Linguistic Frontiers is a peer-reviewed academic journal which focuses on the research and collaboration of linguistics and life sciences, mathematics and various social sciences and humanities applying formal or experimental approaches which are employed e.g. in traditional linguistic interdisciplines like quantitative linguistics, psycholinguistics, biosemiotics, sociolinguistics. The major aim is to transfer methods and topics among these fields of linguistic research. This website is a repository maintained by Palacký University, Olomouc, Czechia to handle submissions and keep back issues accessible. The official Sciendo website of our journal can be found here.
Kristeva’s Revolution in Poetic Language Today
This is a review of Emilia Angelova’s edited volume “Revolution in Poetic Language” Fifty Years Later: New Directions in Kristeva Studies. The volume commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Kristeva’s magnum opus and explores whether the text, first published in 1974, retains its relevance when transposed to differing social, historical, or cultural contexts. The review discusses the various forms of this transposition as presented in the volume, offering insight into contemporary approaches within Kristeva studies.
Copyright (c) 2026 Lenka Vojtíšková https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Sentiment analysis of cultural differences in online comments on popular news
The rapid growth of online communication through social networks has created new opportunities for understanding public opinion on socially relevant issues. This research examines how sentiment analysis (SA) can reveal cultural differences, specifically analyzing Czech and Ukrainian online comments on news topics including the war in Ukraine, political discussions, public health issues (tick-borne diseases, COVID-19), LGBTQ+ community matters, and natural disasters. By comparing three large language models (GPT-3.5-Turbo, Twitter-XLM-Ro-BERTa, and Zephyr 7B) with native speaker evaluations, we assess whether AI-based sentiment analysis can accurately capture culturally-specific emotional expressions in medium-resource languages. Our dataset comprises 6,085 comments (2,999 Czech from X/Twitter, 3,086 Ukrainian from Telegram) collected during 2023, focusing on socially relevant news coverage. We employed a hybrid methodology combining machine learning analysis with expert validation by native speakers. The study addresses a critical gap in cross-cultural sentiment analysis research, as no previous studies have compared Czech and Ukrainian linguistic patterns in this context. Results demonstrate significant performance differences among models depending on language: GPT-3.5-Turbo achieved highest accuracy for Czech (p<0.001), while all models performed comparably for Ukrainian. Both populations showed predominantly negative sentiment (Czech: 69.93%, Ukrainian: 68.93% via GPT-3.5), reflecting shared emotional responses to crisis events.
Copyright (c) 2026 Kateryna Hordiienko, Libuše Kormaníková https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Pragmatic Challenges in Studies of Animal Acts. Interpreting Zoo- Communication from a Systemic Socio-Semiotic Perspective
Animals’ communicational acts are meta-studied based on a framework interrelating five aspects form, content, act, time, and space in a systemic perspective. Aspects relate to levels, sign, utterance, life-genre, and lifeworld and to processes. Six studies are investigated, positioning act as part of a web of communicational elements aiming at illustrating the pragmatic role act and life-genre play in sustaining animal life-functions. Re-interpretations of studies of signals, calls, and gestures further aim at enhancing the framework epistemologically and methodologically for the study of zoo-communicational pragmatics. It is suggested that since act tends to be treated as a limited category the field could benefit from a systemic perspective, one that allows balancing open-and closedness on all levels and between all aspects. Studies of great apes’ gestures are studied in particular, focusing which epistemic position acts have when communication is seen as systemic. The paper concludes that a socio-semiotic, systemic, and pragmatic framework can play a constructive role when designing and validating research on zoo-communicational acts.
Copyright (c) 2026 Sigmund Ongstad https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In Search of a New Understanding of Barthes’s Concept of the Index
Within the broad tradition of structuralism there are some differences in the treatment of extra-textual reality, character motivation, and the importance of plot. The article proposes some reconciliation between the Czech School and French narratology, centred around a revision of the concept of “index”. It also asserts a fundamental continuity between the devices of poetic language and those of narrative prose. In the first section of the paper it is shown that, when Roland Barthes adapts the notion of the index to his structural narratology, he vacillates somewhat about its definition and application, sometimes associating it with metaphor and sometimes with metonymy. A consistent reflection upon Barthes’ ambivalent use of the index makes it possible to describe narrative atmosphere as well as character psychology, but still within the parameters of structuralism. This reflection yields an understanding of index that is less formalistic and more compatible with the theorization of the Czech School, for whom character motivation was of major interest. The second part of the paper plays out some applications of this redefined index and poetic language for Czech literature, including examples from Vladislav Vančura and Milan Kundera.
Copyright (c) 2026 Prof. Jakub Češka https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The The Use of Nonbinary Language Strategies in Casual Ingroup Verbal Communication in the Czech LGBTQ+ Community
As a Slavic language, Czech poses very specific challenges for nonbinary language expression. The study of nonbinary Czech is a relatively recent field, and while various strategies for nonbinary Czech have been documented, data regarding their actual use in casual ingroup communication is limited. This paper presents the results of a qualitative analysis of several recordings conducted with two volunteer participants from the Czech LGBTQ+ community who employ different language strategies to express nonbinarity. We examine individual users’ preferences and document their efforts to creatively avoid gender markers. Additionally, we explore the consistency of these strategies, their mutual interactive influences and the reasons behind their use. We also corroborate some earlier findings with direct examples from our data.
Copyright (c) 2026 Miriama Holická, Ivona Barešová https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The concept of causation is widely regarded as a dyadic relation necessary for scientific inquiry, and as a basic component in discussions of biological mechanism, or of the same in other sciences. A re-examination of causation in view of Peirce’s Semeiotic shows that causation might more usefully be understood in terms of his Indexical Semeiosis analysis. By so proceeding, this hypothesis could yield useful experiments that show promise for removing some antinomies in sciences that are currently treated according to Necessitarian presuppositions.
Copyright (c) 2026 Kenneth Laine Ketner https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
INTRODUCTION The following paper explores the evolution and significance of writing as a techné within the context of digital culture. It examines how semiotic concepts such as logos, arche, and patterns of representation shape meaning and impact the semiotics of writing in the age of digital dissemination. Writing is a vital tool for preserving and transmitting ideas and knowledge. Since its inception, it has been a means to communicate individual thoughts and emotions, encapsulating cultural narratives, collective histories, and unique human experiences for future generations—the readers of today. To study writing through the lens of information technologies offers insights into the evolving functions of information tools, shedding light on their impact on human communication, social interaction, and cultural memory. Driven by language models, the technological age is primarily formed by binary dyadic models. By blurring the distinctions between the writer and the message, as well as between the physical and digital realms, writing today contributes to reinterpreting the history of literacy. This transformation is accelerated by an increasingly digital dissemination, where digita codes model the structures of social communication and fuel the creation of mass content. Writing serves as a means to preserve the evolution of meaning. In his seminal work “Grammatology” (1997[1967]),. Jacques Derrida critiques the restraints put on our understanding of meaning processes imposed by a dyadic definition of the sign structure. The inherent dynamics of Saussure’s dyadic structure affect all signified concepts, restraining meaning between the signifier and signified. (Saussure 1966) Derrida confronts the challenge of uncovering the origins of meaning by proposing a shift from semiology—the study of the linguistic sign—to grammatology, the study of writing. “The advantage of this substitution will not only be to give to the theory of writing the scope needed to counter logocentric repression and the subordination to linguistics. It will liberate the semiological project itself from what, in spite of its greater theoretical extension, remained governed by linguistics, organized as if linguistics were at once its center and its telos […] The linguistic sign remained exemplary for semiology, it dominated it as the master-sign and as the generative model: the pattern [patron].” (Derrida 1997 [1967], 51) Recent studies have sparked discussions about the efficacy of language as a prototype for constructing reasoning systems. For instance, a study titled “Language Elize Bisanz is Primarily a Tool for Communication Rather than Thought” explores the relation between natural language and reasoning, thus shedding some light on the technology-human interaction in communication. Such experiments serve to delineate the brain circuits involved in language-related tasks such as word recall and grammar. Participants were presented with nonsensical phrases followed by proper ones, and it was shown that different brain regions were stimulated only during the perception of meaning-bearing language. The results confirm that strokes and other brain injuries can disrupt the language network, resulting in challenges with word processing and grammar, a condition known as aphasia. Notably, individuals with aphasia can still perform well in tasks like algebra and chess, raising an intriguing question: if language isn’t essential for reasoning processes, what role does it play? The researchers suggest that language may primarily function as a tool for communication. The notion that thought or reasoning and language can operate independently might help explain why artificial intelligence systems like Large Language Models excel in certain areas while struggling in others. Computer scientists train such AI models on extensive text data to discern patterns in word relationships. Although these systems are beginning to mimic the human brain’s language network, they often lag behind in their reasoning capabilities. This has led researchers to ponder: what is the missing link between language and reasoning?
Copyright (c) 2026 Elize Bisanz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This study explored the cross-linguistic processing of idioms among Azerbaijani, Russian, and English speakers, utilizing Construction Grammar (CxG) to examine the impact of cultural familiarity on idiom comprehension. Idioms, as culturally and linguistically embedded expressions, present a unique cognitive challenge that varies with the cultural background of the speaker. Employing comprehension tasks and self-paced reading tasks, this study measured both the accuracy of idiom comprehension and the speed of processing. The findings suggest that culturally specific idioms are comprehended more effectively and processed faster than non-culturally specific idioms across all participant groups. The results have significant implications for educational policymakers, educators, and school leaders, emphasizing the need to consider cultural context in language education. Integrating culturally relevant idioms into teaching strategies could enhance language comprehension and foster more effective intercultural communication.
idioms, construction grammar, cross-cultural studies, cross-linguistic studies, cognitive processing
Copyright (c) 2026 Dr. Rena Alasgarova, Ilaha Mahmudova, Dr. Jeyhun Rzayev https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Constructing a Gold Corpus of Annotated Youtube Comments for Discursive Strategies Span Classification
Our research project is focused on the creation of a corpus of German YouTube comments relating to the topic of gender diversity. It aims at the identification of dominant arguments for and against gender diversity and the multiple discursive strategies, such as victim-blaming, denial, proposal, etc., used to convey them. This is crucial for understanding the pro and contra communication as well as developing linguistic strategies to refute misconceptions and fake information around the topic. This paper discusses the theoretical background, data collection, corpus creation, and the annotation process as a way of reconstructing discursive strategies identified by works in critical discourse analysis and bringing to light new ones.
Copyright (c) 2026 Linda Feld, Lidiia Wegert-Melnyk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Emotional granularity – Vocabulary for mental health?
This paper presents a linguistic/semiotic critique of the notion of emotional granularity in the context of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotion. (Barrett 2017a) Barrett claims that emotional granularity, the usage of refined emotion vocabulary, has positive effects on coping and health. Barrett’s denial of basic emotions like fear or anger and her rejection of ethological perspectives put her theory out of sync with other recent approaches such as Panksepp’s Affective Neuroscience (e.g. Panksepp 2004) or Adolph’s Neuroscience of Emotions (Adolphs 2018). Although the idea of constructed emotion seemingly resonates with constructivist points of view, this paper challenges Barrett’s assumption that coping strategies depend on specific lexemes (i.e. emotional granularity) to construct and describe emotions. Barrett ignores relevant concepts in linguistics and semiotics and relies on convenient lab experiments and quantifiable results. Barrett’s conjectures about more ‘refined’ emotion vocabulary evoke problematic deficit theories long discredited by linguists (e.g. Labov 1970). Her recommendations for developing emotional granularity for the more ‘accurate’ description of emotions perpetuate assumptions about social background and vocabulary that extend 1960s deficit theories about education to elitist assumptions about class and mental health. By presenting emotional granularity as an antidote to alexithymia, Barrett contributes to an increasingly popular research agenda in psychology. Thure von Uexküll’s (1979) early criticism of alexithymia (in the context of psychosomatic medicine) provides the foundational (bio)semiotic concepts (derived from Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt theory) that expose Barrett’s problematic research methods (e.g. random images without context eliciting multiple choice vocabulary) and nomenclatural approach to emotion words. Discourse analysis and corpus linguistics offer neutral and unbiased descriptive approaches to how people express their emotions in different registers, styles, contexts, and genres. Meaning is not in the lexeme but exists in the embeddedness of a speaker in their subjective now with their lived past and potential future that are absent from the artificial lab experiments Barrett’s emotional granularity conjecture is based on.
Emotional granularity – constructed emotion – affective neuroscience – verbal deficit – discourse analysis – Umwelt – Funktionskreis
Copyright (c) 2026 Prisca Augustyn https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
“Künstliche Erfahrungswelten” – How Digital Technology is mediating Human Experience
Experience is a vital element of human cognition; therefore, to learn something new, humans need new experiences. How can the use of artifacts1, such as instruments and technologies contribute to this objective? The idea of a direct experience of an object is not completely outdated. Still, it is becoming rare: communication is mediated by smartphones and apps, and instruments and computer simulations mediate scientific discoveries. Instead of visiting a museum, we can browse through its online collection. Hence, by designing the methodologies and technologies that mediate experience we are shaping the experience itself. The article introduces Charles S. Peirce’s concept of experience to discuss the structure of technological mediation of experience and the potential for artificial experience. It reflects on how digital technologies contribute to the development of new experiences to allow for new or deeper knowledge of our world.
Copyright (c) 2026 Stephanie Schneider https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Could a theory of aesthetic sense-making help move domain-general theories of evolution beyond mere Darwinian assumptions? To show how this could work, I apply C. S. Peirce’s approach to analogy as active-inference and his triadic theory of evolution to an original language development case study involving novel paradigm formation over a six-week period by a child aged 1;07–1;09 in the domain of free play focused on a set of blocks. In referring to the blocks, the child produces creative lexical blends involving abstractions drawn from shape, colour, and food-based iconicities. In the process, evidence for three interacting (irreducible but interdependent) modes of language evolution emerge that are arguably domain-general: analogy, automation, and diagrammatization (previously defined in Pelkey 2013, 2015, 2019). The bridging connections in question require a process-oriented semiotic perspective grounded in the experiential, or tonal, relations of iconicity. The argument helps clarify the aesthetic nature of analogy by highlighting distinctions between analogic agency, automated processing, and diagrammatic process in ways that are germane for evolutionary theory in general, to better clarify the relationship between aesthetics as semiotic fitting (Kull 2022) and diagrammatization as semiotic evolution.
Copyright (c) 2026 Jamin Pelkey https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Sonic (and Other) Environments as the Mirror of Society (and as the Challenge for Artistic Testimony)
The main topics of the paper are the (non)ecological dimensions of sonic and other environments in contemporary world reflecting the “suchness” and quality of certain cultures and society of global transcapitalism in its late phase of digitalisation, and devastation as well. Various social discursive and nondiscursive practices of this civilization influence very deeply our ways of living in many important dimensions—spiritual, moral, ecological, economic, political, and way of communication among others, which is mirrored in different sonic (and other) environments we are situated. The author refers to the special works of arts, kind of new musical discourses appropriating field recordings of unique environments, sonic sculptures, or intermedia installations in social-critical contexts as the testimonies of such artists as Bob Ostertag (USA), Peter Machajdík, Jonáš Gruska (both SK), among others.
Copyright (c) 2026 Július Fujak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Tracking Cognitive and Emotional Functions with fNIRS and Existential Graphs. A Study in Progress.
The main objective of the study is to assess the effectiveness of fNIRs in monitoring cognitive and emotional responses during a logical game activity. Additionally, the study explores the use of Existential Graphs as a tool for observing brain cognitive responses during problem-solving tasks. Through the fNIR device, the study measures oxygenation and deoxygenation levels in the frontal lobe while participants engage in cognitive activities such as attention, information processing, decision-making, and future planning. While the focus is on Existential Graphs, the study incorporates the block and puzzle game Tetris as a counter example to validate the findings. For this purpose, our study has for the first time applied Peirce’s Existential Graphs as a practical cognitive model to observe real time problem solving processing of the frontal lobe; the study is also the first to use fNIRs to study the brain activity while processing existential graphs.
Copyright (c) 2026 Elize Bisanz, Brianna Sanchez, Umar Mohammed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In the last two years, our culture and our everyday lives have literally been invaded by the use of new technological systems based on the operation of artificial intelligence. In a very short time, we have seen the development of new platforms capable of generating images or texts autonomously, following only instructions - input - of a few words. From this thought comes our question. What would happen if we asked such a system to produce something using a metaphor as input? The metaphor was chosen because, according to important semiotic and linguistic theories (Eco, Lakoff & Johnson), it is one of the foundational elements of human thought. As we will see, generative artificial intelligence systems exhibit different behaviors when faced with metaphorical inputs. In this article, we will attempt to explore these behaviors and the variables that trigger them through various approaches.
Copyright (c) 2026 Margaux Cerutti, Mateusz Miroslaw Lis, Piero Polidoro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Can an image not signify? This paper explores two cases: self-referential images and mythological images. While Winfred Nöth defends the universality of semiotics against a potential paradox, this paper argues that subjection to semiotic logic can distort the understanding of domains such as myth. Mythological images do not adhere to formal logic and lack distinct signifiers and signified. By studying myth from within, without attempting to interpret it through external frameworks, the unique asemiotic nature of the identity between subject and object is revealed.
Copyright (c) 2026 Daniyar Sabitov https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
When Roman Jakobson, based on his exploration of the problem of aphasia, distinguishes two aspects that characterize language – metaphoricity and metonymy – he touches on an important issue that will become a central theme for some of his followers. This question is the materiality of language. From the point of view of the aphatic himself, metaphoricity and metonymy express two extreme ways of relating to the material of language. A productive elaboration of this thesis in the history of semiotics has been provided by Julia Kristeva, who radicalizes Jakobson's conclusions by working with the fundamental concepts of Freudian psychoanalysis. In the paper, I will compare Kristeva's approach to that of Jacques Lacan and attempt to reconstruct the theoretical assumptions that allow Kristeva to ascribe to metaphor a privileged role that consists of the constant opening of the sphere of the sign towards the corporeality of the subject. To illustrate some important aspects, I will turn to Vítězslav Nezval's novella Sexual Nocturne, where the connection between language and corporeality plays a central role.
This article presents an interpretation of some functions performed by ekphrastic structures in the context of Ancient fictional narrative prose. Concrete examples are taken from two Ancient Greek novels: Daphnis and Chloe by Longus and Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius. Using Olga Freidenberg’s conceptual and interpretative apparatus as a lens for reading the textual material, the central claim of the article is that within Ancient prose narrative, ekphrasis and metaphor are functionally interrelated, with ekphrasis serving to metaphorically embed narrative content within the mythological, affective, and genre-related fields of the textual production of meaning. At the same time, while adopting Freidenberg’s definition of metaphor as a primal state of cognitive indistinction between image and concept, the article attempts to go beyond her mythological interpretation of the Ancient novel and to provide a more socially and historically relevant understanding of the semantic features of this genre.
Copyright (c) 2025 Bogdana Paskaleva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
I adopt Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as a cognitive linguistic concept in a zoosemiotic framework to study behavioral polymorphic deception in Thaumoctopus Mimicus. This offers new analytical tools to zoosemiotics and may inform and underpin CMT from an evolutionary standpoint. The lack of studies on metaphorical thought in non-human animals, despite urgent calls for more diverse multimodal examples exbodying cross-domain mappings, reveals a strong anthropocentric bias in cognitive linguistics. A comprehensive theory of language, however, should be consistent from a diachronic and phylogenetic angle. The paper addresses how and for what metaphor, as an embodied cognitive phenomenon, may have emerged evolutionarily. It is posited that metaphor could have been present in animals before it became engrained in verbal language. This possibility is particularly relevant if we consider that lexical knowledge is not a prerequisite for metaphoric meaning-making, as the basic claim of CMT. I discuss that findings indicating embodied metaphoric processes in animals provide substantiation for cross-domain mappings as residing in cognitive systems.
Metaphor as Pre-lexical Mental Phenomenon
Cognitive Semiotic Account of Behavioral Mimicry
Cognitive Cross-domain Mappings in Non-human Cognition
Phenomenology of the Mimetic Octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus)
Cross-fertilization of Cognitive Linguistics and Zoosemiotics
Mappings and Exploitation of Similar Body Qualities
Copyright (c) 2025 Chiara Schumann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Tartu holds a special place in the history and education of semiotics and draws students from around the world. Semiotics is a learnt way of thinking and being, and so an induction into the field for international graduate students in Tartu is inseparable from its lived experience. This paper describes an account of living semiotics as a foreigner in Tartu, through its application to a personal field of interest, i.e. local underground nightlife and electronic dance music cultures. Besides offering strands of an analytical conception of nightlife and dance music cultures, this paper also reflects on students’ extracurricular commitments in this field to a cultural and artistic practice of applied semiotics.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rahul Murdeshwar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This article addresses the challenges of defining life by combining insights from biological and semi-otic perspectives. It explores the lexicographic complexity of defining life, analysing how definitions vary across scientific and philosophical contexts and how these definitions are shaped by cultural and ideological influences. The study highlights the importance of semiosis as a fundamental characteristic of living organisms, positioning biosemiotics as a fundamental framework for understanding life beyond mechanistic models, but also semiotics as a tool for unravelling scientific narratives. Historical and contemporary intentions to define the minimum threshold of complexity for life, highlighting how these efforts have evolved over time and their implications for modern biology. By examining different perspectives on the phenomenon of life and its intermediate forms, the article offers a critical and interdisciplinary approach to understanding life as a semiotic and interpretive process. The fact that an everyday concept of life is richer than the biologic concept of life (in the sense of a greater semantic flexibility and its encompassing character of embracing normative, emotional, sacred, and other aspects of life) may lead us to pose a contra-factual question: Could other notions of life have become basic for biology had it not been developed in the shadow of a hegemony of a mechanicist ideal of science during the 19th and 20th centuries; i.e., could life have become conceived of as something different from merely complex organizations of material particles and their energetic relations? (Emmeche 1998: 4)
Biosemiotics; Complexity; Life; Threshold
Copyright (c) 2026 Nicola Zengiaro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Construction and Reconstruction of the Language System
This study loosely follows on the brilliant condensed interpretations of Jan Kořenský on the status of speech (in the sense of parole) and its assumptions (in the sense of langue) from the position of subject-object noetics. The author focuses on the question of what real language is. He is concerned with whether langue is only a social reality (exists only in social interactions) or also a cognitive reality (exists in some way in the cognition of the communicators). In his interpretation of langue, it appears as a rational language system, against which he sets a practical language system with the question of what reality these systems represent. He is reluctant to accept the view that langue is somehow present in a practical linguistic system. He takes the position that while a rational language system is only a reality constructed by the mind (a construct), a practical language system is a reality that arose from the gradual coordination of communicative activities of social subjects, which introduced flexible and stable practical rules without having to create a system in the sense of langue, functioning as a presuppositional basis of speech. He illuminates these systems from the point of view of the basic question of the theory of knowledge connected with the understanding of truth, and he points out their practical usefulness. He starts from the thesis that man is a construction-reconstruction being, and aims to support the rehabilitation of correspondence truth.
Copyright (c) 2026 Juraj Dolník https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Foreword: The Legacy of Professor Jan Kořenský and Contemporary Horizons of Linguistics
Copyright (c) 2026 Lenka Pivoňková, Ľudmila Lacková Bennett https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Scientific Metaphor and its Noetic Ambivalence
In this paper we revisit the inspiration of J. Kořenský’s work on the problem of metaphor in scientific reflection on language. For us, the notion of noetic instrumentalisation of metaphor is the main concept by which the author captures that metaphor is an essential tool for interpreting, representing and modelling the processes of linguistic activity. We find Kořenský’s analysis of the noetic instrumentalisation of game inspiring, pointing out that the same metaphorical concept allows, on the one hand, for unifying interpretations of language, but also for interpretations that are in an ambivalent or even polemical relationship. In our study, we analyse the noetic ambivalence of the metaphor of fabric, which functions as a means of interpreting language/speech in two conflicting methodological lines: on the one hand, in a structural linguistic methodological framework, where it harmonises with the instrumentalist approach to language; on the other hand, in a social interactionist framework, where the conceptualisation of speech activity as fabric is used to explain the socially practical linguistic reality of language. The aim of the analysis is to answer the question of what lies behind the noetic ambivalence of this metaphor. To explain this, we draw on J. Dolník’s (2014) reflections on the role of autonomisation in interpreting, and distinguish between the resultative and emergent nature of the metaphorical base in scientific interpretation using metaphor.
Copyright (c) 2026 Alena Bohunická, Oľga Orgoňová https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The article „A Tribute to Jan Kořenský“ by Oldřich Uličný nostalgically reflects on the academic and personal life of Jan Kořenský, a significant Czech linguist, and their studies at the then Pedagogical University in Olomouc. The author recalls his first meeting with Kořenský in 1955, their studies, and cultural activities, as well as notable professors and the scientific growth at the Institute of the Czech Language in Prague. The article also documents their shared period during a turbulent time in Czech history, including normalization and political pressures that influenced their lives. Uličný highlights Kořenský‘s contributions to Czech linguistics, especially in semantics, pragmatics, and communication theory of language, concluding that his legacy and influence are evident in the work and enthusiasm of many generations of students. This remembrance draws from personal experiences and reveals the impact that their shared historical and academic journey may have had on the Czech linguistic community.
Copyright (c) 2026 Oldřich Uličný https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Artificial Intelligence: Medium or Subject?
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the publication of the article “Theory of new media and the transformation of a medium into a subject?” by Jan Kořenský, one of the most influential Czech linguists, it is important to evaluate his influence and visionary ideas that remain relevant even today. In his 2014 article, Kořenský predicted fundamental changes caused by technological progress, where new communication technologies change their role from mere means to acting entities with profound impacts on society. When he made these predictions, ocial networks such as Facebook and Instagram were examples of technologies affecting interpersonal relationships and the identity of users. Today, a decade later, the debate is shifting to artificial intelligence, raising questions about the future of work and the role of humanity. This article not only reflects Kořensky’s analysis of technological change, but also explores the current concerns and potential impacts of AI on society, science, and ethics. Kořenský’s theories remain an inspiration not only for linguists, but also for the general public dealing with the influence of technology on our reality.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ľudmila Lacková Bennett https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Library of Professor Kořenský as a Memorial and Source of Inspiration for Future Generations of Linguists
Professor Kořenský was a prominent personality of Czech linguistics, whose extensive research work covered many areas, including grammar, semantics, discourse analysis, communication process, morphology and others. His work significantly influenced the development of linguistics as a discipline in the Czech Republic. The Library of Professor Kořenský, dedicated to his legacy, is an expression of respect to his personality and scientific work, but it is also a source of inspiration and knowledge for future generations of linguists. It consists of two complementary parts: a physical library and an online library. The physical library is located at the Department of General Linguistics of Palacký University in Olomouc and is open to the public. It provides access to the collection of publications by Professor Kořenský and other related publications. The online library contains a catalogue of publications available in the physical library, contact information, a selection of Professor Kořenský‘s articles and other information and links to resources about his life and scientific contributions. The library was founded in 2023 through the collective efforts of students and academics, with the fundamental mission to preserve Professor Kořenský‘s work and make it accessible to current and future generations of linguists. It is a valuable resource for students, academics and anyone interested in linguistics. The library provides access to a comprehensive collection of materials documenting Professor Kořenský‘s scholarly work.
Copyright (c) 2026 Karel Čapka, Klára Venglařová https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Dynamical Systems in the Work of Jan Kořenský
In the linguistic work of Jan Kořenský we find methodological inspiration from the theory of dynamical systems. The aim of this paper is to trace this inspiration in Kořenskýʼs key texts and to relate this conceptual borrowing to the time-specific (in the Czech environment, especially in the 1990s) interdisciplinary links between the humanities and the natural sciences. The text recalls Kořenskýʼs hypothesis about the relationship between order and chaos and the transformation of this central conceptual pair in the course of the development of the sciences at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. (přeloženo pomocí DeepL)
Copyright (c) 2026 Lukáš Zámečník https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Jan Kořenský as a Proponent of Linguistic Pragmatics in Czechoslovak Linguistics
In the work of Jan Kořenský, pragmatic topics were mentioned as early as in 1970s, first without being termed explicitly. In the most extensive and elaborated version, Kořenský presented his concept of relations among semantics, grammar and pragmatics in the 1984 book Konstrukce gramatiky ze sémantické báze (Construing grammar on the basis of semantics). In the book, a pragmatic component (pragmatic dimension) is included in the model of grammar as a factor pertaining to the functional properties of lexical and grammatical variables. Also, Kořenský introduced an original approach towards pragmatic interpretation of utterances (semantics of “being said“) which can be considered an inspiration for the concept of logophoricity in discourse (a phenomenon broader than the traditional notion of “reported speech“).
Copyright (c) 2026 Milada Hirschová https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Sound sculptures can serve as resonant mediums of remembrance, reawakening historical soundscapes and evoking memories through the use of sound. In this way, they enable a sensory connection to the past. This paper explores how sound functions as a semiotic resource, interacting with other modalities within sound sculptures and the contexts in which they are placed. It examines how memory can be accessed through the sense of hearing and investigates cases where sound memorializes historical events. I draw on a social semiotic approach, particularly Günter Kress’ theory of multimodality, considering sound sculptures as multimodal texts and multisensory objects. Complementing this, I employ sound theory and acoustic ecology studies, primarily the works of Raymond Murray Schafer, which provide a language for describing the sound modality within sound sculptures. To ground this exploration, I analyze sonic objects and sonic events in the sound sculptures by artists Bill Fontana, Markus Kison, and Nikita Kadan through the lenses of the acoustic ecology framework. These works exemplify how sound can operate as both a symbol and a mnemonic trigger, how its sensory and emotional dimensions contribute to memory-making processes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mariia Korniietska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0