No abstract

This pilot study aims to identify differences in native and non-native phraseologies, focussing on prepositional patterns. Previous research suggests L2 users’ limited phraseological choices may hinder the accuracy of their language production, and prepositions can pose a particular challenge to Czech learners of English, given the lack of correspondence between translation equivalents. Further, prepositional patterns contribute to text structuring, making them an important part of learners´ competence. Using representative corpora of English and Czech, 3- to 5-grams containing the equivalent preposition pair in/v are extracted. The identified patterns are classified by their semantics and textual functions. While in/v patterns mostly fulfil corresponding functions in the languages compared, the distribution of these functions differs. Specifically, some pattern types are only found in English, highlighting its analytic nature as opposed to inflectional Czech.

Abstract:The study explores the possibility to use translation counterparts as "markers" (Malá, 2013), or "methodological anchors" (Gast, 2015, of discourse functions, i.e. formal correlates of interpersonal and textual functions, which make it possible to detect these functions in the text, and to compare their expression cross-linguistically. We focus on Czech expressions containing the postfix -pak (such as, copak -'what + pak', kdepak -'where + pak'). The postfix -pak is shown to be a polyfunctional indicator of discourse function (cf. Grepl and Karlík, 1998). The expressions ending in -pak were found to have content / speaker-related functions (such as deliberative meaning, emotional evaluation, (im)possibility) as well as communication / addressee-oriented functions (appeal, establishing/maintaining contact) (cf. Aijmer, 2013;Šebestová and Malá, 2016).

This chapter explores the expression of the concept of time in children’s narrative fiction cross-linguistically, comparing Czech and English. Specifically, it analyses multi-word units and patterns which the respective languages employ when referring to time. The new Engrammer software was developed to facilitate the extraction of n-grams with lemmatised cores and positional mobility, making it possible to compare temporal patterns in English with those used in highly inflectional Czech with variable word-order. The results of the study suggest that in children’s fiction in both languages, time plays an important role in structuring the text, frequently creating dramatic effects. Even though the formal means of expressing time may differ between English and Czech (e.g. diminutives in Czech vs. phrasal description in English), register appears to substantially influence the way time is framed in children’s literature in both languages.