Table of Contents
4-27
Andrea Jašíčková, Martina Benešová, Dan Faltýnek: An Application of the Menzerath-Altmann Law to a Sample Produced by an Aphasic Patient
Abstract
The aim of this experiment is to perform a segmentation of a sample text produced by speakers with a speech disorder (aphasia) and observe, in the future, how this text differs from texts produced by speakers without a speech deficit as concerns the manifestation of the Menzerath-
Altmann law (MAL). This analysis should outline whether it it possible to make use of methods of quantitative analysis for diagnosis of early stages of the disease which eventually causes the speech deficit.
Keywords
aphasia, language level, Menzerath-Altmann law, segmentation, units of segmentation
28-45
Kateřina Propkopová: The Propaganda Dilemma The Concept of Propaganda in Radio Free Europe Broadcasting
Abstract
The theme of propaganda occupies an important place in the broadcasting and other activities of Radio Free Europe. It has been discussed, analysed, defined, struggled with, despised and scorned. Even the very word propaganda was treated in the same manner. Radio Free Europe was itself involved in systematic persuasive communication. The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of propaganda in the activities of the Czechoslovak desk of Radio Free Europe within the context of the emerging Cold War (the early 1950s). In order to address this question, I am going to discuss the uses and evaluation of the word “propaganda” in RFE broadcasting in comparison with its own activities. In order to obtain a broader point of view, the paper will compare the RFE definition of propaganda with the scholarly discourse dealing with this phenomenon of mass communication.
Keywords
Radio Free Europe, propaganda, persuasion, rhetoric, Ferdinand Peroutka
46-61
Marcela Janatová: News Reporting as a Fairy Tale or On Reconceptualizing the Investigation of Media Content
Abstract
The text that follows does not aim at providing a detailed history of the way in which media content is and has been investigated, nor does it attempt to thoroughly explain the analytical instruments used in order to do so. The goal is to instead analogously point out new possibilities in studying media content, specifically those of news reporting. The author provides a simple analysis of a brief TV news item in order to demonstrate the manner in which Propp’s method of fairy tale analysis can be applied to the news format as seen in the media. Such an application opens up new horizons for conceptualization of news reporting and its investigation through the lens originally developed for the field of narratology.
Keywords
epistemology of media, news reporting, morphology of the folktale, Vladimir Propp
62-67
Dan Faltýnek: There is no flag raised above Prague Castle
Abstract
In this paper I discuss certain semiosis processes conditions: intentionality, the presence of a semiosis subject, the comprehensive code, the two sets of the code and their arbitrary matching, etc. I formulate the difference between the semiotic and the physical.
Keywords
semiotics, grammar theory, zero sign, arbitrariness, intentionality
Book Review
68-73
Vanda Černohorská: Gender, Sexuality, and Meaning: Linguistic Practice and Politics. Sally McConnell-Ginet. New York – Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011.