Tom 68 (2017): Zeszyt 3 (December 2017)

Citation in research articles is an important gateway to acceptance by academic community. When citing others, scholars follow the conventions of the genre, of the academic discipline, and of their culture. This paper focuses on the cultural aspects of citation by comparing and contrasting a corpus of linguistic papers written in English and in Slovak. The results show that while English native writers prefer making their papers more objective through a higher incidence of generalisations and reporting verbs denoting the process of research, Slovak native writers opt for making the cited authors more visible by a greater amount of integral citations and reporting verbs denoting mental states and processes. A higher number of quotations, including floating quotations, suggests that Slovak scholars have a high regard for the work of others.

This paper outlines theoretical and methodological starting points as well as the research methodology of biblical phraseology. Our aim was to identify principal tendencies in the awareness/consciousness of the users of two closely related cultural and linguistic communities (Slovaks and Czechs) from both the intralinguistic point of view (in the context of the young – middle – senior generations, marking intergenerational similarities and differences, as well as outline the generational continuum), and the point of view of mutual interlinguistic comparison with respect to the discussed sample of specific phraseological units. Attention has been paid to the cultural/phraseological competency of the respondents’ groups in the two successive papers entitled “Biblical Phraseology in Intra/Interlinguistic Slovak and Czech Context I” (presentation of the results related to the ability to identify the source text), “Biblical Phraseology in the Intra/Interlinguistic Slovak and Czech Context II” (presentation of the level of phraseological competency – the knowledge and usage of the expressions in question).

This paper presents the results of the conducted sociolinguistic research of the knowledge of biblical phraseology in the Slovak-Czech context. On the sample of 80 phrasemes of the biblical origin (their equivalents in Slovak and Czech languages) we reflect on the level of their knowledge and communicative usage by the representatives of the contemporary generationally diversified (seniors – middle generation – young generation) users of Slovak and Czech languages. The comparative Slovak-Czech dimension enables to register the convergent as well as divergent reactions of the users of two culturally and linguistically closely related communities which come to the forefront in both the intragenerational and crossgenerational aspect. In the last part of the paper, the results of the respondents’ phraseological competency in the field of biblical phraseology (knowledge and usage) are confronted with the results of the respondents’ cultural competency exemplified (based on their background knowledge and broader cultural understanding) by their ability to identify the biblical origins of the discussed phrasemes.

The review makes an initial remark on how there is to be desired in the field of analysis into European phraseologies, where the Czech phraseology, represented, e. g. by František Čermák and his colleagues behind the reviewed Dictionary in five volumes is one of the few exception to this lack of research. The review starts with sketching out historical background, as well as material and conceptual basis of the Dictionary, then goes on to describe and comment on various aspects therein, its print form, font size, general characteristics of volumes, characteristics of entries, etc., and it also points out some minor issues that can be object for discussion. The review is very detailed and favourable, with a substantial amount of information in footnotes.

The review starts by stating that modern communication technologies do, without doubt, influence several domains of human behaviour, including the domain of language. The reviewed title focus on peculiarities with one of these new ways of communication, namely, communication on two prominent social networks. The review gives an overview over structure in the book, and comments on its scope. The core of the books’ research is located in the second part of the monograph, where changes in ortography and some other features, such as use of emoticons, are observed in excerpts from Facebook and Twitter corpora, counting 18 000 tokens both. The review concludes that typology of ortographical differences, proposed by the book, is accurate and reflects the real situation.

The review states that there has been a higher demand practical corpus knowledge and skills in the recent time, where learning to use query tools requires a greater awareness of the interconnection of lexis and grammar. The revue values then the new textbook, workbook and glossary by James Thomas, who focuses on the domain of language teaching and on the work with Sketch Engine, a set of software tools, offering a wide range of services with regard to analysis into concordances, frequency statistics, co-occurrence patterns, contrasts ets. The reviewed books are aimed at teachers and students of English, linguists and translators. The review describes the books as witty, highly-readable narrative written by an enthusiast with vast experience in ELT, whose line of argumentation is very compelling and engaging.

The monograph contains ten studies within the fields of linguistics and translatology in times, where researches in both domains reflects upon the very epistemological foundations of the their fields, as well as on their development and relationships with other fields, such as digital technologies, cognitive sciences, neurolinguistics. The review starts with a short historical overview of these tendencies and then describes issues in the respective papers. Reviewers’ general impression is favourable.