The aim of this study was to look at speech acts of apology used in linguistic, social, and cultural settings and to answer the question, “Do people overuse and/or misuse them?” The research was conducted on the speech act of apology and its strategies used in American, Chinese, and Lithuanian cultures with 113 total respondents. The method chosen was the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) via a web-based questionnaire. The results revealed that Americans tend to overuse apologies while Chinese and Lithuanian, on the contrary, use them less. It also revealed that the dominant apology strategy in American culture is earnest politeness with an account/explanation; when the Chinese apply such a strategy, it is the same as the American style. Lithuanians most commonly employed the strategies of expected politeness/norm and earnest politeness with an account/explanation. Recommendations are that further research be conducted in the field of apology and its strategies in Lithuanian culture. In addition, an investigation into whether or not a shift in linguistic politeness and the speech act of apology in Chinese and Lithuanian cultures has occurred due to Western influence and globalization. / Šio tyrimo tikslas buvo pažvelgti į atsiprašymus naudojamus lingvistinėje pragmatikoje ištiriant jų kultūrinius atspalvius Amerikiečių, Kinų ir Lietuvių kultūrose. Dar vienas šio darbo tikslas yra atsakyti į klausimą Ar atsiprašymai yra vartojami per dažnai/retai minėtose kultūrose? Išvardintiems tikslams pasiekti, buvo nustatyti šie siekiniai: aptarti atsiprašymų panašumus ir skirtumus Amerikiečių, Kinų ir Lietuvių kultūrose; įvertinti vyrų/moterų naudojamus atsiprašymus; pažvelgti į atsiprašymus naudojamus atsisakant kvietimo ir išsiaiškinti kokie atsiprašymai naudojami skirtingose socialinėse ir profesinėse situacijos atsižvelgiant į santykių familiarumą ir hierarchiją.

Semantikos ir pragmatikos ribų problema kalbos filosofijoje Šio darbo tikslas - ištirti semantikos ir pragmatikos ribų problemą analitinėje kalbos filosofijoje. Ši problema svarbi sprendžiant klausimą, kokia turėtu būti semantinė teorija. Semantikos ir pragmatikos ribų problemą galima išspręsti tik tiksliai apibrėžus, kas yra semantika, ir kas yra pragmatika. Šias disciplinas galima aiškiai atskirti pagal jų tyrimo objektą. Semantika tiria kalbą kaip sisteminį darinį, o pragmatika tiria kalbą kaip kalbos vartotojų elgseną ir elgsenos bei nelingvistinio konteksto reikšmę perduodamai informacijai. Darbe analizuojami tiek Donaldo Davidsono, Davido Lewiso, Jerroldo Katzo, Hilary Putnamo ir kitų autorių semantiniai tyrinėjimai, tiek kasdienes kalbos filosofų - Ludwigo Wittgensteino, Paulo Grice’o, Johno Searle’o ir kitų autorių tekstai, nagrinėjantys kalbos pragmatinius aspektus. Darbe teigiama, kad Davidsono teisingumo sąlygų semantinė teorija, tiesą laikydama santykiu tarp sakinio, kalbėtojo ir laiko, kada sakinys yra pavartotas, neišvengiamai susidurs su būtinybe tirti pragmatikos sferai priskirtinus fenomenus, nes kasdienėje kalboje yra vartojami intencionalius būvius apibūdinantys sakiniai, kurių teisingumo sąlygos nėra savaime suprantamos. Darbe daroma išvada, kad vėlyvojo Wittgensteino „kalbiniai žaidimai“ ir Johno L. Austino „kalbiniai aktai“ yra tiksliausiai pragmatikos tyrimo objektą apibūdinantys konceptai. Pragmatika, siekdama nelikti vien aprašomosios disciplinos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The Problem of the Boundary between Semantics and Pragmatics in Philosophy of Language The author analyses the problem of the boundary between semantics and pragmatics. This problem is highly important for the theoretical question what form a theory of semantics of a natural language should take. The author argues that they should be distinguished by the main field of inquiry. Semantics explores a sphere of language as a system, when pragmatics explores a language as behaviour of the language's users and explores the influence of non-linguistic contexts on utterances. From analysis of the philosophy of Donald Davidson the author concludes that Davidson's Truth conditional semantics cannot dissociate from the pragmatics either. Because Davidson views truth as a relation between a sentence, a person, and a time, he should analyse situations when persons are using words describing intentional states such as "I believe", "I love" etc. e. g. explore the sphere of pragmatics. Truth conditions of sentences describing intentional states are not obvious by themselves. The author analyses texts of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Grice, John Searle, John L. Austin and others philosophers of language whose works concern pragmatical aspects of language. He concludes that Wittgenstein's language-games and Austin's speech acts are the most congenial terms to characterize the pragmatics. The author postulates that the pragmatics cannot dissociate from semantics as far as it tries to explain... [to full text]

This thesis deals with alteration: diminutives and augmentatives in contemporary Italian, and their pragmatic functions. The aim of this thesis is to create a list of diminutives and augmentatives used in Italian fiction. The analysis of expressions is based on the texts contained in InterCorp. The starting point is a theoretical introduction to the word formation with special attention to alterative suffixes in Italian and Czech language, with a partial comparison to Spanish. The thesis also concentrates on hypocorisms, phonological and suffixal restrictions, and lexicalization of alteratives. An integral part is the chapter dedicated to pragmatics, speech acts theory and pragmatic use of alterative suffixes. The results of this thesis represent concrete illustrations for various communication situations documented from corpus.

The objective of this thesis is to examine which types of pragmatic markers are represented in coloquial Spanish and establish the frequency they occur wiht in native and nonnative speakers. Further, a systematical description of ten most frequent markers in native and nonnative speakers is included and examples of their use based on the transcription are shown. The author bases her work mainly on linguistic studies focused on pragmatic markers and coloquial Spanish ? on the studies of José Portolés Lázaro and María Antonia Martín Zorraquino and Antonio Briz in particular. The author emanates from Lázaro and Zorraquino?s classification, characterists and use of pragmatic markers. The practical part focuses on the differences in use of pragmatic markers between native and nonnative speakers and examines the frequency and representation of particular types of markers in coloquial Spanish.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to analyse the means of persuasion in Czech and Spanish texts of political discourse. The thesis is divided into a theoretical part and a practical part. The first chapter of the theoretical part is focused on the pragmatics. The second chapter deals with the discourse and the specific characteristics of political language. In the last chapter of the theoretical part we introduce the term of persuasion and afterwards we describe the linguistic means of persuasion in political discourse. The practical part is focused on the proper research conducted on the basis of the selected sample of Czech and Spanish political texts. The result of this thesis is a comparison of the data obtained from the analysis between the above mentioned languages. The thesis is finally summarized in Spanish résumé.

This master's thesis studies explicit manifestations of the interpreter's role in consecutive interpreting - specifically in interpreted debates after films at the One World film festival. Consecutive dialogue interpreting in front of an audience is an interesting genre of interpreting, which is fairly common in the Czech Republic, but rather underrepresented in interpreting research. Its unique features are especially salient in case of interpreting between English and Czech, as this means a large part of the audience is then likely to have some level of comprehension in both of these languages. The One World festival also often employs young interpreters - students or graduates of Translation Studies at Charles University - and serves as one of their first work experiences. The theoretical part of the thesis provides an overview of existing research in the field of dialogue interpreting and film festival interpreting. It also presents the theoretical framework used to analyse the manifestations of the interpreter's role in authentic interactions. The framework divides these manifestations into several layers of analysis - role as an activity, facework, and norm orientation in language management. It also employs the tools and terminology used by conversation analysis. The empirical part is then...

Key words: diminution, apostrophe, pragmatics, speech situation, linguistic corpora Abstract: This master's thesis deals with pragmatic use of diminutives in French. The theoretical part defines the category of diminutives and possibilities of their classification, in particular with regards to their pragmatic use. Following Dressler-Merlini Barbaresi's model, this thesis accentuates emotional component of diminutives besides the traditional interpretation of dimensional meaning employed in child-centered speech situations, pet-centered speech situations and lover-centered speech situations. The master's thesis focuses on affected apostrophes. Between those hypocorisms in French, besides other forms, one can also find diminutive forms. The language materials for the empirical analysis are subcorpora of film subtitles and fiction in parallel linguistic corpora InterCorp aligned French-Czech. This alignment with Czech language on one hand serves to more efficient search of diminutives in pragmatic speech situations in French, on the other hand it serves to contrastive analysis. We used also monolinguistic corpora FRANTEXT and SYN2015 to demonstrate the frequency of diminutives forms in apostrophe in Czech and French. In the empirical part we analyze which diminutives are employed in those speech situations...

Civil service regulation 1918-1938 Abstract The civil service in the sense of the officials working within the state apparatus appeared in the Czech lands during the modern age, but it did not acquire a solid legal form until the second half of the 19th century. At this time, there was a need of normatively enshrining the rights and obligations of the civil servants, and the result of this effort was the adoption of Act No. 15/1914 Coll., so called the service pragmatics. This legal regulation was subsequently adopted into the Czechoslovak legal system. The service pragmatics thus applied during the First and Second Czechoslovak Republic, but during this period it was amended several times and some parts of it were changed to correspond to the new conditions within a democratic Czechoslovakia. In addition to the adjustment of the service pragmatics, which was already established by the Constitution from 1920 (it introduced, for example, an equality before the law, equal rights for women, who could subsequently enter the service, etc.), there were several other norms adopted during the 1920s and 1930s that amended or supplemented the provisions of the service pragmatics. Such legal regulations included, for example, Act No. 103/1926 Coll., the Salary Act, which amended the remuneration of the civil servants...

This diploma thesis Comparative analysis of communication of the brands Louis Vuitton and Estée Lauder across selected periodicals in 2013 deals with the forms of communication the selected luxury brands on the platform of magazines use for addressing their existing and also potential customers. The theoretical part defines luxury and luxury brands Louis Vuitton and Estée Lauder and media, namely printed magazines Elle and Marianne, which together constitute the necessary basis for the subsequent research. Methodological part looks at the key persuasive, semiotic and pragmatic approaches, which, using verbal and non-verbal communication elements, participate in the construction of the examined texts, and submits related basic concepts, which are then used in the analytical part. Here, first, is realized a detailed description and analysis of the selected types of communication followed by the comparison and final evaluation of the findings obtained. Comparison in that is made not only within the individual magazines, respectively types of utterances placed in them, but also in connection with the specifics of the selected luxury brands. This diploma thesis aims to describe the selected utterances, analyze the contents they communicate, compare them and finally reveal the key communication methods...

Verbal Irony in the Czech Discourse and its Perception Mgr. Dominika Rýparová Abstract This thesis sets the verbal irony into a broader context of human communication and supports the tendency to understand the irony as a communication strategy - not only as a speech figure or a tool to make our way of speaking more attractive. The aim of this work is to remind that irony is an integral part of our everyday communication, and a prerequisite for its use and understanding is built on the particular language experience. The experiment was examining the function of the four forms of irony, which differed in the degree of engaged humour or, conversely, expressed criticism. During the research one was able to get answers from a total of 3,167 respondents. Their analysis revealed that the major motivation for use of the selected types of irony is the humour, but the more humorous the statement is, the more the speaker takes a risk of not being completely understood, because he/she plays with reality too much. Further the results showed that the perception of irony-related emotions is influenced by our age. Younger people are more sensitive to the humorous points of irony, while the older are more tolerant of its critical part. The evaluation of irony is also affected by the communication role of the respondent...