Volume 71 (2020): Edition 2 (December 2020)

The author of the study develops the ideas of J. Horecký, which relate to the language sign, the language system, language consciousness and its cultivation. Interpretations of J. Horecký’s statements on the systemic and communicative language sign lead to the conclusion that there is really only a communication sign as an ambivalent significant for users of the language who control the rules of its use. Significant are articulation‐acoustic units, which we feel as fictitious equivalents of what we experience when we are in the intentional state. J. Horecký’s reflections on the language system led the author to confront the user of the language as an actor of language practice with the user realizing himself as a reflexive linguistic being. In this confrontation, the language system came into focus in a practical and reflexive modality. On the background of these modalities of the language system, the author approaches linguistic consciousness in the interpretation of J. Horecký, in order to shed light on it in terms of two questions: (1) What is the degree of linguistic awareness of the mother tongue? (2) What is the “true” cultivation of language consciousness? These questions led the author to confront the linguistic realist with the anti‐realist and to discover a situation in which the linguist believes in realism but holds the position of anti‐realist. The author leans towards the realists and emphasizes the thesis that the representation of the language system is true when it corresponds to the language system resulting from the nature of language.

The paper deals with applications of the concept of double articulation in studies of linguistic and non‐linguistic phenomena. It traces extensions, shifts and corrections effected by the transition from linguistics to semiotics. Particular attention is payed to possibilities and problems that have arisen in theoretical reflections of paintings and music. An example of such analyses is Lévi‐Strauss’ study of artworks.

The aim of the paper is to elaborate on the metaphysical distinction between ideal signs and physical signs in terms of the method of abstraction. Ideal signs are derived from physical signs by eliminating certain kinds of properties as theoretically superfluous. Ideal signs are claimed to be instructions that prescribe how physical signs are to be produced in their graphic form, acoustic form or any other suitable form. It is examined which level of abstraction is permitted in the case of ideal signs, i.e., which properties can be eliminated while admitting that the resulting abstract object can be still considered a sign. It is argued that one cannot eliminate the properties that are connected with the syntactic and semantic aspects of signs.

The article reflects the linguistic work of Ján Horecký in connection with hyper syntax and text linguistics. In his work Základy jazykovedy (Outline of linguistics) Ján Horecký remarks (1974, p. 90) that one of the principles of text construction is the literal repetition of certain words. We discuss this Horecký’s assumption and describe its consequences for the langue parole opposition and the concepts of textual isotopy and textual cohesion. The main task of the article is to examine Horeský’s assumption. For these purposes, we present an authorship attribution analysis of literary works by two Slovak authors: Svetozár Hurban Vajanský and Martin Kukučín. We focus on low‐frequency lexicon, i.e. hapax legomena, which are supposed to be independent of the authorial style (e.g. Binongo, 2003) and should reflect random circumstances of communication (de Saussure, 1996, p. 50; Bloomfield, 1933, p. 170). This means that if the structure of the text were to be affected by the repetition of certain words, the low frequency layer of the lexicon should contain evidence of this repetition with a low degree of dependence on the content and style of the literary work (Baayen, 1996). The analysis and its presentation is based on separate processing of hapax legomena and their n‐grams, cosine dissimilarity and multidimensional scaling (Torgerson, 1952). Contrary to the general notion of the text structure, we conclude that the authorial texts are based on the repetition of certain word forms and word forms combinations (by n‐gram analysis), even in the level of low‐frequency words.

The paper starts by briefly describing the so‐called truth‐functional approach to sentential operators, typical to logic, as opposed to the more multi‐faceted approach of linguistics. The latter reflects the more complex, substantial relations between the contents of utterances, emphasizing the logico‐semantical relations and functions of sentential operators. However, as an alternative to the pragmatically inclined critique of the truth‐functional approach, the paper proposes two possible directions of explaining the specific content of sentential operators by virtue of which they transcend the role of mere truth functions. Firstly, the paper summarizes our previous investigations into the interactions between sentential operators and (1) the vector of the course of events described by a compound sentence, and (2) the direction of grammatical time captured by a compound sentence. The paper focuses on how this interaction is coordinated with the particular epistemic goal (prediction, explanation etc.) pursued when using the meaning of a complex sentence. Using the concepts of necessary and sufficient conditions, and by characterizing the vectors of condition (the if‐vector), time and relevance (dominance or the epistemic vector), the paper demarcates the rules of correspondence for conditional operators as cases of combinatorics, as described by some linguists. Secondly, based on a distinction between different constructions the same operators as truth‐functions, the paper provides a logico‐semantical explanation of the specific meaning of the else, unless and although connectives, traditionally discussed by linguists. We believe that the extensions proposed here move the camp defending a logico‐semantic approach to sentential operators at least somewhat closer to the camp of linguistic investigation.

In the beginning of the 1950s, using the thematic vowel as a criterion for dividing verbs into conjugation classes became the topic of a major linguistic discussion, since the historical understanding of the vowel was no longer applicable for the compilation of practical handbooks. Proposals presented in the discussion aimed to discover a functionalistic replacement for the concept of the thematic vowel. Despite this radical attitude, partakers of the discussion were not able to avoid the mixing of contemporary and historical perspectives. The discussion on the nature of this segment found itself in a cul‐de‐sac. What is the segment’s function? Does the vowel represent a part of the stem or a part of the suffix? Or is it autonomous? These dilemmas were solved in 1964 when Ján Horecký proposed new principles for morphematic division in Slovak, which upgraded the then‐existing building of – not only – morphematic models to new qualitative levels.

The paper deals with the question of levels of language problem management on the basis of the Language Management Theory as well as other approaches to language problem management. The aim is to contribute to bringing the theoretical basis of language problem management closer to the problem management theories in general. Within language problem management three levels of management are distinguished: 1. interactional level of small‐scale management of inadequacies; 2. supra‐interactional level of small‐scale management of metaproblems and 3. supra‐interactional level of large‐scale management of metaproblems. Inadequacies are individual instances of problems rising in concrete interactions and metaproblems are types of problems which can be identified suprainteractionally, by abstracting the idiosyncratic features of inadequacies. With the help of these concepts the difference between the Language Management Theory and other theories of problem management can be made more visible: Language Management Theory builds on the small‐scale management of inadequacies on interactional level, while other theories are based on the large‐scale management of metaproblems on suprainteractional level.

The development of research areas, disciplines and sub‐disciplines is hard to map; thus, researchers can often choose to what extent they want to represent it: either via the rhetoric of continuity or revolution. Using Hradec Králové (HK) as an example I demonstrate that a number of sociolinguistic findings are relevant across different research paradigms. I present an overview of the urban speech studies carried out by B. Dejmek (esp. Dejmek, 1981 and 1987) and the interactional studies arising since the 1990s. I discuss the issue of research on multilingualism and superdiversity in the city. Finally, I report on my own research on the linguistic landscape of HK and introduce and comment on the concept of the perception scale of the representation of individual languages. I sketch the development of sociolinguistic research as a fairly coherent whole, which is shaped by the linguistic reality, the shared knowledge of this reality and the researchers themselves, who reject or follow their predecessors. Hence, the presented coherent whole is not a mere expert construct – its formation can essentially be studied “turn‐by‐turn”, similarly to a conversation analyst studying individual turns in an ongoing interaction or in a dialogical network (see Nekvapil – Leudar, 2002).

The study presents an overview of reflections on the synergic application of methodological paradigms in predominantly paradigmatic structuralism after the communicative and pragmatic turn in linguistics. The reflections on methodological continuity are applied to the research of the active aspect of language rooted in the real social world. These theoretical pillars of linguistic research are seen in relation to the methodological situation in the humanities, as well as in the social sciences and are enriched with stimuli from the functioning of the so-called civil science. The foundations of researching and stimulating social inclusion are laid on the background of the mentioned theoretical frameworks, with the support of a selected professional semi-variety of the national language. The so-called easy language rooted in the professional vocabulary for the laymen, created by linguists and supported by civil science in the conditions of liberalization of the digital era society, becomes the medium for optimizing social relations between experts and non-experts.

The pragmalinguistic approach to the relationship between language and human is also reflected in the stylistic research. In this paper, we aim to clarify the sense of pragmatization in stylistics and outline the new stimuli for such a perspective. This goal assumes a brief analysis of implementations of pragmatic ideas in distinct Slovak stylistic paradigms and a presentation of a perspective for further reflections. We understand pragmatization in stylistics as a change of the interpretative model of language; a shift away from perception of language in the frame of an instrumental paradigm towards the perception of linguistic activity as social action. When clarifying the specificity of the language activity, which we call social action, we will apply H. Arendt’s ideas in her theory of action, specifically on the distinction between the terms labor, work and action. In line with the pragmalinguistic focus on a cognition of the human from the language perspective, and referring to the Arendt’s concept of the self-manifestation in speech, we find an anthropic approach to the language style and the authenticity as its most significant characteristics (especially in regard to public sphere) as viable for current stylistics.