... the considerable variation in the terminology used, eg 'attitude' (Halliday 1... more ... the considerable variation in the terminology used, eg 'attitude' (Halliday 1985), 'stance' (Biber et ... 1999, Hyland 2005), 'appraisal' (Martin 2000), 'metadiscourse' (Hyland 1998), all approaches to the ... audience, are seen as contributing to the study of different aspects of evaluation ...
This paper addresses the issue of authorial presence in contemporary academic discourse. It consi... more This paper addresses the issue of authorial presence in contemporary academic discourse. It considers factors influencing authorial presence choices and compares the traditional assumptions to the current practice in writing academic articles. The paper also reports the results of a cross-cultural investigation into the ways Anglo-American linguists and Czech linguists approach writer-reader interaction and manifest their authorial voice.
In the last two decades academic discourse has come to be seen as a purposeful interaction betwee... more In the last two decades academic discourse has come to be seen as a purposeful interaction between writers and readers in which the writers try to construct a credible representation of themselves and their research and to align themselves with the discourse community by evaluating their own work and views and the work and views of others. The study of stance in academic writing has concentrated primarily on showing differences in the preferences of academic communities by discipline. This paper seeks to examine differences in the expression of stance in academic English in the writing habits of novice Czech writers and expert native writers on the basis of an analysis of the use of certain hedges and boosters in published research articles and unpublished undergraduate and graduate dissertations.
The article is an outccome of the research of the author within the project 405/08/0866 Coherence... more The article is an outccome of the research of the author within the project 405/08/0866 Coherence and Cohesion in English discourse, supported by the Czech Science Foundation. Coherence, regarded as a context-based interpretative property of discourse, is a complex phenomenon encompassing conceptual connectedness, evaluative and dialogical consistency and textual relatedness. This paper focuses on topical coherence, whichis typically associated with thematic, action frame, spatio-temporal and participant continuity. The investigation is carried out on a corpus of opening addresses delivered in the UNESCO context, and explores how politicians try to impose on the audience an interpretative perception of the semantic unity and purposefulness of their discourse which reflects their context-dependent communicative intentions. The analysis relates topical coherence to the rhetorical structure of addresses and argues that topic continuity based on the hierarchy of discourse topics, the pattern of thematic progression, and temporal, spatial and referential continuity, is closely interwoven with coherence on the interpersonal planes of discourse.
Discourse Interpretation: Approaches and Applications provides new insights into the complex area... more Discourse Interpretation: Approaches and Applications provides new insights into the complex area of discourse interpretation in a wide range of discourse types and genres. The authors adopt a variety of approaches to the representation and interpretation of meaning in discourse to share the understanding that discourse interpretation is a dynamic construct constantly open to reinterpretation in the light of the intentions and purposes of in particular social, historical and situational contexts. The chapters of the book comprise essays by linguists working in the fields of (critical) discourse analysis, pragmatics, stylistics and sociolinguistics which address methodological issues in discourse interpretation (Part I) and explore various aspects of representation and interpretation of meaning in different genres of spoken and written discourse, namely conversational, academic, media, political and fictional discourse (Part II). This volume, which combines theoretical insights with empirical investigations, contributes to a better understanding of the interpretative process and will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, scholars and students of English.
This paper explores cohesive relations in colony texts and considers their contribution to the pe... more This paper explores cohesive relations in colony texts and considers their contribution to the perception of coherence in a text-type the component parts of which do not derive their meaning from the sequence in which they are placed. The material under investigation are text of UNESCO resolutions.
This investigation explores coherence in political speeches focusing on the construction of ident... more This investigation explores coherence in political speeches focusing on the construction of identities, related social roles and interpersonal and institutional relations. The author argues that consistent self-representation (together with other-presentation) based on referential strategies, such as the use of personal pronouns with anaphoric and deictic interpretation and nominal categorization, contributes to the perception of coherence on all planes of discourse.
The paper presents the experience of the Department of English Language and Literature at Faculty... more The paper presents the experience of the Department of English Language and Literature at Faculty of Education, Masaryk University in Brno in introducing interactive modules within LMS Moodle e-learning courses to support traditional contact teaching of linguistics to students both in pre-service and in-service teacher education. The results of the study suggest that the integration of e-learning support within linguistics-oriented courses has proved to be beneficial as it improves the effectiveness and the quality of teaching and learning and prepares students for using the World Wide Web and educational communication technologies in their future teaching careers.
The present research undertaken from a sociolinguistic perspective investigates the situational c... more The present research undertaken from a sociolinguistic perspective investigates the situational characteristics of the discourse of international governmental organizations. The aim of the study is to identify the values of the situational variables which predetermine the set of linguistic options available in the process of text production and serve as basis for the exploration of the manner in which the context functionally affects the structure of the text and the choice of language means for expressing the intended content of the message. Thus, the study of the situational context of the legal instruments of international governmental organizations tries to contribute to register and genre analysis studies of Legal English by taking into account the intercultural context of communication in the field of diplomacy.
This contribution investigates the strategic use of forms of address and self and other referenci... more This contribution investigates the strategic use of forms of address and self and other referencing in political speeches in international institutional context. The analysis undertaken from a pragmatics point of view is performed on a sample of ten speeches of the Director General of UNESCO. The paper tries to relate the choice of nominal forms of address and personal pronouns for self and other referencing to politeness strategies and discourse strategies aiming at structuring the audience, modulating power relations in institutional context and achieving existential coherence.
... the considerable variation in the terminology used, eg 'attitude' (Halliday 1... more ... the considerable variation in the terminology used, eg 'attitude' (Halliday 1985), 'stance' (Biber et ... 1999, Hyland 2005), 'appraisal' (Martin 2000), 'metadiscourse' (Hyland 1998), all approaches to the ... audience, are seen as contributing to the study of different aspects of evaluation ...
This paper addresses the issue of authorial presence in contemporary academic discourse. It consi... more This paper addresses the issue of authorial presence in contemporary academic discourse. It considers factors influencing authorial presence choices and compares the traditional assumptions to the current practice in writing academic articles. The paper also reports the results of a cross-cultural investigation into the ways Anglo-American linguists and Czech linguists approach writer-reader interaction and manifest their authorial voice.
In the last two decades academic discourse has come to be seen as a purposeful interaction betwee... more In the last two decades academic discourse has come to be seen as a purposeful interaction between writers and readers in which the writers try to construct a credible representation of themselves and their research and to align themselves with the discourse community by evaluating their own work and views and the work and views of others. The study of stance in academic writing has concentrated primarily on showing differences in the preferences of academic communities by discipline. This paper seeks to examine differences in the expression of stance in academic English in the writing habits of novice Czech writers and expert native writers on the basis of an analysis of the use of certain hedges and boosters in published research articles and unpublished undergraduate and graduate dissertations.
The article is an outccome of the research of the author within the project 405/08/0866 Coherence... more The article is an outccome of the research of the author within the project 405/08/0866 Coherence and Cohesion in English discourse, supported by the Czech Science Foundation. Coherence, regarded as a context-based interpretative property of discourse, is a complex phenomenon encompassing conceptual connectedness, evaluative and dialogical consistency and textual relatedness. This paper focuses on topical coherence, whichis typically associated with thematic, action frame, spatio-temporal and participant continuity. The investigation is carried out on a corpus of opening addresses delivered in the UNESCO context, and explores how politicians try to impose on the audience an interpretative perception of the semantic unity and purposefulness of their discourse which reflects their context-dependent communicative intentions. The analysis relates topical coherence to the rhetorical structure of addresses and argues that topic continuity based on the hierarchy of discourse topics, the pattern of thematic progression, and temporal, spatial and referential continuity, is closely interwoven with coherence on the interpersonal planes of discourse.
Discourse Interpretation: Approaches and Applications provides new insights into the complex area... more Discourse Interpretation: Approaches and Applications provides new insights into the complex area of discourse interpretation in a wide range of discourse types and genres. The authors adopt a variety of approaches to the representation and interpretation of meaning in discourse to share the understanding that discourse interpretation is a dynamic construct constantly open to reinterpretation in the light of the intentions and purposes of in particular social, historical and situational contexts. The chapters of the book comprise essays by linguists working in the fields of (critical) discourse analysis, pragmatics, stylistics and sociolinguistics which address methodological issues in discourse interpretation (Part I) and explore various aspects of representation and interpretation of meaning in different genres of spoken and written discourse, namely conversational, academic, media, political and fictional discourse (Part II). This volume, which combines theoretical insights with empirical investigations, contributes to a better understanding of the interpretative process and will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, scholars and students of English.
This paper explores cohesive relations in colony texts and considers their contribution to the pe... more This paper explores cohesive relations in colony texts and considers their contribution to the perception of coherence in a text-type the component parts of which do not derive their meaning from the sequence in which they are placed. The material under investigation are text of UNESCO resolutions.
This investigation explores coherence in political speeches focusing on the construction of ident... more This investigation explores coherence in political speeches focusing on the construction of identities, related social roles and interpersonal and institutional relations. The author argues that consistent self-representation (together with other-presentation) based on referential strategies, such as the use of personal pronouns with anaphoric and deictic interpretation and nominal categorization, contributes to the perception of coherence on all planes of discourse.
The paper presents the experience of the Department of English Language and Literature at Faculty... more The paper presents the experience of the Department of English Language and Literature at Faculty of Education, Masaryk University in Brno in introducing interactive modules within LMS Moodle e-learning courses to support traditional contact teaching of linguistics to students both in pre-service and in-service teacher education. The results of the study suggest that the integration of e-learning support within linguistics-oriented courses has proved to be beneficial as it improves the effectiveness and the quality of teaching and learning and prepares students for using the World Wide Web and educational communication technologies in their future teaching careers.
The present research undertaken from a sociolinguistic perspective investigates the situational c... more The present research undertaken from a sociolinguistic perspective investigates the situational characteristics of the discourse of international governmental organizations. The aim of the study is to identify the values of the situational variables which predetermine the set of linguistic options available in the process of text production and serve as basis for the exploration of the manner in which the context functionally affects the structure of the text and the choice of language means for expressing the intended content of the message. Thus, the study of the situational context of the legal instruments of international governmental organizations tries to contribute to register and genre analysis studies of Legal English by taking into account the intercultural context of communication in the field of diplomacy.
This contribution investigates the strategic use of forms of address and self and other referenci... more This contribution investigates the strategic use of forms of address and self and other referencing in political speeches in international institutional context. The analysis undertaken from a pragmatics point of view is performed on a sample of ten speeches of the Director General of UNESCO. The paper tries to relate the choice of nominal forms of address and personal pronouns for self and other referencing to politeness strategies and discourse strategies aiming at structuring the audience, modulating power relations in institutional context and achieving existential coherence.
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