FF:CORE023 Czech for 21st Century - Course Information

CORE023 Czech for 21st Century

Extent and Intensity

2/0/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).

Teacher(s)

Mgr. Michaela Boháčová, Ph.D. (lecturer)
prof. Radek Čech, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Mgr. Marie Hanzelková, Ph.D. (lecturer)
doc. PhDr. Zdeňka Hladká, Dr. (lecturer)
Mgr. et Mgr. Monika Klučková (lecturer)
prof. Mgr. Pavel Kosek, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Mgr. Marek Stehlík (lecturer)
PhDr. Jarmila Vojtová, Ph.D. (lecturer)
doc. Mgr. Markéta Ziková, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Mgr. Hana Žižková, Ph.D. (lecturer)

Guaranteed by

doc. PhDr. Zdeňka Hladká, Dr.
Department of Czech Language – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Mgr. Hana Žižková, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Czech Language – Faculty of Arts

Prerequisites

TYP_STUDIA(BM) && FORMA(P) && !(PROGRAM(B-CJ_) || OBOR(FBCJpV))
The course is open to students of full-time bachelor's and five-year master's programmes throughout MU, with the exception of the Czech Language and Literature programme. Students must not have taken ARTS009 course.

Course Enrolment Limitations

The course is offered to students of any study field.
The capacity limit for the course is 100 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/100, only registered: 0/100, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/100

Course objectives

The course objective is to provide in an attractive way basic information on Czech and its interesting aspects in the extent every university-educated person should know about. Students get also acquainted with modern approaches towards studying language and with computer tools and electronic sources not only for linguists, but also for wider public. The course is aimed at those who are interested in learning more about Czech and about language in general, i.e. not only to students of philological degree programmes or other degree programmes from the field of humanities. The lectures are given by leading experts from the Department of Czech Language of the Faculty of Arts, and/or invited guests. Full-time classes are complemented by an e-learning materials. The couse is supported by very positive responses to the faculty course ARTS0009 and is adapted for students of non-philological degree programmes, more considerably accenting the present-day situation of Czech as well as current tendencies in its development.
Motivation:
Do you want to know
- where does the Czech language come from? What it gave to other languages and what did it take from them?
– whether it is even now possible to tell by people’s speech from which region of Czechia they come from?
– how Czech copes with the pressure of English?
– how it communicates with computers?
– if the Czech sound “ř” is unique?
– why written Czech still kepps “i/y” and what are neuralgic points of Czech orthography?
– where in Czechia you use “spěchá“ and where you use “chvátá“ (“hurry”) and what kind of dish is named by a dialectal expression “čuráčkovo procesí“ (‘willy’s procession’)?
– why there is no reason to worry about size of your meals, if the waiter offers you “řízeček s brambůrkem“ (“a small steak with a small potato”)?
– what problems to expect, if you want to give your child a less common name?
- whether the length of words and vocabulary of communist and democratic presidents differ and how to find out?
– what causes biggest problems to foreign students and how teaching Czech e.g. for refugees from Ukraine is carried out?
- what does Czech look like in a multilingual mind and what do we find out from psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics?
- where outside Czech borders Czech is spoken?
If at least of some of the items met with a response, then you are a prospective participant of this course.

Learning outcomes

Having participated in the course, students will be able:
- to understand more deeply Czech as a mother tongue (or, alternatively, as a second/foreign language), its structure, developmental tendencies and usage
- to understand on the basis of expert training the position of Czech in the present-day world
- to get orientated in territorial and social stratification of Czech
- to handle practically the more problematic phenomena of spelling and linguistic codification and will able to cope with them on the basis of the recommended literature
- to work with modern electronic manuals and data sources for the purpose off effective work with the language material
- to reflect at an elementary level interdisciplinary aspects of studying Czech
- to pay attention to current processes in language and to various phenomena in everyday communication.

Syllabus

• The exact schedule of the individual lectures will be specified in the course curriculum before the beginning of the term. In the form attractive also for non-linguists, the course will cover substantial facts about the Czech language:
  1) Where does it come from and whom does it meet? (Kosek) A brief history of Czech and its contacts with other languages will help to understand its present-day state and orientation.
  2) Is it unique? (Ziková, Caha) Czech seen from the typological perspective, what it has in common with other languages and in which respect it is different.
  3) Is it homogenous? What is it like in Brno? (Hladká) Czech dialects past and present, Common Czech, territorial differences in using Standard Czech; the language of Brno - the city you in which you study.
  4) Who is the watchdog for Czech? And how is it decided what is correct? (Vojtová) Institutions that take care of Czech; Correct Czech and works on codification, language and orthographic “gadgets”.
  5) What binding reulations apply to creating and using its proper nouns? (Boháčová) Legal and other regulations relating to the use of personal names, competences relating to changing names of villages, creating and changing street names, rules for putting geographical names on maps.
  6) Can it be taken literally? (Hladká) What we do when we talk and by the fact that we talk ‒ introduction to pragmalinguistics; language politeness.
  7) How do presidents treat it? (Čech) Quantitative analyses of presidents’ speeches, presentation of the tool QuitaUp.
  8) How to use electronic tools in relation to it? (Žižková) Presentation of available computer tools and material sources; examples of work with them.
  9) Is it difficult for foreigners? (Hanzelková) It Depends.
  10) How is it doing abroad? (Klučková) Czech in language enclaves.
  11) A variable topic ...

Literature

recommended literature
• Doporučená literatura k jednotlivým tématům je uvedena v doprovodném e-learningovém materiálu.
• Nový encyklopedický slovník češtiny. Edited by Petr Karlík - Marek Nekula - Jana Pleskalová. První vydání. Praha: NLN, Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2016, 1092 stran. ISBN 9788074224812. info

Teaching methods

A cycle of lectures, discussion with students.
There is an e-learning material accompanying the lectures; the material containing both the basic information and additional points of interest, illustrative presentations (e.g., with audio samples), recommended literature and a set of practice questions, everything is available from the interactive course syllabus

Assessment methods

Successful completion of the course is conditional upon activity in lectures and completion of the intra-semester answer sheets. The course ends with a test in which a set of questions is automatically mixed for each student.

Language of instruction

Czech

Further comments (probably available only in Czech)

The course is taught annually.
The course is taught: every week.
General note: Kurz není určen studentům programu Český jazyk a literatura na FF MU a je tak i koncipován. Studenti českého jazyka FF MU by si ho neměli zapisovat.

• Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2025, recent)
  
• Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2025/CORE023