• Linguistische Treffen in Wrocław •

This paper deals with the argument and event structure of the constructions with the verb mieć and (partially) reanalyzed participles, which are defined as the “new perfect” in contemporary Polish. These forms are mostly analyzed in terms of transitivity, aspect and others overt grammatical criteria so that the limits of their grammatical analysis seem to be reached. This paper postulated a model that is oriented on the decomposition concepts (event and argument structure, concepts of generalized semantics roles and others) and that allows to evaluate the so far elaborated limits of grammatical analysis. The conclusion will be furthermore consultated with several aspects of neurolinguistics theories, especially those of argument linking and ambiguity resolving (cf. Bornkessel-Schlesewsky/Schlesewsky).

The paper deals with hints and gives an overview of the relevant theorizing and the relevant results achieved in the research on verbal taboos and linguistic coping with taboos through hints. Taboos are related to the strategy of euphemisation as language always finds new forms of coping when dealing with taboos. The most significant taboos cover references to sexuality, violence, death, illness and some other topics.

The study examines the question of the translatability of the epistemological terminology. The study attempts to analyze cognitive factors that influence active meaning construction in the translation process. Using the methods of discourse and corpus linguistics, the authors investigate the mechanism of conceptual integration and the consequent choice of translation variants.

This paper investigates ecolinguistics and its subdisciplines Ecology of Languages and Ecological Linguistics with particular focus on the border-concept. On the one hand, the first research field exploits technical terminology and principles of natural sciences – in particular ecology – metaphorically, to provide linguistics with a new perspective for the analysis of language contact phenomena. On the other hand, Ecological Linguistics analyses contemporary environmental discourses by means of a transdisciplinary linguistic approach. In this sense, the paper illustrates how this discipline within applied linguistics investigates boundaries between language varieties and crosses traditional borders between scientific disciplines as well.

Language knows no administrative, geographic or political borders. Several influential languages are taught all over the world, but there are also languages which are used by small communities. People themselves determine the areas which are covered by languages. For multiple language users the world seems to be much smaller and much more open and accessible in comparison with those people who are able to communicate only in their native languages. Multilingualism leads to a world without borders, a world characterized by limitless communication. Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous quote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”, aptly conveys the importance of being able to communicate in an unlimited way. The limitless communication is possible, among other things, thanks to word compounds. Word compounds are a fundamental feature of the German language. What makes them particularly valuable is their ability to compress a lot of content. This paper describes the creative ways in which authors of press titles use word compounds in order to draw readers’ attention to specific press articles.

One of the main problems in the analysis of verbs is their issues in local domain. The aim of the article is to point out some verb issues as separable words. Their contact with local particles makes them a part of words and clause analysis. The particle changes the argument structure of verb. The preposition phrase can be incorporated into verb. The double particles are regarded as lose adverbs or verb particle. They are combined with prepositions and build a preposition phrase. This changes the perspective of their structures as a part of words.

The Literary Circle PODIUM Schloß Neulengbach was established as a regional group of Lower Austria, which with time transformed into the Austrian nationwide body with international ambitions. In the present study an attempt to describe this development was undertaken, based on the noticeable changes that took place in an organ of this group of the same name as the Circle – the literary journal “Podium”. In 2016 both PODIUM and “Podium” celebrated their 45th anniversary and nowadays they belong to important and recognized phenomena on the literary stage of the Republic of Austria.

Irony is used to express evaluation in an implicit manner. It is a special form of negative evaluation with various levels of intensity – from a simple negation of a given situation or a person, mockery or derision to abusive insults. In this paper, the author first discusses the essence of evaluation and presents the characteristic features, types and functions of irony. Then, he describes the evaluative potential of ironic statements in contemporary Internet discourse. He analyses German Internet comments relating to press articles focusing on the debate in Germany over running by Angela Merkel once again for the post of chancellor. The articles were published online by opinion-forming German dailies and weeklies. The analysed corpus also contains selected posts from social networking sites and Internet memes.

Electronic learning portfolios (ELP) offer a platform for learners to reflect on their foreign language progress. Such a platform assists learners in changing their perspective from focusing attention on language items that have not yet been acquired to reflecting on achievements already made in the learning of the foreign language. In a pilot program, beginning German courses employ only one component of the ELP, namely the target language biography – in form of can-do statements developed by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). An easy-to-use collaborative online space is sought to improve students’ confidence in the foreign language and assist them in becoming cognizant of their gained skills, knowledge, and structures.

The relation between pragmatics and linguistics can be interpreted in three ways: 1) pragmatics is a separate discipline closely related to linguistics; 2) pragmatics is a part of linguistics; 3) pragmatics belongs to a certain part of linguistics. These three possibilities are discussed in the article and a new interpretation is proposed: In addition to core linguistics, applied linguistics and interdisciplinary linguistics, one should distinguish communicational linguistics; pragmatics belongs to communicational linguistics along with phonetics.

According to Niklas Luhmann social systems are made of communications which recreate constantly, while they cause new connecting communications and reproduce in this way the system. They operate only within own system borders. Also the communication occurs within the system and in a system-own and only in the system comprehensible code which also the texts carry that are produced in the system. An excess of the system borders is possible to make by the communication by a „translation of the codes“ in the texts which contribute to the coupling of neighbor systems. The text also shows how text linguistics and system theory can complement productively each other.

The paper addresses the issue of individual-subjective meaning components from the point of view of cognitive linguistics. The focus lies on methodological possibilities of identification and determination of the subtle, individual-subjective meaning components, which are difficult to capture, by means of an introspective and heterophenomenological procedure. The centre of attention is the emotional component of meaning. The introspective exploration possibilities of the emotional meaning component shall be examined against the background of embodied, experience-based cognition.

The article presents some possibilities that can be used within the framework of a linguistic discourse analysis. The empirical background is formed by the German and Slovak refugee debate. The theoretical basis is the assumption that we create our knowledge of the world in discourse contexts. An objective knowledge is therefore only possible through multiple perspectives. In the battle of the different positions, discursive turning points, so called agonal centers form are formed. These are exemplified here and combined with argumentation and network analysis to form an effective toolbox.

The article describes German-Polish phrasebooks, i.e. the reference books used by Germans in everyday communication, while traveling through Poland. The main part of phrasebooks consists of exemplary sentences or short dialogue sequences. Over the time their contents were extended among other things by illustrations. Types of graphic elements in phrasebooks and their relationship with the text material were presented here. On this basis their role in the process of communication was determined. The study has a diachronic character and includes phrasebooks from the 16th century to the present day.

The present article is devoted to the development of the reference identity with an entity anchored in information structures. The focus of the investigation is on structural-syntactic, semantic and communicative-pragmatic properties of the reference level on the basis of the demonstrative determinative taki sam (‘the same’) in the Polish law texts. As a point of departure of the investigation serve texts of the Polish Civil Code and the Polish Commercial Companies Code.

For the current media linguistics, online communication in the development phase 3.0 constitutes a comprehensive area of challenges. This article discusses the current research fields of media linguistics. Following previous achievements in media linguistics as well as numerous dynamic features of Web 3.0, new research fields as challenges for media linguistics 3.0 are outlined.

The main subject of this article is the linguistic analysis of self-generated information in selected Twitter accounts. The author concentrates on both textual and multimodal elements of building one’s online image and draws his attention especially on smaller and medium media public spheres. According to the platform (forum, chat or social media) the users reveal different facets of themselves with wide repertoire of expressions. Especially Twitter, with its transparent communicative structure, is a data medium enabling users to update different relevant information very quickly (especially as far politics or social life are concerned). What is more the versatile sign structure (i.e. semiotic communication operators like @ or hashtags) constitutes a well-built reference system.

The goal of the following investigations isto reflect on the importance of academic writing in higher education and to discuss some problems associated with the using of formulaic expressions in the academic discourse. For many students studying German as a foreign language the producing of academic texts in German is a daunting task. The specifics of the academic communication often lead to many linguistic problems, e.g. in the area of the using of markers of opinions.

This paper is trying to focus on the negatively formulated word-formation-rules, that have the function to block the positive rules. The negatively formulated rules were subject of many authors, e.g. Rainer (1988, 2004) and Fleischer/Barz (2012), but this article is trying to describe these formulated by Fuhrhop (1998). The article gives both examples of several specific rules and of general rules, formulated by Fuhrhop (1998). In opinion of the author such general rules should be the base of the present-daylanguage-teaching.

The article presents selected vocabulary collected from economical newspapers from the years 1885-1886 which is defined and described with the help of old and new German economic dictionaries. The aim of the analysis is the interpretation of the vocabulary in contexts in which it is used and verifying its validity. Comparing the economical language at the end of the 19th century with that at the end of the 20th century shows its large development.

This article deals with computer games, focusing on the language gamers use in chatrooms. The introductory part briefly covers the history and popularity of computer games and then defines the phenomenon of chatroom communication. The central section of the paper analyses the lexical aspect of the gamers’ jargon, with particular attention paid to anglicisms, abbreviations, acronyms, and vulgarisms.

The empirical research instruments of corpus linguistics help to reflect the linguistic usability of the German language. The paper depicts the corpus methodology of research for linguistics on the basis of a concrete analysis of the German-Czech translation equivalents of the verb lassen with particular focus on the idioms of these constructions.

This paper aims to examine how the social status can influence the turn-taking in Latvian and German political talk shows. Two Latvian („Kas notiek Latvijā?”, „Sastrēgumstunda”) and two German („Hartaberfair”, „Maybrit Illner”) political talk shows were chosen and considered as the materials of the study. These four talk shows were transcribed and several conversation examples were selected based on the speakers with different social status. In this study three groups of speakers are marked: professional speakers, laymen and moderators. All these groups were analysed in different combinations, for example, professional speaker talking with moderator, layman talking with another layman, etc. In these examples turn-taking system was analysed not only on verbal, but also on nonverbal and prosodic level. Results show that professional speakers and laymen prefer different strategies to get the right to talk. The professional speakers prefer getting the right to talk insistently and dominating in conversation, whereas laymen try to minimize overlappings and speaking at once.

Analysis of the present practice shows that the teaching of writing texts in German as a foreign language at college and university has reached an impasse. This can bee seen for instance by the fact that students cannot write scientific texts. And they have serious problems making ends meet. Moreover, at college and university the evaluation of texts is separated from the theory of writing. The main question here is what must be done to improve their skills of writing and problem solving. This is necessary to support the study succes.