Nina Cingerová - Irina Dulebová: Formovanie mediálnej lingvistiky ako vednej disciplíny
The Formation of Media Linguistics as a Scientific Discipline. This article introduces media linguistics as an emerging interdisciplinary discipline. It discusses the stimuli and linguistic research focuses that have directly influenced its emergence and development, placing the media linguistics in a general linguistic context.
Keywords: media linguistics, functionalist stylistics, text linguistics, media discourse.
Michaela Fikejzová: Dezolát: Případová studie vzniku nové nadávky
Desolate: A Case Study of the Emergence of a New Slur. The term "desolate" began to appear prominently in Czech media discourse in connection with the anti-government demonstrations. Currently, there is no established, academically guaranteed definition and delimitation of this term, nor is there a consensus on whether it is a slur or not. The present study maps three streams of contemporary media discourse explicitly thematizing the status of the desolate as a slur. Using Robin Jeshion's semantic approach, it is evaluated which constitutive conditions of the definition of slurs are fulfilled by the term "desolate" from the perspective of the analyzed texts.
Keywords: desolate, slurs, politically significant terms, media discourse, philosophy of language, semantics.
Ľubomír Guzi: Jazyk a politická komunikácia na styku kultúr v období zlomových udalostí
Language and Political Communication at the Edge of Cultures in the Period of Turning Events. In our contribution, we dealt with the issue of political communication in the conditions of turning historical events, when negotiators not only from different “classes”, but also from the resulting different cultural conditions, met at the highest diplomatic levels. The material for the analysis was provided by the events connected with the negotiations leading to the signing of peace between revolutionary Bolshevik Russia and the Central Powers in Brest-Litovsk. We describe the historical conditions leading to the negotiations, its main actors, and problems related to their political and intercultural communication. They were conditioned both by the statesmanship and diplomatic intentions of individual actors and by the irreconcilable positions of the fighting but gradually collapsing monarchies and their revolutionary counterparts.
Keywords: intercultural communication, diplomacy, history of WWI, history of Russia and Europe, negotiations.
Robert Ištok – Klaudia Bednárová-Gibová: Uncontrolled Territories as a Phenomenon of a Global Political and Spatial Structure: Insights from Geopolitics and Terminology
This paper addresses the issue of uncontrolled territories, which represent a specific phenomenon of contemporary global political and spatial structure. Its analysis is a relatively new avenue of research in political science and political geography. The term uncontrolled territories overlaps in meaning with several terms that have been used in such oriented research and presented in the works of individual authors. The methods of synthesis, inductive analysis and abduction have been employed in order to provide pertinent insights from geopolitics and terminology. The results of the offered conceptual analysis serve to enhance a complex picture of the existence of dysfunctional states.
Keywords: uncontrolled territories, territory control, dysfunctional states, de facto states.
Jana Javorčíková – Richard Gramanich Stromajer: Semiotic Analysis of Public Political Space: Euphemisms, Dysphemisms and Hyperboles as Tools of Political Manipulation
The study presented shares the results of semiotic analysis of political slogans used in the political campaigns of Donald Trump (in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections; especially his MAGA – Let´s Make America Great Again” slogan), and political slogans used in five billboards by the ĽSNS part (Folk Party Our Slovakia) and its representative Marian Kotleba. The authors focus on the semiotic analysis of specific use of modifiers (euphemisms, dysphemisms and hyperboles) in the context of their extra-linguistic means (such as visual signs), by which politicians put forward both the direct and implicit meanings of their utterances. The research by Cingerová, Dulebová and Štefančík (2021) served as a theoretical framework for the basis of analysis. As a result, the authors arrived at an identification of well-known methods of political manipulation by the use of figurative language, applied to ongoing campaigns, as well as at a definition of a new function of dysphemisms, i.e., de-sensitising the public towards strong language and controversial statements.
Keywords: critical discourse analysis (CDA), euphemism, dysphemism, understatement, overstatement, political discourse, manipulation.
Jana Javorčíková – Jakub Kundra: Kritické myslenie a jazyk politiky
Critical Thinking and the Language of Politics. The study presents the results of theoretical research. It analyses the principles of critical thinking as proposed by George Orwell in his essays Politics and Language (1946), in the context of contemporary theories of critical thinking, especially those of Richard Paul and Linda Elder. We conclude that various attempts at manipulation can be identified in political language. Our thinking assumes that it is to the language of politics that the criteria of critical thinking need to be applied.
Keywords: critical discourse analysis (CDA), political discourse, manipulation, political philosophy, language, politics.
Ivana Kapráliková: Understanding Corruption Through Political Rhetoric
Corruption cases involving politicians stand out because the accused politicians have more power to deny or tackle such accusations. The article aims to disclose to what extent the corruption scandals can be politicized and what are the real consequences of them in connection with the political culture of the country. By descriptive qualitative analysis of the political discourse in the context of corruption scandals of selected contemporary Czech and Slovak politicians, we also aim to answer how power relations can take a role in corruption discourse. In order to make our analysis more transparent quantitative term frequency analysis is conducted over the samples of reactions of the prominent politicians to the corruption accusations.
Keywords: corruption, political discourse, political victimhood, political marketing.
Jana Kucharová: Výučba odborných predmetov v nemeckom jazyku na Fakulte medzinárodných vzťahov na EU v Bratislave
Teaching Professional Subjects in the German Language at the Faculty of International Relations at the University of Economics in Bratislava. The paper offers a brief insight into the issue of teaching professional subjects in the German language at the Faculty of International Relations of the University of Economics in Bratislava, as part of the preparation of future graduates for employment in an international cultural and linguistic environment. It aims to explain the content of the concept of teaching professional subjects in the German language and to present the content and goals of these subjects, which are closely related to the potential possibility of applying for students of the faculty in the field of politics, diplomacy, or international relations. The paper also emphasizes that a foreign (German) language itself does not have to be the goal of teaching, but a means to acquire professional knowledge and skills, and shape the attitudes of learners.
Keywords: Teaching Professional Subjects, German Language, Studies, Culture and Communication, Negotiations in German, Intercultural Competence.
Ingrid Kunovská: Eliminácia vzniku komunikačných bariér ako jeden zo základných cieľov odbornej prípravy diplomatov
Eliminating the Emergence of Communication Barriers as one of the Basic Goals of Training Diplomats. The communication skills of a diplomat are the result of his long-term training, which includes several very important aspects. This is a cultural, linguistic, sociolinguistic aspect, and, last but not least, a personal and professional aspect. A diplomat must have competencies that he constantly expands with experience in the field of international relations. The presented contribution aims to point out the importance of language, its connection with culture, intercultural competence, and media competence in the context of the professional training of future diplomats in an academic environment, the high level of which is a prerequisite for preventing the emergence of communication barriers in the diplomatic environment.
Keywords: diplomacy, language, communication barriers, culture, intercultural competence, media competence.
Attila Mészáros: The 2015 Refugee Movements in Slovak Press Discourse. A Topos Analysis
In the article, the discourse on the 2015 refugee movements in Europe is thematized using examples from Slovak press communication. In the context of the argumentative level the question is posed as to what concepts it is that guide and steer thinking about the refugees of a linguistic collective. In this paper, a theoretical framework of argumentation and topos analysis is elaborated, and the complex topical pattern of pro and contra discourse is created.
Keywords: refugee discourse, topoi, argumentation, corpus, discourse analysis.
Lenka Môcová – Silvia Poľaková: Slovakia's Image in British Dailies: Exploring the Depiction of Violence between 2010 and 2014
The paper presents findings from a research study that delves into how British dailies portrayed Slovakia in 2010 – 2014. The image of a country is to a large extent not easily influenced and relatively static, so we can consider the results from this period as relevant. Our focus was on examining the depiction of the central theme of violence within various contexts, spanning from the Velvet Divorce to incidents involving Slovak citizens in Great Britain. Our objective was to investigate whether Slovakia's image correlates with the broader depiction of Central and Eastern Europe, as proposed by N. Kaneva (2012) and R. Saunders (2012).
Keywords: image of Slovakia, violence, British dailies, content analysis.
Žaneta Pavlíková – Linda Krajčovičová: Slogans in the Election Campaign in the Early Parliamentary Elections in Slovakia in 2023
Slovakia hold early parliamentary elections in September 2023. For any researcher, elections are an important time to research the language of politics. The electoral campaign before the elections to the National Council of the Slovak Republic also offered space for research on political language. The paper’s main aim is to present several specific pre-election slogans as unique forms of political language and to characterise their language use objectively. The authors provide a brief overview of political discourse as a representation of ideologies and power struggles. They also deal with the description and characteristics of the election campaign and the language used in these campaigns.
Keywords: political discourse, election campaigns, the language of election campaigns, slogans.
Katarína Seresová: Vulgarizmy v politickom jazyku
Vulgarisms in Political Language. This article examines the issue of vulgarisms in political language and attempts to discern their role, meaning and influence. It looks at the reasons why politicians resort to this style of communication. It also addresses the questions of whether vulgar language influences public opinion and political decisions and what ethical implications this use entails. Finally, it illustrates the issue of vulgarisms in political language with an illustrative example of their use by Slovak politicians.
Keywords: political language, vulgarisms, ethical issues, changing norms in public communication.
Terézia Seresová: Jazyk ako kľúčový faktor integrácie a integračných politík
Language as a Key Factor of Integration and Integration Policies. The paper deals with the issue of the integration of migrants, specifically the acquisition of the language of the native society. In the first part, the paper approaches language acquisition as a key integration factor. In the second part, the paper clarifies the position of language in the integration of migrants with the help of the analysis of the document Integration Policy of the Slovak Republic. The paper aims to identify the issue of language in the integration of migrants in Slovakia. The article concludes that the debate on integration policy is absent in the political discourse in Slovakia; on the contrary, migration is securitized, i.e. presented as a threat.
Keywords: integration, language, integration policy, public policy, migrants, Slovakia.
Josef Smolík: Kubánská politická propaganda: vybraná témata a trendy
Cuban Political Propaganda: Selected Themes and Trends. This text will focus on the phenomenon of Cuban political propaganda, with attention given to selected themes and trends. The article will present propaganda in the context of the Cuban political regime, focusing on both traditional and new elements of propaganda. The text will also explore the relationship between Cuban propaganda and propaganda/counterpropaganda from the United States of America. Attention will also be directed toward Cuban political propaganda on social media platforms. The text will address only the basic aspects of Cuban propaganda that can be identified without extensive and long-term research. The text will also include a photographic appendix illustrating Cuban political propaganda.
Keywords: Cuba, propaganda, political language, media, slogans.
Eva Stradiotová: Nová tvár Republiky? Krajná pravica v parlamentných voľbách 2023
A New Profile of the Republic Party? The Far Right in the 2023 Parliamentary Elections. The aim of this paper is to explain how the leaders of a political party called Republic have lost authenticity by shifting their communication from radical to moderate. The leaders of this political party did not change the content during the election campaign. They presented themselves as critical of the European Union, made negative statements about certain groups, and presented their position on migrants and migration policy in an extremely harsh manner. However, they did not present their views in the same language they had used in previous periods of their political career. In my paper, I will thus focus primarily on analyzing those statements in which it is possible to identify a shift in the use of particular linguistic devices. I suggest that this turn in their communication may be why their voters switched to other political parties, which resulted in the fact that the Republic did not make it to the parliament in the end, despite positive forecasts.
Keywords: Slovakia, far right, elections, election campaign, communication, Republic.
Radoslav Štefančík: Sekuritizácia medzinárodnej migrácie pred parlamentnými voľbami 2023
Securitization of International Migration in the 2023 Election Campaign. The aim of this paper is to find out how Slovak politicians reacted to the topic of international migration before the 2023 parliamentary elections. Just a few weeks before the elections, migration became extremely topical as migrants started to arrive in Slovakia via the southern Slovak-Hungarian border. This paper thus presents the results of a discourse analysis on international migration during the 2023 election campaign. The paper assumes that, similarly to 2015-2016, Slovak politicians articulated a predominantly negative attitude towards migrants this time as well. The analysis results show that politicians conceived migration as a security risk. Politicians chose such means of expression that evoked a sense of threat and fear. When analysing the migration discourse prior to the 2023 elections, it was characteristic that there was a complete absence of reflection on the possible integration of those migrants who would decide to stay in Slovakia. As the article shows, the new government has securitised migration even after the elections.
Keywords: Slovakia securitization, election campaign, communication, discourse.