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Sulaukėme gražaus Kalbos kultūros jubiliejaus, 2011 metais suėjo leidinio penkiasdešimtmetis. Tokiomis progomis įprasta apžvelgti sukaktuvinį laikotarpį, aptarti nuveiktus darbus, apmąstyti jų reikšmę ir prasmę. Čia tokios apžvalgos nebus, jų prirašyta minint mažesnius Kalbos kultūros jubiliejus. Bent trumpai prisiminkime ten išsakytas svarbiausias mintis.
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The paper sets out to examine shortenings in written language, which seems to be gaining importance but so far has hardly been researched. The notion is problematic; it tends to compete and overlap with similar terms, such as abbreviations, alphabetical shortenings, alphabetisms of titles and names, acronyms etc. In the present paper preference is given to shortenings, a largely acknowledged term by Lithuanian linguists. The notion includes three varieties: alphabetical shortenings, syllabic shortenings and mixed shortenings. The choice has been determined by the current usage patterns of shortenings, more precisely, by the tendencies identified in the language of economics.The paper aims at identifying the structure and syntactic patterns of shortenings used in economic reviews published by the National Bank of the Republic of Lithuania. When analysing a large variety of shortenings in present-day Lithuanian and variation in their usage in sentences and longer texts, a number of specific cases have been identified. They are not included in publications dealing with the language norm and should be discussed in reference to the norm. From this point of view, a number of shortenings which seem to be spreading in actual usage have not been given sufficient evaluation yet. They include numbers, words or even symbols; from the structural point of view, they should make a separate category of shortenings. The analysis of alphabetical or syllabic shortenings, the usage of which is mainly regulated by the language norm, has revealed that the issue has become rather problematic due to a rapid spread of nonLithuanian shortenings. The so-called international shortenings, which are fairly difficult to categorise either as purely alphabetical or syllabic shortenings, reopen the discussion of the notions of alphabetical or syllabic shortenings and their boundaries. The above international shortenings also reveal important differences in their functioning in the text. A syntactic approach helps identify two varieties of shortenings: those which tend to be used with other words which grammatically agree with the shortening and those which require explanatory words. The latter type seems to be much closer to symbolic names than to alphabetical shortenings, which are introduced into the text for the purposes of language economy. The paper also discusses a possibility to introduce grammatical markers, which help discriminate between the two varieties of shortenings.
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The paper analyses a type of subordinate clauses with the conjunction kai, which are not characteristic of Lithuanian. Currently, they tend to appear in texts translated from English (cf. He watched through the window as the sleek little aircraft lifted smoothly off the runway and took to the wide blue-and-white sky above Honolulu).Word order in English, due to its analytical character, is much more fixed than in Lithuanian, which is a synthetic language. Therefore, the word order in an English sentence has limited possibilities to express functional sentence perspective. In English, it first of all expresses grammatical relationships between words rather than the information structure of the sentence.The above syntactic pattern has been adopted from English, which makes ample use of the conjunctions when, while and as rendered in Lithuanian as kai. It consists of the main clause, which expresses background information (rendered by an imperfective verb), and a subordinate clause, which focuses on the main action or activity (rendered by a perfective verb). From the point of view of functional sentence perspective, the theme of a sentence is expressed by the main constituent and the rheme—by the subordinate constituent.Such sentences in actual Lithuanian usage were noticed more than a decade ago, and their number tends to increase. In the publication on usage recommendations Kalbos patarimai (2003) an attempt was made to define such sentences; there was also a proposal made to amend them; however, the data of their actual usage was scarce. After collecting more data, they were analysed from the point of view of the functional sentence perspective. As a result, we can see that Lithuanian tends to express the relationship between an action or activity in the main clause and action or activity in the subordinate clause in a completely different way: the theme is expressed by the subordinate clause with the conjunction kai, and the rheme is expressed by the main clause. An inadequate translation of the clauses of time with the conjunction kai sometimes causes confusion. Therefore, background timing of the action or activity in standard Lithuanian should be expressed in other ways, mainly by participial, half-participial and gerundial adverbial modifiers of time, sometimes by subordinate clauses, where actions or activities in the two clauses go in parallel, are contrasted on an equal basis.
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This article summarizes (and elaborates further) some of my previous research on the issues of language accuracy and the manifestations of linguistic prescriptivism in Latvia. Unlike the Anglophone world, where prescriptivism has been recognized, named and criticized (as unscientific and socially intolerant and non-democratic) for almost a century, in Latvian culture it has been only about ten years that prescriptive attitudes have attracted the attention of sociolinguists, and, moreover, have been attributed the term “prescriptivism”. However, the pursuit of language accuracy has always been rather intense in Latvia (and usually associated with national identity issues).My research has led me to new insights in the theory of prescriptivism (most of them can be found in my doctoral thesis of 2010 and the book subsequently published in 2011). I have offered a new classification of prescriptivism, which includes three main types:1) Human-oriented prescriptivism is a type of prescriptivism known (and criticised) in Anglophone culture, where language correctness is historically related to a person’s social ‘correctness’ and people have tried to improve their linguistic performance in order to assert or secure their place in the social hierarchy. Antiprescriptivists, drawing on this experience, see linguistic prescriptivism as mainly based on outdated perceptions of social prestige and power.2) Language-oriented prescriptivism is a type of prescriptivism which attempts to ‘save’ language from alleged degradation, especially if caused by the influence of other languages. It is characteristic of communities which have been dominated by allophone ethnic groups (but have nevertheless successfully retained their language and still use it in all sociolinguistic functions), such as the Latvian community with the historical experience of German and Russian political and linguistic dominance. These communities have often regarded the protection of their language and its correctness and ‘purity’ as a symbol of and inspiration fornational self-confidence and political protest. This kind of prescriptivism and purism has sometimes been credited with xenophobia and ethnic intolerance. However, as the evidence suggests, linguistic communities that attribute great importance to language as the basis of national identity, and to language issues in general (including prescriptive and purist care about language correctness), are able to maintain the ethnic controversies within the sphere of language and to avoid physical aggression.3) Error-oriented prescriptivism is a type of prescriptivism which can coexist in parallel with either of the first two types. It is a tendency to stigmatize and eliminate certain ‘popular’ (often encountered and/or criticized), real or imagined language errors. This type of prescriptivism can be observed in many cultures and is sometimes seen by the recipients of the critique as the prescriptivists’ desire to psychologically humiliate other people.The present article discusses some other aspects of prescriptivism and language correctness as well, such as challenging the popular view in Anglophone linguistics that all forms uttered by native speakers are by definition correct. While this may be true for the English language (where, for the last millennium, there has been no considerable impact on its grammar by the dominating presence of a foreign language), we should probably not assume that in any other linguistic community a form or construction used ungrammatically by non-native speakers and repeated likewise by one or more native speakers automatically becomes correct.
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Antanas Salys was one of the most famous Lithuanian linguists of the middle and second half of the 20th century prominent in the fields of dialectology, onomastics, phonetics, terminology and standard language codification. The article deals with Salys’ activities in the fields of lexicology and lexicography. Salys made a big contribution to the codification of the Lithuanian vocabulary. He wrote many articles about the origin, word-formation and meaning of various words and created quite a few neologisms many of which became widespread in the usage of the standard language. Salys was keen on the Lithuanization of borrowings and wrote a theoretical article about the principles of neologism creation. As a lexicographer Salys had his input in the establishment of theoretical principles of the academic edition of Lietuvių kalbos žodynas (Dictionary of the Lithuanian language). He was also one of editors of Kalbos patarėjas (Language advisor) and from 1947 – one of the compilers of so-called Niedermann’s dictionary (Wörterbuch der litauischen Schriftsprache). In 1939 Salys became head of the Language Department at the Institute of Lithuanian Studies, from 3 December 1941 he was director of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. Here he took care about the matters of Lietuvių kalbos žodynas. Salys had discussions on various issues of editing with the editor of the dictionary Juozas Balčikonis in Mokslinė pagalbinė komisija (Scientific advisory commission) and in the press. This discussion always stayed within the limits of correctness and during the Second world war when the front was approaching he rescued the card files of the dictionary and took them to safety. After exile to the West he spoke positively about the compilation work of the dictionary and heavily criticized attempts to include ideological matters. Salys wrote the first wider study about the history of the Lithuanian lexicography for Lietuvių enciklopedija (Lithuanian encyclopaedia, Boston, USA).
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The first comprehensive and systemic description of the syntax of the Lithuanian language Lietuvjų kalbos sintaksė (Syntax of the Lithuanian Language) was presented by Jonas Jablonskis under the pseudonym of Rygiškių Jonas as a textbook of a vitally important part of the language at the time when after the lifting of the ban on the Lithuanian press the Lithuanian language was making its way into schools.Jablonskis wrote Lietuvjų kalbos sintaksė in a year. Kazimieras Būga, Juozas Balčikonis and Jurgis Šlapelis helped him to resolve issues related to orthography and terminology. Jablonskis’ Lietuvjų kalbos sintaksė was published in Seinai on the initiative of the priest Juozas Laukaitis in the monthly of religious direction Vadovas in the autumn of 1910. As a separate book it was published in 1911 also in Seinai. In the foreword of the publication Jablonskis pointed out how important for this work were the examples (2900 of them) and introduced their sources. One third of them are examples of the spoken language form various villages, examples from folklore comprise more than a third (over 900) and examples of best language taken from the writings of 19th century (works of Kristijonas Donelaitis, Žemaitė, Motiejus Valančius, Simonas Daukantas and other) make up less than a third.Examples in Lietuvjų kalbos sintaksė are arranged according to the traditional plan of the textbooks of this subject – a sentence, parts of the sentence, types of the sentence, composite sentences and their kinds. For the first time in Lithuanian grammars punctuation marks with the rules of their usage and illustrative sentences were provided. The researched publication helped to bring out and to substantiate the norms of the grammar: first of all it can be seen in the rules set for various matters of syntax and based on convincing examples; in addition various mistakes ingrained in syntactic construction were indicated.The majority of 20th century textbooks of this subject continued the traditions of Jablonskis’ Lietuvjų kalbos sintaksė. Some of the examples (especially from the folklore) were widely used by the authors of textbooks as well as scientific works.
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The article provides an overview of the basis and the criteria of syntax codification as well as the main issues of codification of complex sentences and raises the problem of evaluation of some topical cases of attributive clause usage.In evaluating the conformity of complex sentences with the norm, recommendations about usage of the attributive clauses of purpose, condition, time and concession are given. There are not so many correct usage recommendations regarding subordinate clauses, but some formulations in these recommendations quite often cause discussion and are differently interpreted. Unsettled cases ought to be discussed more thoroughly and commented on so that the proposed norms of syntax would be clear and would not raise doubts for language users.Usage recommendations for attributive clauses are not so easy to define, because they are based on the relation of meaning of the main and the subordinate clauses and such relation can be interpreted differently. The definable meaning is the main criterion of evaluation of conformity with the norm, the criterion of the sequence of actions is subsidiary, though most often both of these features are common in incorrect usage. Recommendations about such sentences wouldbe clearer if the cases of incorrect usage were more precisely defined (for instance description of duties or functions).
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The Centre of Lexicography at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language is continuing one of the most important works of Lithuanian philology – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas (Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language). Electronic version of this dictionary has been freely accessible from 22 June 2005 at www.lkz.lt. In 2008 the renewed version was launched.In 2012 the second revised electronic edition of Lietuvių kalbos žodynas (LKŽ2e) was prepared for publishing. It will be available on memory key. During the preparation of the second edition, texts of the version from 2008 were revised in the following respects: more editing was done on the material of volumes 16–20, some corrections were made to the whole text, suggestions of the new theoretical and codifying works were taken into consideration as well as comments and observations of colleagues and visitors of the web site. Some new entries were compiled for words which were used in entries or definitions, but did not have separate entries themselves. So far this dictionary has not been supplemented with data from new sources. The newest lexis will be available in Bendrinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas (Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian) the preparation of which is nearly completed.The main variants of phraseologisms, neuter gender of adjectives, adverbs presented in the entries of verbs and adjectives are among things included in the search lists. Dictionary entries can be searched using simple search (word or phrase) and advanced search (sequences consisting of letters and wildcards). The software of the dictionary works with Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.At present the Centre of Lexicography is participating in Ilgalaikė institucinės mokslinių tyrimų ir eksperimentinės (socialinės, kultūrinės) plėtros programa (Longterm institutional programme for scientific research and experimental (social and cultural) development) and one of the main tasks of the Centre is to prepare the amendments of electronic version of Lietuvių kalbos žodynas using card files (about half of a million of records), database of amendments, newly published and evaluated historical sources.
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The article deals with the usage of verb skatinti (‘to encourage, to promote’) in administrative language as it could be viewed in the results of scientific research “Europos Sąjungos dokumentų kalba” (“The language of European Union documents”) carried out in 2010-2012 and financed by the State commission of the Lithuanian language. During this research documents from the database of European Union legislation EUR-Lex were analysed.At the beginning it was assumed that the verb skatinti is quite frequent because of automatic substitution of international words, for instance stimuliuoti, aktyvinti with a Lithuanian word. Therefore during the research both Lithuanian and English texts were analysed. The results of this research did not confirm the initial idea.All word combinations with the verb skatinti can be divided in two groups: 1) combinations with infinitives; 2) combinations with nouns.Combinations with infinitives, for instance skatinti priimti tinkamą sprendimą (‘to promote an appropriate decision’), naudotis piliečio teisėmis (‘to encourage usage of citizen’s rights’) and the like are correct, but this cannot be said about combinations with nouns. Such combinations are plentiful in EU documents, but there are doubts if they meet the requirements of codified norms. It is not easy to distinguish which case of usage is clearly incorrect and which can be tolerated. The usage frequently balances on the edge of the norm. Word combinations skatintigalimybes (‘to promote opportunities’), skatinti potencialą (‘to promote the potential’), skatinti ekonomiką (‘to boost the economy’) can be treated as correct, but the priority (at least in administrative style) should be given to combinations didinti galimybes (‘to increase opportunities’), stiprinti potencialą (‘to strengthen the potential’), plėtoti ekonomiką (‘to develop the economy’) and combinations with distorted meaning such as skatinti būdus (‘to promote ways’), skatinti strategiją (‘to promote strategies’), skatinti prieigą (‘to encourage the access’), skatinti aukštąjį mokslą (‘to promote higher education’) should not be tolerated at all.
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System of factors which is referred to when modelling a representative of a standard language includes education as well as social and cultural experience of a user. User’s profession or activity could also become a clear reference to the potential representative of the standard language speakers. From a theoretical perspective location mark is not one of the important factors, though theoretical models not always precisely correspond to the system of user’s attitudes and beliefs.The aim of this article is to discuss why the standard language becomes a localized code in the point of view of the young members of the language community. The researched problem – regions of the standard language from the point of view of the young members of the Lithuanian language community – is being discussed researching the images of the standard language variants prevalent in this group of users. Linguistic attitudes of the language users and estimators towards correctness, intelligibility, similitude to the standard language and appeal of textstimuli and localization of text-stimuli in so-called mental maps provide more or less an objective projection of these images.The investigation of the standard language localization issue is based on a part of the data collected during a complex research of perceptual dialectology carried out in November 2009, December 2010 and January 2011.A task of mental map of perceptual dialectology is the most important for the research of this issue. The research was carried out in schools and gymnasiums of Kaunas, Klaipėda, Panevėžys, Šiauliai, Telšiai and Alytus. A total sample of the research included 276 respondents at the age of 14–18.The research data shows that the standard language is unlocalized only in scientific perspective. In the taxonomy of the members of the language community this code is associated with particular places. The place marker is not stereotypically unambiguous and accurate, but certain trends can be established.Two clear markers of the sociolinguistic portrait of the standard language user can be brought out: more frequently the standard language user is associated with major cities of Lithuania (Vilnius or Kaunas) rather than other towns and the standard language user can be the user of the respondent’s linguistic homeland code.Data from some of researched groups suggests an idea about the standard language zones near the cities or major towns. The research shows that Kaišiadorys, Kėdainiai, Vilkaviškis, Šakiai and Trakai could be included into such zones.During the task of mental mapping the participants of the research marked 41 places (large or small towns) in total. Some of these places start gaining the value of prototypic standard language place. This is the matter of attitudes and views and the respondents are not aware of the sociolinguistic concept of standard language. Only systemic research of the code observation would ensure “linguistic reality” of the data and become the basis for talking about the precise image of the standard language.
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With the exception of larger dictionaries of international words, the lexicographic sources of the Lithuanian language do not present the names of currency units comprehensively and systematically. Depending on dictionary purpose, scope, compiling methodology, etc., this lexical semantic group is presented differently in different dictionaries. The wordings of definitions of words are different (usually, certain conventional definitions are used); the actual usage is rarely illustrated; the presentation of semantic structure of such words varies as well.The summary of material from Lithuanian, Latvian, English, French, German, Russian and Polish dictionaries shows that the names of currency units have three meanings (or three shades of meaning): a currency unit of a specific country; the unit in terms of value compared to other currency units (only singular use); the cash form of its value (bank-note and/or coin).A small survey was carried out in the analysis of semantics of the names of currency units. Specialists of linguistics and third-year students of the study programme of Creative Industries were asked to indicate the meaning – whether currency unit or its cash form – in which the words litas and centas are used in the given examples of use. The analysis revealed that in theory, it is relatively easy for the respondents to distinguish between the two meanings; however, in specific cases, the answers of both linguists and the students of the aforementioned speciality to questionnaire questions were far from unanimous. Among other things, it prompts a conclusion that it is not always possible to distinguish between the said meanings. It can be explained by the fact that they are often provided as two shades of the same meaning. Nevertheless, the dictionary makes a distinction between them; it is also indicated by the different semantic valency of words. For example, in the sense of the currency unit, litas is used together with the words kursas (exchange rate), devalvuoti (to devalue), taupyti (to save), įvesti (to introduce), indėlis (a deposit), skolinti (to lend), etc., while in the sense of its cash form (bank-note, coin), it goes with suglamžyti (to crumple), suplėšyti (to tear apart); in turn – centas is used together with byrėti (to fall), baltas (white), sauja (handful), mesti (to toss), kišti (to slip into), riedėti (to roll), etc.In the absence of sufficient illustrative material, The Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian distinguishes at least two of the aforementioned shades – the first or the second and the third shade. The third shade of meaning is probably far enough from the first two shades to consider it an individual meaning. However, if we did not limit with the semantic group of names of currency units alone but also considered the distinction of meanings and shades in the context of the overall lexis of The Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian, it would apparently be appropriate to provide the semantic structure of currency units as shades, the more so that it is rather commonplace in the lexicographical practice – most of the dictionaries under analysis do not divide the currency unit and its cash form into two individual meanings (if it is recorded altogether).
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The aim of the article is to discuss the presentation of the words peržiūrėti (to review) and peržiūra (a review) in dictionaries and to analyse their actual use in administrative texts as well as to provide recommendations on the definitions of these words in dictionaries. The verb peržiūrėti and its derivative peržiūra are often used in administrative language; it is also confirmed by the results of the search in the databases of legal acts. These words are characteristic of administrative language because they express matters relating to the change of legal regulation recorded in documents. The definitions of these words in the dictionaries of the Lithuanian language (Dictionary of Modern Lithuanian, Dictionary of Lithuanian) are not sufficient; therefore, attention should be paid to the changed use of these words in administrative language when compiling new dictionaries.Four meanings of the verb peržiūrėti, characteristic of contemporary administrative language, can be distinguished: 1) to take a look at, to scan through, to revise data, information, entry; 2) to inspect, i.e. to determine the state, condition in order to change it; 3) to change, update for specific purposes; to adapt to the new circumstances; 4) to reconsider, to consider one more time.It is likely that the spread of the word peržiūra in Lithuanian is driven by the impact of translations. Such a conclusion is prompted by the dates of approval of documents that mark the beginning of the use of the word peržiūra and the translation type of such documents as well as statistical data of the database of EU legal acts and other public documents EUR-lex.
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Nowadays, the term ‘foreign word’ is generally used in the following meaning: a word borrowed from another language and grammatically adapted to the system of the recipient language, the foreign origin of which (according to certain phonetic and/or morphological characteristics) is perceived by the majority of recipient language users. In order to reproduce a foreign word in a different language, it is assimilated on the basis of three principles:1) phonetic assimilation;2) morphological assimilation;3) semantic assimilation – the borrowing keeps the original meaning, but the meaning in the recipient language can change.The most frequently used foreign words in a language are usually compiled in dictionaries of foreign words indicating the original language, giving explanation of the meaning and the specific features of their usage in the corresponding recipient language. At present, the latest issues of foreign language dictionaries published in Latvia are (1999, 2005, 2008), which give the user an opportunity to check the spelling of foreign words and their meaning. The Terminology Commission and Latvian Language Expert Commission are the bodies that regularly make decisions on reproduction and spelling of foreign words. There are also such dictionaries in the Lithuanian language – Tarptautinių žodžių žodynas (2007, 2008, 2010); they are also available on the Internet, for example, http://www.zodziai.lt/, http://www.tzz.lt/ and others; decisions on the most important foreign word usage issues are taken by the Lithuanian State Language Commission (Valstybinė lietuvių kalbos komisija). Lithuanian linguists (like in Latvia) are worried about the rapid inflow of anglicisms into the language.In Latvian a large part of foreign words are indeclinable, and hence we can assert that they were once not sufficiently adapted to the Latvian language, for example, kino, radio, kakao, rokoko, komunikē, kapučīno, kivi, ampluā, ragū, auto, loto, moto, eiro. By contrast, Lithuanians have more successfully managed most of these words and have fully adapted them to the Lithuanian grammar system, for example, kinas, kakava, radijas, rokokas, komunikatas, kapučinas, euras.The analysed material shows that there will always be difficulties in reproducing foreign words, their spelling and usage (not only in the Latvian language); they should be viewed from various aspects and the most appropriate decisions should be made in any given situation.
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The recreation of phraseology in the media relies on both the change of conventional and well-established lexis as well as syntactic order. First of all, phraseology itself is figure-based; stylistically, the figures around it are none the less important. The article shows how syntactic destructive figures help to highlight the meaning, implication and reasons of recreation of phraseology.As a result of the playful combination of recreated phraseology and destructive figures in the text, rhetorical functions of attraction of attention, intriguing, satire based irony and parody become especially strong. In combination with phraseology, destructive figures, which simultaneously comment on it, help to explain and understand the recreation of traditional phraseology and to highlight the turn of thought. The effect of the figures themselves increases when they intertwine among themselves, support one another and go together with phraseology.It has been proven that irrespective of the place of phraseology in the syntactic structure, it first of all combines with parcellation and other accompanying destructive figures – hyperbaton, accumulation, parenthesis, adjunction, ellipsis. The domination of parcellation and other destructive figures is seen in a number of publicistic texts of the journalism of evaluative type of recent years.The phraseology of the beginning, centre and end can be distinguished by the place of the paragraph content structure in which the rephrased text is located. The wittily recreated phraseology positioned in the beginning immediately draws the addressee’s attention and makes an unexpected intriguing impression. Central phraseology, framed by destructive figures, becomes the culmination of the paragraph. The phraseology positioned at the end creates an impression of a strong logical highlight and a vividly formulated final conclusion.The growth in the number of recreated phrases conflicting with conventional phraseology and the accompanying destructive figures can be associated with the confusion in social, economic, political and cultural life as well as the increased competition within the media.Critically and ironically-minded authors with a negative and especially hyperbolic evaluation of topical life affairs, witty and ingenuous parody as well as brave destruction of the old try to attract the addressee and to grip his/her attention by any means possible.
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Based on the qualitative method, the article analyses the forms of intertextuality in advertising in terms of rhetoric. It relies on the classification of the forms of intertextuality proposed by R. Koženiauskienė and concludes that various types of intertextuality help the author of an advertisement to highlight the properties of the item being advertised, to raise interest in it or to intrigue the potential buyer and to drive him/her into buying the good. The composition of the texts of different styles within the same advertisement is the form of intertextuality which issolely characteristic of advertising. The author of an advertisement may use it to present the item being advertised by thoroughly highlighting its strengths, associating it with scientific achievements and practical benefit. The key point of rephrasing is to make the addressee guess what is hidden underneath the text, what its primary source was, to remember what he/she has previously read or seen and what new meaning is assigned to its new version, to try to link several different and simultaneously similar things through associations. Anti-proverbs and allusions also require the background knowledge from the addressee; however, their primary aim is to surprise, influence by the unexpectedness of thought or even to shock. Folklore citations stand out from pure citations. By using them, the creators of advertising refer to the addressee’s attitudes according to which folklore is made of time-tested truths, which are accepted unconditionally. It is also known that folklore may serve the purpose of teaching and surprising but most importantly – it is a means to express the thought in a brief, yet effective manner.
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The article addresses the approach of the society towards the problem of literacy, which has lately been actively discussed by spelling specialists and in the public domain. Such problems are especially common in those languages which have a greater or lesser number of characters of different type in comparison to the English language dominating online.The survey of language attitudes of the Internet community and the approach of teachers towards the problems of literacy (based on the comments of online articles and the survey of Lithuanian language teachers) reveals the principal external reasons of illiteracy developing in society as well as internal reasons of illiteracy evolving in the system of education: 1) negative language attitudes in society, 2) unfavourable linguistic environment, 3) negative impact of information technologies, 4) inconsiderate education policy and faulty methodology of Lithuanian language teaching. None of the above reasons should be considered absolute; nevertheless, they indicate the areas requiring most attention at the level of the state and its education policy.The answers of teachers to the questions of the questionnaire analysed in the article show that the reasons of illiteracy cannot be associated solely with the negative impact of information technologies, which get into the centre of attention these days. Even though there is a direct correlation between the use of electronic communications (mobile phones, computer and tablet keyboards) and certain spelling difficulties (for example, omission of nasal letters and other diacritical signs), a lot of difficulties of spelling faced by pupils derive from the abundance of rules and exceptions and, most importantly, the inability to comprehend the language system.The considerations of teachers regarding the change or correction of certain spelling rules presented in the article should be evaluated critically and taken into account in the consideration of spelling norms and their codification as well as in the development of teaching aids and the improvement of the methodology for the teaching of spelling. The considerations of Lithuanian language teachers on illiteracy, its causes and specific manifestations in pupils’ written works show that teachers themselves are in need of professional assistance of spelling specialists and mutual cooperation based on in-depth studies of the situation of pupils’ literacy and its changes.
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A child’s capacity to repeat a new polysyllable word heard for the first time in the early age shows the ability to memorise new words and to expand one’s dictionary (Gathercole 2006a); therefore, the nonword repetition test is associated with language acquisition. It is stated that the repetition of nonwords starts very early in life when a child starts learning the first words (Gathercole 2006a): each word once heard by a child for the first time sounded unusual and new – like the words which are asked to be repeated in the nonword repetition test (Chiat, Roy 2007).The article presents a pilot experimental study carried out on the basis of nonword and word repetition tests. The Lithuanian Nonword Repetition Test was designed with due regard to the structural characteristics of Lithuanian words (word length, vowel and consonant frequency, syllable structure); the test consists of 24 nonwords of different structure. Each nonword is associated with a Lithuanian equivalent taking into account word length and syllable structure. The sample of the pilot study is made of 25 typically developing preschool and school-age children (from 4 to 9 years old).The results of the study revealed that the accuracy of repetition of nonwords and words is determined by three factors:1) syllable structure: most errors occur in the repetition of words and nonwords containing combinations of consonants. What is more, the accuracy of repetition of nonwords is also determined by the place where the consonant combination occurs: more errors occur in repeating words with a consonant combination in the middle of the word compared to those with a consonant combination in the beginning of the word. The place of consonant combination does not affect the accuracy of repetition of words;2) word length: the longer the word, the lower the accuracy of its repetition;3) age of participants in the study: the older the age group, the more accurately both shorter (one-two syllable) and longer (three-four syllable) words and nonwords are repeated.
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