Prepositions used with adjectives in English essays written by Czech secondary school students

This article focuses on the frequency and accuracy of dependent prepositions which complement the adjectives in CZEMATELC 2017, a corpus consisting of 390 essays from the written part of the national school-leaving exam leading to certification of secondary education in the Czech Republic. The research findings reveal that the learners used adjectives from A1 to B2 level, according to the CEFR. A limited number of A1 adjective lemmas was considerably overused, but showed the lowest proportion of dependent prepositional complementation. As learners tended not to complement the adjectives at A2–B2 proficiency levels either, adjective-preposition collocations frequently co-occurring in native speaker corpora were identified for further remedial work. In addition, corpus-based discovery-learning was proposed as a solution because it encourages awareness and gradually leads to learner autonomy

Request strategies and modification devices as performed by Czech EFL learners: A focus on borrowing objects

This study presents an analysis of informal written requests from the national school-leaving exam and simulated spoken requests collected via Written Discourse Completion Task (WDCT) to describe pragmalinguistic features used by Czech EFL learners in requests for borrowing objects. In both types of data, the findings reveal strong preference for conventionally indirect strategies and external modification, but considerable underuse of softeners within head acts. The written requests show significant reiteration with a great deal of modification devices outside head acts and a higher proportion of face-threatening features, such as expectations and direct strategies realized by want statements and imperatives. The WDCT requests tend to employ more face-saving strategies but show less variability in request realization. Consequently, awareness raising activities, helping Czech EFL learners fully understand the face-threatening nature of requests, as well as explicit metapragmatic treatment, focusing on strategic use of requests constituents, are recommended

Patterns and Variation in English Language Discourse

The publication is reviewed post-conference proceedings from the international 9th Brno Conference on Linguistics Studies in English, held on 16–17 September 2021 and organised by the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University in Brno. The papers revolve around the themes of patterns and variation in specialised discourses (namely the media, academic, business, tourism, educational and learner discourses), effective interaction between the addressor and addressees and the current trends and development in specialised discourses. The principal methodological perspectives are the comparative approach involving discourses in English and another language, critical and corpus analysis, as well as identification of pragmatic strategies and appropriate rhetorical means. The authors of papers are researchers from the Czech Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, Serbia and Georgia

Functional Plurality of Language in Contextualised Discourse

The volume presents eleven articles written by participants of the Eighth Brno Conference on Linguistics Studies in English held in September 2019. The papers (including two plenary speeches delivered by Prof. Julia Hüttner from University of Vienna, and Assoc. Prof. Markéta Malá from Charles University, Prague) offer a range of linguistic topics, covering media discourse, learner discourse (e.g. CLIL), literary genre, language of advertising, and the interdisciplinary approach to language and international relations, to name just a few

Punning Wordplay in Czech Advertising Discourse

This account of punning wordplay in Czech advertising discourse draws on the recent popularity of pun and the research, for which the theory of lexical priming provides lexico-grammatical framework. The corpus-based evidence of combinatorial behaviour of linguistic features, and the processes behind reinterpretations and sense selections aid an analysis of the reasons why many pun attempts failed to achieve the desired effect, and at the same time explain which features are successful in generating amusement in Czech puns. The processes of relexicalisation and reworking were observed in a considerable number of instances in older and more recent advertising puns, the sources of ambiguity identified, and puns were compared, contrasted and classified. At the same time a shift from reliance on one ambiguous feature to employing multiple psycholinguistic phenomena and their combinations has been identified.Este artículo trata de los juegos de palabras en el lenguaje de publicidades checas. Se apoya en la reciente popularidad de los juegos de palabras y la investigación lingüística para las que la nueva teoría de “lexical priming” proporciona un marco léxico-gramatical. Las evidencias del comportamiento combinatorio de los rasgos lingüísticos y los procesos que subyacen la reinterpretación y selección de significado desempeña un papel importante en el análisis de las razones por las que muchos juegos de palabras no logran el deseado efecto de causar diversión al oír o leerlos, y además, muestra los rasgos que sí lo logran. Los procesos de relexicalización y modificaciones del significado se observaron en muchos ejemplos de juegos de palabras en las publicidades del pasado y las más recientes. Fueron identificadas las fuentes de ambigüedad, y los juegos de palabra fueron comparados, confrontados y clasificados en categorías. Al mismo tiempo fue desvelada la transición desde la dependencia del juego de palabra de la ambigüedad de un fenómeno al uso de múltiples fenómenos psicolingüísticos y sus combinaciones

Punning Wordplay in Czech Advertising Discourse

This account of punning wordplay in Czech advertising discourse draws on the recent popularity of pun and the research, for which the theory of lexical priming provides lexico-grammatical framework. The corpus-based evidence of combinatorial behaviour of linguistic features, and the processes behind reinterpretations and sense selections aid an analysis of the reasons why many pun attempts failed to achieve the desired effect, and at the same time explain which features are successful in generating amusement in Czech puns. The processes of relexicalisation and reworking were observed in a considerable number of instances in older and more recent advertising puns, the sources of ambiguity identified, and puns were compared, contrasted and classified. At the same time a shift from reliance on one ambiguous feature to employing multiple psycholinguistic phenomena and their combinations has been identified

Regulation of Microtubule Nucleation in Mouse Bone Marrow-Derived Mast Cells by Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase SHP-1

The antigen-mediated activation of mast cells initiates signaling events leading to their degranulation, to the release of inflammatory mediators, and to the synthesis of cytokines and chemokines. Although rapid and transient microtubule reorganization during activation has been described, the molecular mechanisms that control their rearrangement are largely unknown. Microtubule nucleation is mediated by γ-tubulin complexes. In this study, we report on the regulation of microtubule nucleation in bone marrow-derived mast cells (BMMCs) by Src homology 2 (SH2) domain-containing protein tyrosine phosphatase 1 (SHP-1; Ptpn6). Reciprocal immunoprecipitation experiments and pull-down assays revealed that SHP-1 is present in complexes containing γ-tubulin complex proteins and protein tyrosine kinase Syk. Microtubule regrowth experiments in cells with deleted SHP-1 showed a stimulation of microtubule nucleation, and phenotypic rescue experiments confirmed that SHP-1 represents a negative regulator of microtubule nucleation in BMMCs. Moreover, the inhibition of the SHP-1 activity by inhibitors TPI-1 and NSC87877 also augmented microtubule nucleation. The regulation was due to changes in γ-tubulin accumulation. Further experiments with antigen-activated cells showed that the deletion of SHP-1 stimulated the generation of microtubule protrusions, the activity of Syk kinase, and degranulation. Our data suggest a novel mechanism for the suppression of microtubule formation in the later stages of mast cell activation

DataSheet_3_Regulation of microtubule nucleation in mouse bone marrow-derived mast cells by ARF GTPase-activating protein GIT2.zip

Aggregation of high-affinity IgE receptors (FcϵRIs) on granulated mast cells triggers signaling pathways leading to a calcium response and release of inflammatory mediators from secretory granules. While microtubules play a role in the degranulation process, the complex molecular mechanisms regulating microtubule remodeling in activated mast cells are only partially understood. Here, we demonstrate that the activation of bone marrow mast cells induced by FcϵRI aggregation increases centrosomal microtubule nucleation, with G protein-coupled receptor kinase-interacting protein 2 (GIT2) playing a vital role in this process. Both endogenous and exogenous GIT2 were associated with centrosomes and γ-tubulin complex proteins. Depletion of GIT2 enhanced centrosomal microtubule nucleation, and phenotypic rescue experiments revealed that GIT2, unlike GIT1, acts as a negative regulator of microtubule nucleation in mast cells. GIT2 also participated in the regulation of antigen-induced degranulation and chemotaxis. Further experiments showed that phosphorylation affected the centrosomal localization of GIT2 and that during antigen-induced activation, GIT2 was phosphorylated by conventional protein kinase C, which promoted microtubule nucleation. We propose that GIT2 is a novel regulator of microtubule organization in activated mast cells by modulating centrosomal microtubule nucleation.</p

DataSheet_2_Regulation of microtubule nucleation in mouse bone marrow-derived mast cells by ARF GTPase-activating protein GIT2.zip

Aggregation of high-affinity IgE receptors (FcϵRIs) on granulated mast cells triggers signaling pathways leading to a calcium response and release of inflammatory mediators from secretory granules. While microtubules play a role in the degranulation process, the complex molecular mechanisms regulating microtubule remodeling in activated mast cells are only partially understood. Here, we demonstrate that the activation of bone marrow mast cells induced by FcϵRI aggregation increases centrosomal microtubule nucleation, with G protein-coupled receptor kinase-interacting protein 2 (GIT2) playing a vital role in this process. Both endogenous and exogenous GIT2 were associated with centrosomes and γ-tubulin complex proteins. Depletion of GIT2 enhanced centrosomal microtubule nucleation, and phenotypic rescue experiments revealed that GIT2, unlike GIT1, acts as a negative regulator of microtubule nucleation in mast cells. GIT2 also participated in the regulation of antigen-induced degranulation and chemotaxis. Further experiments showed that phosphorylation affected the centrosomal localization of GIT2 and that during antigen-induced activation, GIT2 was phosphorylated by conventional protein kinase C, which promoted microtubule nucleation. We propose that GIT2 is a novel regulator of microtubule organization in activated mast cells by modulating centrosomal microtubule nucleation.</p

DataSheet_1_Regulation of microtubule nucleation in mouse bone marrow-derived mast cells by ARF GTPase-activating protein GIT2.zip

Aggregation of high-affinity IgE receptors (FcϵRIs) on granulated mast cells triggers signaling pathways leading to a calcium response and release of inflammatory mediators from secretory granules. While microtubules play a role in the degranulation process, the complex molecular mechanisms regulating microtubule remodeling in activated mast cells are only partially understood. Here, we demonstrate that the activation of bone marrow mast cells induced by FcϵRI aggregation increases centrosomal microtubule nucleation, with G protein-coupled receptor kinase-interacting protein 2 (GIT2) playing a vital role in this process. Both endogenous and exogenous GIT2 were associated with centrosomes and γ-tubulin complex proteins. Depletion of GIT2 enhanced centrosomal microtubule nucleation, and phenotypic rescue experiments revealed that GIT2, unlike GIT1, acts as a negative regulator of microtubule nucleation in mast cells. GIT2 also participated in the regulation of antigen-induced degranulation and chemotaxis. Further experiments showed that phosphorylation affected the centrosomal localization of GIT2 and that during antigen-induced activation, GIT2 was phosphorylated by conventional protein kinase C, which promoted microtubule nucleation. We propose that GIT2 is a novel regulator of microtubule organization in activated mast cells by modulating centrosomal microtubule nucleation.</p