The expression of time in English and Czech children’s literature
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Markéta Malá
Abstract
This chapter explores the expression of the concept of time in children’s narrative fiction cross-linguistically, comparing Czech and English. Specifically, it analyses multi-word units and patterns which the respective languages employ when referring to time. The new Engrammer software was developed to facilitate the extraction of n-grams with lemmatised cores and positional mobility, making it possible to compare temporal patterns in English with those used in highly inflectional Czech with variable word-order. The results of the study suggest that in children’s fiction in both languages, time plays an important role in structuring the text, frequently creating dramatic effects. Even though the formal means of expressing time may differ between English and Czech (e.g. diminutives in Czech vs. phrasal description in English), register appears to substantially influence the way time is framed in children’s literature in both languages.
Abstract
This chapter explores the expression of the concept of time in children’s narrative fiction cross-linguistically, comparing Czech and English. Specifically, it analyses multi-word units and patterns which the respective languages employ when referring to time. The new Engrammer software was developed to facilitate the extraction of n-grams with lemmatised cores and positional mobility, making it possible to compare temporal patterns in English with those used in highly inflectional Czech with variable word-order. The results of the study suggest that in children’s fiction in both languages, time plays an important role in structuring the text, frequently creating dramatic effects. Even though the formal means of expressing time may differ between English and Czech (e.g. diminutives in Czech vs. phrasal description in English), register appears to substantially influence the way time is framed in children’s literature in both languages.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Time in languages, languages in time 1
- Slavery and Britain in the 19th century 9
- Diachronic change in the ordering of kinship binomials 39
- Tracing processes in auxiliarization 67
- Translating verbal tenses between tensed and tenseless languages 95
- From language to language, from time to time 129
- Just a moment 155
- Then and now in English and French 181
- Time adverbials in English and Norwegian news discourse 201
- Minutes of action! A contrastive analysis of time expressions in English and Norwegian football match reports 229
- Cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic uses of tensed verb phrases in the methods sections of master’s theses 255
- The expression of time in English and Czech children’s literature 283
- Index 305
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Time in languages, languages in time 1
- Slavery and Britain in the 19th century 9
- Diachronic change in the ordering of kinship binomials 39
- Tracing processes in auxiliarization 67
- Translating verbal tenses between tensed and tenseless languages 95
- From language to language, from time to time 129
- Just a moment 155
- Then and now in English and French 181
- Time adverbials in English and Norwegian news discourse 201
- Minutes of action! A contrastive analysis of time expressions in English and Norwegian football match reports 229
- Cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic uses of tensed verb phrases in the methods sections of master’s theses 255
- The expression of time in English and Czech children’s literature 283
- Index 305
