In this thesis, I explore how, although Edith Södergran’s Vaxdukshäf poems seem to support new female roles in early 20th century European society, they also reflect on the danger in changing from traditional to modern roles. As the poems illustrate, this change can create an isolated woman, who becomes trapped in her new independence and is unable to alter herself to connect with others. In order to understand what is meant by traditional and modern female roles, I present a historical background that contrasts the woman of pre-20th-Century Europe with the new woman that emerged around the Turn of the Century. I do this by focusing on marriage, motherhood, the woman's role inside and outside of the home, valued feminine characteristics, and women's clothing.

This thesis explores why readers insist on interpreting Zehra Çirak's texts in light of her Turkish German background when she claims that her texts have little to do with her Turkish heritage and are more universally applicable. While readers can interpret her texts without considering the author's biography, thereby obtaining insights into their own personal identity, I suggest that it also makes sense for readers to interpret her texts with the author's biography in mind because of current events and the history of Turkish migrant labor in Germany. To explore different possible interpretations of her texts, I have categorized Çirak's poetry, found in four of her volumes of poetry, Vogel auf dem Rücken eines Elefanten (1991), Fremde Flügel auf eigener Schulter (1994), Leibesübungen (2000), and In Bewegung (2008), into two broad groups. First, I look at the few poems in which Çirak overtly addresses alterity by discussing the alienation of Turks. In these texts, the speakers use Turkish words or images that link the texts to Çirak's biography. Then I turn to look at poems that can only metaphorically be interpreted as addressing Turkish German integration into mainstream German society and discuss how even though the figurative language Çirak employs make her texts applicable to other situations or interpretations, the texts lend themselves to being read in light of multiculturalism. In both of these categories of poetry, Çirak uses metaphor to address alterity without pandering to stereotypes or setting categorical limits on Turks, Germans, or other members of her readership.

The present diploma thesis deals with the common morphological and phonological features between Sanskrit and Slavic languages. It contains the list of common lexemes in Sanskrit and Slavic languages added at the end of the thesis. The point of departure of this thesis are the theories of comparative linguistics, which are mentioned in the introduction. Morphophonological parallels are researched in the context of the relationships between Indo- Iranian and Balto-Slavic languages, what helps to distinguish common features between the separated language branches: e. g. common features between Baltic languages and Sanskrit or common features between Slavic and Iranian languages. Iranian and Slavic language contact is analysed in the special chapter. The common features between Sanskrit and Slavic languages supposed to be generally the remnants of common Indo-European principles, which are preserved in both language branches. The special chapter is also devoted to the RUKI sound law, which is regarded as one of the most important common feature between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages.

This work in the field of the translation theory, extending to the translation practice, focuses on exploring literary terms and techniques, that participate in the construction and poeticisation of the literary text. Very often these terms make problems in the process of translation text from one language to another. The aim is localizing (with regard to its contextual involvement), analysis and subsequent selection of the most appropriate translation solutions of these terms. The work focuses on the translation of these literary devices not only in plan of Slavic languages (Russian, Czech, Slovak), but also takes into account the aspect of non-Slavic languages (English).

The emotive connotations of diminutives in English are a source of controversy among scholars, while the Slavic languages of Polish and Russian are considered ‘diminutive-rich’ with diminutives that convey diverse nuances. Thus, the translation of diminutives between English and Slavic languages has either been portrayed as difficult or has been ignored altogether. However, an analysis of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and several of its translations into Polish and Russian shows that English has many diminutives, some of which are ‘untranslatable’, while many diminutives can be easily translated. Yet, the strong emphasis on diminutives in Polish and Russian produces diminutives in the translations that do not appear in the original text and are not typical of English. What becomes evident is that the obstacles in translating various diminutive constructions provoke the question: What are the semantic-pragmatic differences between English and Polish/Russian diminutives and how do these differences affect translation? / Graduate / 0679 / 0593 / 0314 / dlockyer@alumni.ubc.ca

Avec notre thèse, nous voulons poser les fondements linguistiques et didactiques nécessaires à la future élaboration d’un programme ou d’une méthode en intercompréhension slave, en prenant l’exemple des langues slaves de l’ouest et du sud-ouest et en fournissant une analyse linguistique de trois langues : le tchèque, le slovène et le croate. Dans notre travail, nous cherchons principalement à fournir deux éléments : - Une série d’hypothèses linguistiques ayant pour objectif de déterminer les points à enseigner dans une méthode d’intercompréhension concernant le tchèque, le slovène et le croate ;- Une présentation de programmes et de supports en didactique de l’intercompréhension réalisés et testés dans le cadre de notre cursus.Dans notre travail, nous constatons que la didactique de l’intercompréhension slave diffère en de nombreux points avec les apprentissages classiques. Dans le cas de l’intercompréhension, de nombreux points normalement lourds et complexes à maîtriser peuvent n’être que survolés. Grâce à nos analyses, tant sur le plan linguistique que didactique, nous avons pu fournir une réflexion sur l’une des formes que pourra prendre une formation en intercompréhension slave dans le futur. Nous préconisons particulièrement l’utilisation de ressources en ligne, via, par exemple, le site www.rozrazum.eu, développé dans le cadre de cette thèse afin de tester des activités respectant la méthodologie proposée par Eurom 5 (Bonvino et al. 2001). Ce site pourra servir, dans un premier temps, de plate-forme de test et de mise au point d’approches didactiques, tout en étant fonctionnel, et donc disponible à un public d’apprenants. / With our thesis, we intend to lay out the linguistic and didactic foundations necessary for the future elaboration of a program or a method in Slavic intercomprehension by taking the example of the Western and the South-Western Slavic languages and in providing a linguistic analysis of three languages: Czech, Slovene and Croatian.In our work, we seek mainly to provide two elements:- A series of linguistic hypotheses aimed at determining the points to be taught in an intercomprehension method concerning Czech, Slovene and Croatian;- A presentation of programs and support in intercomprehension didactics realized and tested as part of our curriculum.In our work, we find that the didactics of Slavic intercomprehension differs in many ways from classical learning. In the case of intercomprehension, many points that are normally heavy and complex to master may be only passed through quickly.Thanks to our linguistical and didactical analyzes, we have been able to provide a reflection on one of the forms that Slavic intercomprehension formation can take in the future. We particularly recommend the use of online resources, for example via the website www.rozrazum.eu, developed as a part of this thesis to test activities following the methodology made for Eurom 5 (Bonvino et al., 2001). This website can initially be used as a test and development platform for didactical approaches, while being functional, and therefore available to a public of learners.

This dissertation is a comparative study of the Russian and Czech avant-gardes and their responses to the crises of representation and artistic language in the first decades of the 20th century. In particular, it examines the theoretical and creative output of two artists who worked at the intersection of the word and image: the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and the visual artist Karel Teige. Both artists were central figures in the founding and theoretical articulation of Russian Futurism and Czech Poetism, respectively. The chapters trace these artists’ artistic evolutions, from their earliest conceptions of a crisis in art to the development of solutions for overcoming this crisis. The theoretical and creative output of these figures is examined both within the artists’ individual oeuvres, as well as in light of their respective artistic movements and the broader tendencies of the international avant-garde. Chapter 1 traces Mayakovsky’s response to the crisis from his initial impulse toward abstraction, characteristic of the Russian Cubo-Futurist movement in the verbal and visual arts more broadly, to the introduction of a political agenda into his art. On the basis of Mayakovsky’s participation in collective Futurist publications, his individually authored theoretical essays, and narrative poems, this chapter argues that the poet’s solution to the crisis of language coalesced around the possibility of realizing democratic representation in art. The chapter shows that in poems written between 1914 and 1921, Mayakovsky was concerned with the question of how to accommodate others’ voices in lyric poetry, how to allow them to speak in and through his works. His vision of a more democratic form of representation necessitated the poet’s metaphorical self-sacrifice, which he repeatedly performed in his poems on the level of plot. This sacrifice enabled him to realize his vision of democratic representation in the idea of collective authorship performed in his narrative poem 150,000,000. Chapter 2 highlights Karel Teige’s response to the crisis of artistic language and representation in his theoretical essays and artworks. By contrast to Mayakovsky’s politicized response, Teige prioritized formal innovation. More specifically, this chapter argues that Teige viewed the fusion of the word and image in a multimedia art form as a solution to the parallel crises that afflicted the visual and the verbal arts. This desired fusion remained a constant of Teige’s artistic solutions throughout the 1920s. His first attempts to overcome the crisis are contained in the Poetist conception of “image poetry,” which incorporated words, painted images, photographs, and other materials. The photograph, understood as a direct imprint of reality, introduced the element of the real into image poetry and thereby transfigured the word and image. After image poetry, Teige went on to replay his formal solution to the crisis of representation in another fused form—the typophoto, which was integrated into the experimental multimedia book ABCs (1926). The introduction and conclusion frame these case studies in terms of the broader trends that inform the artistic experiments of these figures. More specifically, the introductory chapter grapples with questions of how the crisis of language and representation at the turn of the 20th century can be conceptualized. Arguing that the artistic experimentation of the 1910s and the 1920s represents a continuity of what Foucault calls the modern episteme, the introduction at the same time seeks to address the fissures and breaks represented by abstraction in art and the proto-structuralist understanding of the sign in linguistics. The conclusion addresses the role of figurative language in the articulation of the crisis and maintains that while the language of crisis was productive for artistic experiment, it confined the avant-garde to perpetual renewal of forms and artistic language.

After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina erupted into ethnic conflict and ultimately genocide. Nearly 100,000 people, mainly Bosniaks, died in the Bosnian War. Two decades later, the violence has ended but the conflict is still present in Bosnia; the societal segregation of the 1995 Dayton Accords, intended only as an immediate solution to the violence, still stands. Population and language distribution are evidence of this segregation. Bosnia’s two entities are home to two different ethnic majorities: Serbs in the Republika Srpska and Bosniaks in the Federation of BiH. In an environment so sensitive that the government recently feared that merely releasing statistics on ethnic populations might cause violence, the languages that represent these populations are important indicators of social presence and power. In order to evaluate the presence of the Serbian and Bosnian languages, as well as the English language, in Bosnia, signage on the main streets in the country’s capitals were photographed in great detail. It was hypothesized that linguistic majority would match ethnic majority on both main streets, and that English would appear frequently in advertisements. The number of photographs in which each language appeared was tallied up in order to determine how often the languages are typically used. Analyses of these results demonstrated that the English language is the second-most ubiquitous on both streets, after Bosnian, and the comparatively small presence of the Serbian language on both streets indicated that the linguistic environment in Bosnia is not conducive to peace and reconciliation.

Dresden's historic reconstructions bring up questions that reach far beyond the city's new/old Neumarkt district. In this thesis, I would like to take a closer look at the current ideological discourse surrounding the reconstruction of destroyed historic buildings in Dresden and other cities in the former DDR. What seems at first to be a simple culture war between progressive and reactionary city planners is actually, I will argue, a unique historical moment that blurs the dogmatically held ideas of rationality and nostalgia, ornament and function, and high art and kitsch. From the uncanny shadow of a church recently raised from the dead, I will explore the aesthetic and ethical ramifications of the technologically reproduced building.

The present study considers the diachronic changes that took place in Soviet political discourse as reflected in six selections of Pravda editorials from the 1920s through the 1950s, as well as slogans and headlines in that newspaper from 1917 through 1933. The principal goal of analyses conducted on various levels is to identify and investigate a number of tendencies demonstrating the gradual transformation of the language of revolution into totalitarian language. A quantitative analysis of the vocabulary of slogans and headlines in Chapter 2 focuses on chronological changes in words and addresses the contexts in which they were used. The same material is used in a review of the polarization of vocabulary in positive and negative contexts. Chapters 3-6 are devoted to a qualitative analysis of editorial texts on three levels: lexical rhetorical means (Chapter 3), semantically charged elements of argumentation (Chapter 4), and the overall composition of the text (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 concludes the study with an illustration of the devices considered in Chapters 3-5 based on two editorials, one each from the revolutionary and totalitarian periods. The analysis identifies a number of stable elements present throughout the period under study, such as the self – other opposition and references to the classics of Marxism-Leninism. At the same time, noted on all levels are changes illustrating the process by which the language of revolution was gradually transformed into totalitarian language. These include the disappearance from rhetoric of emotionality, imagery, and elements of logic, as well as stylistic leveling and an increase in the frequent repetition of the same conclusions and clichés.