Analysis of the Lemma Mateřství (Motherhood)

The paper presents results of analysis of the lemma mateřství ‘motherhood’. The authors applied methods of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis – the corpus assisted discourse studies approach – in order to survey representations of the lemma in Czech journalistic texts published from 2010 to 2014, sorted the results into discourse categories on the basis of collocation and concordance analysis, and found out that chief referential discourse-of-motherhood categories were surrogate motherhood, relationship of motherhood and career, delight from motherhood, family relationships, financial and time aspects of motherhood, changes brought by motherhood, and active motherhood. Surrogate motherhood was presented as a solution to women who cannot have a baby themselves, nevertheless also as a complicated issue, in which case emphasis was put on relevant legislation. Motherhood was presented as a danger for a woman’s career, however also as a source of joy, an essential relationship within a family, a right for financial support from the state, a life change, an activity, and an entity closely connected to time factors.