i.e. from the prenatal period, to the start of compulsory schooling. Furthermore, this chapter lists the various causes of delayed speech development that inhibit or otherwise limit its fluency and their effects on a child's vocabulary. The theoretical part of this thesis is concluded by a list of selected methods for evaluating vocabulary and speech comprehension. The practical part is based on an active and passive vocabulary test. This test was carried out in three age groups - younger kindergarten class, older kindergarten class and a primary school first class, each of ten children. The section testing passive vocabulary consisted of ten themes, each theme containing eight stimulant words. Respondents then assigned these words to images from the image attachment. The active vocabulary section required an...

The topic of this thesis is communicative competence and pragmatic aspects in Czech language textbooks at elementary schools. Education aims to achieve six key competencies, including communicative competence. The thesis's theoretical part focuses on defining concepts such as pragmatics, gender, politeness, cooperative communication, dialogue, argumentation, and manipulation. In the practical part, the thesis analyses five third-year Czech language textbooks and examines to what extent pragmatic aspects are included in the textbooks. The research has shown that although pragmatic aspects are included in the textbooks, their level is not sufficient in most cases, and it is necessary to supplement these topics with additional supporting materials. The outcome of this work could be useful for Czech language teachers at the first level of primary schools who intend to focus on developing their pupils' communicative competence and improving their pragmatic communication skills. Keywords Argumentation, dialogue, gender, communicative competence, pragmatics, pragmatic aspects, manipulation, textbook, politeness

This Master's Thesis deals with the linguistic picture of the particular somatisms in Czech; their emergence is then compared with their equivalents in German. The theoretical part explains the basis of cognitive and cultural linguistics as linguistic picture of the world, categorization, anthropocentrism, metaphor, metonymy and linguistics in the context of cognitive science. The practical part summarizes the particular use of somatisms within the phraseological units of both languages. The analysis is based on the the profile theory and its image schema. This language background is accompanied by the non-linguistic discipline, psychosomatics, whose premises proved to be useful.

This diploma thesis deals with communication of preschool children, in particular with analysis of communication functions of utterance. The aim of the research is to find out which types of communication functions preschool children mainly use. The theoretical part describes communication skills, language levels or ontogenesis of speech development. However, the key is to introduce the issue of each type of the communication utterance functions. The practical part is focused on the analysis of six audio recordings which have 30 minutes each. Within the recording with a voice recorder, dialogues among three research subjects were recorded. The dialogues were later on transcribed through the CHAT transcription method. Afterwards, types of the communication utterance functions were determined. The results of the qualitative research found out that the subjects primarily used the assertive, permissive or concessive functions (furthermore interrogative, directive, expressive and satisfactory function). All of these communication functions of utterance were stated directly. KEYWORDS communication competence, children's speech, communication function of utterance, preschool child, acquisition of the Czech language, dialogue

The bachelor thesis deals with the acquisition of grammatical categories of nouns (grammatical case, number, gender) in a child in the period of age ranging from two years and three months to two years and nine months. The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part presents the principal personalities of psycholinguistics and theoretical approaches to learning a language. It defines the basic terminology, ontogenetic development of speech and the way of acquiring grammatical categories and particularities of constituent levels in the child speech. The other part is practical. Six 30-minute audio recordings of dialogues of an adult and a child were made in month-long intervals. The dialogues were transcribed by CHAT, that means by orthographic transcription. The transcripts were analysed in detail and the use as well as the development of grammatical noun categories, their function in a sentence and the occurrence of mini paradigms were studied. The monitored child used substantives as the most frequent part of speech from the very beginning, even if they were often accompanied by interjections in the first recording. All the cases were used at least once, but the most frequent ones were nominative and accusative cases. The analysis of grammatical number showed that the child used...

This (bachelor's) thesis deals with the subject of child language acquisition and also presents own partial research in this area. The first part describes the theoretical and historical background of findings about this issue and describes the various conceptions and factors that influence or determine the acquisition of child speech. It introduces the ontogenetic developement of speech and also all the consequential phases of the child speech aquisition. It mentions contemporary approaches that are more and more complex and it follows the results of previous researches in the Czech and Slovak environment. It also mentions the importance of pre-school education which is focused on the acquisition of the (key) communication competencies. The second part of this study is based on the research. This research is focused on the process of acquisition of noun grammatical categories by a particular Czech speaking child. It describes an oral production of the child between the ages of 2.9 to 3.2. It includes a detailed description of the methodology and data obtaining within observation of the dialogue between the child and his mother. The research operates with the authentic material (authentic audio recordings of the dialogues) and provides detailed quantitative analysis which monitores gradual...

The present diploma thesis examines gender in Czech language textbooks for the second stage of the primary school. It aims to analyse three selected textbook series published by different publishing houses, using the results to evaluate whether or not individual textbooks depict men and women in a stereotypical manner whether there is discrimination on grounds of language. The thesis comprises a theoretical and empirical part. The theoretical part briefly introduces and delimits the concept of gender. It goes on to discuss selected aspects of linguistic gender discrimination, mainly the use of the generic masculine and inappropriate clichéd language. We also introduce the issue of deriving feminine forms of foreign female family names, which is topical at the time of writing. The final chapter of the theoretical part discusses the impact of gender bias in schooling on pupils'education. The empirical part analyses three textbook series, focussing on the representation of men and women in the subject matter, in illustrations, and on the use of gender-neutral language. The results of the analysis indicate that men prevail over women in all the textbooks analysed in several respects: namely in terms of the proportion of text excerpts authored by male or female authors; the number of illustrations...

The aim of this work is to compile the linguistic picture of Chods, that is how the word is fixed in the language and the conceptual system of a native speaker. For this purpose, canonical literature has been chosen that thematizes Chods, furthermore some Chod newspapers, corpus syn2013pub and Jindřich's song-books and a few collections of Chod fairytales and legends representing folk literature. This thesis has also drawn upon systemic data, i. e. dictionaries wherein the word Chod can be found in order to record the denotations of this word. Next, the thesis explored the etymology of the word Chod and its synonyms, which also helps to clarify the objective of this work. All the data have been analysed and the connotations, collocations and also attittude towards the dennotation have been gathered that have been featured in more sources to compile the linguistic picture of Chods. Among the most frequent collocations and connotations confirmed in more than one source are Chodsko, border service, privileges and duties of Chods, Kozina and Lomikar, the uprising, Újezd, rebels, defenders against the Germans, nacionalism, freedom, a traditional costume, dialect, music, bagpipes, pies, Chod festival, ceramics, farmers, a banner, a dog, stubborness, repulsion, pride, distinctiveness, togetherness, hard...

The main goal of this diploma thesis entitled Pupils with Different Mother Tongue is evaluation of the set support measures created at FZŠ Trávníčkova. Moreover, the thesis aims to summarize the current requirements and needs of parents of pupils with different mother tongues. The theoretical part reviews reference literature on the topic, deals with terminology related to adaptation, and presents a summary of support measures at FZŠ Trávníčkova. It also includes a presentation of the school and the city district. The practical part is based on four research questions aimed at determining the satisfaction, degree and frequency of communication. Moreover, other needs of parents of pupils with various mother tongues and the degree of involvement of these parents in community activities of the school. The practical part is carried out by using several research methods - a questionnaire, interviews with parents or teachers and an analysis of school documents. In conclusion of this diploma thesis, the results of the research, recommendations for practise of this school and also suggestions for further research are summarized. KEYWORDS pupils with different mother tongue, pupil - foreigner, primary school, education and integration of pupils with different mother tongue, adaptation, parents, research,...

This thesis is focused on the language analysis of the dog owners' internet communication. The subject of the analysis is the examination of a few chosen examples taken from internet discussions and chat communication on Facebook.com and Ifauna.cz. The theoretical part of the thesis describes the specifics of internet communication and the practical part examines them thoroughly from the point of stylistics and linguistics. It's main focus is dedicated to objective and subjective stylistic factors influencing the use of language in internet discussions and online chat and to the description of phonetics, morphology, lexikology and syntax.

The work deals with the acquisition of vocabulary in the period of advanced language development in second-level primary school pupils from different socio-economic and socio- cultural backgrounds. The theoretical section summarises the basic findings as well as the existing empirical research, focusing in particular on the influence of the family environment of the individual on his/her linguistic development. It provides a complex picture of the education of Roma children in the Czech Republic at this point in time. The investigative section presents independent research into the vocabulary of pupils, with regard to selected word groups in the acquisition corpus SKRIPT2015. The texts of pupils attending schools in socially-deprived areas, or in areas under threat of social deprivation and with a strong Roma presence, are compared with the texts of pupils attending average schools. On the basis of this comparison, a picture emerges of the impact of different socio-economic and socio-cultural environments on the written language of pupils, as well as the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the existing support mechanisms provided by educational institutions. KEYWORDS acquisition of language, advanced language development, expansion of vocabulary, education of Roma children, acquisition corpus, SKRIPT2015

This thesis deals with various approaches of secondary school teachers and students to the rhetoric and the teaching of communication. The main purpose of the thesis is to map how students see the quality of their own communicative skills and the quaility of communication classes and the attitude of teachers to including communication in their classes. Attention is also paid to the development of communication teaching methods. The survey was carried out at seven Prague secondary schools mainly by using questionnaires. Data were also collected during interviews and when attending classes. The survey suggests that both students and teachers consider the teaching of communication a necessary part of Czech language and literature lessons and have a responsible attitude to it. Students are more critical to their own speech than their teachers. They have quite a good knowledge of the theoretical basis of rhetoric and communication but they have problems applying the theory in practise. Teachers prefer professional, clear and attractive textbooks of communication. As for the future of the subject teachers are of the opinion that it should become an inseparable part of all subjects, i. e. of comprehensive education. KEY WORDS rhetoric, teaching of communication, communicative skills, speech, discussion

The central theme of the diploma thesis is incorporation of media education at the first stage of primary school. The theoretical part of the thesis briefly defines the basic concepts related to media education, offers an insight into historcal background and gradual integration of media education into the Czech educational system and, last but not least, introduces current state of this cross-curricular topic at Czech schools. The practical part is devoted to a research survey aimed at finding out which didactic topics of media education are mostly reflected in educational materials intended for the first stage of primary school and at the same time at ascertaining how the pupils are mostly involved in media education in terms of task assignments contained in teaching materials. The results of the research show that the most frequently reflected topics of media education that appear in educational materials are advertising, its regulation and influence and characteristics and function of traditional media. In case of the method of pupils involvement in media education, the research findings show that pupils are mostly called upon to receptive activities. To obtain the results of the research survey, qualitative content analysis of selected teaching materials was used.

The thesis deals with the issue of integrating foreign pupils. Especially by creating socio- cultural competence in the Czech environment. It is primarily aimed at the primary school environment and second grade pupils. It consists of two parts. The theoretical section defines the concept of socio-cultural competence and puts it in a broader context. It also deals with a foreign pupil and the acquisition of a foreign language. Las, but not least, it represents a set of factors that are crucial to the acquisition of a foreign pupil's socio-cultural competence. The Common European Framework of Reference and its individual levels are also presented. A qualitative research investigation is described n the practical section. The aim of the investigation is to answer the main research question, namely: How is the socio-cultural competency of a foreign pupil in a Czech school created? A semi-structured interview method was chosen for research. Respondents were selected on the basis of defined criteria. Through their testimony, it was concluded that specific situations were to be taken into account when working with a foreign pupil. Furthermore, the hypothesis that the educator is one of the most powerful factors influencing the process of acquiring a foreign pupil's socio-cultural competence in a school...

The thesis is concerned with the definition of the speech politeness as a unique pragmatic system which is specific for each language community and which creates in speakers a pragmatic habitus or an abstract model for culturally speech behavior, manifested as a polite speech norm in geographically and time-limited context of a linguistic market. In the practical part, the thesis deals with the comparison of the language devices used by Czech and Spanish speakers to maintain the safe relationship with the addressee in order to achieve a successful socio-economic exchange. The study focuses on speech courtesy on one hand and comparison of two ethnolinguistic areas from the point of view of linguistics, pragmatics, sociology and cultural anthropology.

This diploma thesis deals with intellectually talented individuals and from the narrower point of view, gifted pupils in the subject of Czech language at the second level of elementary school. In the theoretical part, the author deals with the talents, definitions and concepts of this issue, existing models from various authors, characteristics of gifted children, approaches of Czech schools to the education of these children and extra-curricular possibilities for the development of their talent. This thesis also deals with linguistic intelligence and personality of the teacher. The main objective is to give a realistic picture of how teachers of the Czech language view gifted pupils and what differences they find between gifted individuals and ordinary students. Furthermore, the author of the thesis searches for the differences between the capabilities of pupils gifted at the Czech language and other pupils in fulfilling the assigned tasks. Last but not least, what is the point of view on education of the pupils themselves. In the practical part, using the structured interview method, information and opinions from teachers of talented pupils and pupils themselves to the teaching of the Czech language are collected. In addition to that, on the basis of the theoretical data gathered, practical tasks...

The thesis examines the issue of gender in textbooks. The aim of the thesis is to analyse three sets of Czech language secondary school textbooks and ascertain, whether these textbooks contribute to the propagation of gender stereotypes in the society or whether they do not. The thesis is divided into a theoretical section and an empirical section. The theoretical section firstly explicates the fundamental concepts of gender, secondly focuses on the discrimination of women via language and on other topics from the field of gender linguistics. The last chapter of the theoretical section focuses on how gender stereotypes influence schooling. The empirical section encompasses the aforementioned analysis of the selected Czech language textbook sets. The analysis further investigates the manner in which men and women are represented in the curriculum, how men and women are portrayed in the illustrations, if the linguistic means are gender-balanced, and also whether the textbooks include any gender linguistics topics. The results of the analysis show that in all textbook sets, men are the dominant gender in illustrations, as well as among significant figures and authors of literary excerpts. In terms of roles, employment and character traits that are attached to individual characters, the sets of...

This dissertation deals with the language skills of the preschool children in comparison with the expected competences. The main aim of this dissertation is to discover the level of the preschool children language skills and to compare them with the expected competences. The additional aim is to ascertain the activities used by the pedagogues to evolve the language skills of the preschool children. The methods of the language skills development, the support of the communication and language skills in the nursery school and the factors influencing language skills are described on the base of the professional literature in the theoretic parts of this dissertation. The proposal of the solution for the pedagogue's work efficiency improvement and preschool children language skills quality improvement is composed on the base of the testing and the survey.

This thesis deals with a pragmatic analysis of profiles of online dating service in Czech Republic. The main objective of this work is to interpret a form of profile presentation on an online dating site. The profiles are interpreted in terms of communication situation, of communication strategies, of the differences between male and female profiles and of the differences between different age profiles. Interpretation of the data is based on stylistic and pragmatic analysis of individual profiles of online dating service and on the percentage of relevant data. The theoretical part of the thesis defines research of the online dating services, existing theories and research of internet environment concerning the foundation of internet dating services, gender stereotypes in online dating, self-presentation online and choosing a partner. The theoretical part consists also of a summary of my own brief survey about people's attitudes to online dating services. The theoretical part of the thesis defines also the pragmatic exploration which constitutes the basis of pragmatic analysis. The basis of practical part of the thesis is stylistic analysis of the text parts of profiles and pragmatic analysis of text and visual part of profiles and the comparison of the percentage of relevant data. Results of the...