Words like yeah, okay and (al)right are fairly unspecific in their lexical semantics, and not least for this reason there is a general tendency for them to occur with highly varied and expressive prosodic patterns across languages. Here we examine in depth the prosodic forms that express eight pragmatic functions of the Czech discourse marker jasně, including resignation, reassurance, surprise, indifference or impatience. Using a collection of 172 tokens from a corpus of scripted dialogues by 30 native speakers, we performed acoustic analyses, applied classification algorithms and solicited judgments from native listeners in a perceptual experiment. There appeared to be multi-parametric differences between jasně realizations in terms of their F0, timing and intensity patterns, which gave rise to generally consistent form-function mappings. For example, resignation seems to be realized with a falling intonation contour, relatively slow tempo, long wordinitial consonant and a short word-final vowel. Although the most significant prosodic parameters used for clustering analysis involved segment durations, all pragmatic functions were expressed by patterns of multiple features.

• MeSH
• akustika řeči * MeSH
• fonace fyziologie   MeSH
• jazyk (prostředek komunikace) * MeSH
• komunikace MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• percepce řeči fyziologie   MeSH
• sémantika * MeSH
• verbální chování fyziologie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Česká republika MeSH

To bridge the social-reasoning focus of developmental research on irony understanding and the pragmatic focus of research with adult populations, this cross-sectional study examines 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds' (n = 72) developing understanding of both social-cognitive and social-communicative aspects of discourse irony, when compared with adults (n = 24). Although 5-year-olds lag behind the other age groups in their reasoning about the speaker's meaning, belief, intention, and motivation, adults are consistently superior to children of all ages on these social-cognitive measures. In contrast, limited age-related differences were found in participants' judgment of the social-communicative function of irony (how nice, mean, and funny irony is). The findings help to reconcile previous discrepant claims as to the age when children come to understand irony.

• MeSH
• dítě MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• komunikace MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• percepce řeči * MeSH
• pochopení * MeSH
• podněty MeSH
• předškolní dítě MeSH
• psycholingvistika MeSH
• sémantika * MeSH
• socializace * MeSH
• teorie osobního konstruktu * MeSH
• věkové faktory MeSH
• verbální chování * MeSH
• vtip a humor jako téma * MeSH
• vývoj řeči * MeSH
• Check Tag
• dítě MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• předškolní dítě MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

Embodied cognition research on Parkinson's disease (PD) points to disruptions of frontostriatal language functions as sensitive targets for clinical assessment. However, no existing approach has been tested for crosslinguistic validity, let alone by combining naturalistic tasks with machine-learning tools. To address these issues, we conducted the first classifier-based examination of morphological processing (a core frontostriatal function) in spontaneous monologues from PD patients across three typologically different languages. The study comprised 330 participants, encompassing speakers of Spanish (61 patients, 57 matched controls), German (88 patients, 88 matched controls), and Czech (20 patients, 16 matched controls). All subjects described the activities they perform during a regular day, and their monologues were automatically coded via morphological tagging, a computerized method that labels each word with a part-of-speech tag (e.g., noun, verb) and specific morphological tags (e.g., person, gender, number, tense). The ensuing data were subjected to machine-learning analyses to assess whether differential morphological patterns could classify between patients and controls and reflect the former's degree of motor impairment. Results showed robust classification rates, with over 80% of patients being discriminated from controls in each language separately. Moreover, the most discriminative morphological features were associated with the patients' motor compromise (as indicated by Pearson r correlations between predicted and collected motor impairment scores that ranged from moderate to moderate-to-strong across languages). Taken together, our results suggest that morphological patterning, an embodied frontostriatal domain, may be distinctively affected in PD across languages and even under ecological testing conditions.

• Klíčová slova
• Automated speech analysis, Cross-linguistic validity, Linguistic assessments, Morphology, Parkinson's disease,
• MeSH
• jazyk (prostředek komunikace) * MeSH
• kognice MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• Parkinsonova nemoc * MeSH
• řeč MeSH
• strojové učení MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

BACKGROUND: Impairment of higher language functions associated with natural spontaneous speech in multiple sclerosis (MS) remains underexplored. OBJECTIVES: We presented a fully automated method for discriminating MS patients from healthy controls based on lexical and syntactic linguistic features. METHODS: We enrolled 120 MS individuals with Expanded Disability Status Scale ranging from 1 to 6.5 and 120 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls. Linguistic analysis was performed with fully automated methods based on automatic speech recognition and natural language processing techniques using eight lexical and syntactic features acquired from the spontaneous discourse. Fully automated annotations were compared with human annotations. RESULTS: Compared with healthy controls, lexical impairment in MS consisted of an increase in content words (p = 0.037), a decrease in function words (p = 0.007), and overuse of verbs at the expense of noun (p = 0.047), while syntactic impairment manifested as shorter utterance length (p = 0.002), and low number of coordinate clause (p < 0.001). A fully automated language analysis approach enabled discrimination between MS and controls with an area under the curve of 0.70. A significant relationship was detected between shorter utterance length and lower symbol digit modalities test score (r = 0.25, p = 0.008). Strong associations between a majority of automatically and manually computed features were observed (r > 0.88, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Automated discourse analysis has the potential to provide an easy-to-implement and low-cost language-based biomarker of cognitive decline in MS for future clinical trials.

• Klíčová slova
• automated linguistic analysis, language, multiple sclerosis, nature language processing, spontaneous discourse,
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH

The UK government instruction to stay at home exemplifies how governments do things by saying things in a crisis. The force of the government slogan was amplified by its intertextual circulation in wider public discourse to produce an alignment between the duty of government to protect citizens, the spiritual mission of the Church and the public information role of the press. By analysing the rhetorical and sequential structure of promotional discourse with recourse to speech act, narrative and routine theory, we show how its authors concurrently use cognitive and empathetic interpellations to induce subjectivation, configuring pending accounts which not only involve recipients in scripts for restoring order (if … then … programming constructions) but also implicate them in restorative storylines (just as there and then … so here and now … mimetic constructions). The result is to overlay on the official inducement new voices of hope, conditioned by participation in a collaborative community, naturalising compliance.

• Klíčová slova
• Coronavirus pandemic, Inducement to action, Interpellation, Pending account, Promotional discourse, Speech act,
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH

While much of the sociological scholarship on intimacy has been understood in the normative sense of foregrounding and supporting human closeness, this article points to the role intimacy has as a sociological concept to better understand regulatory ties between the subject and the institution. While subject and institution are treated by modernity as distinct entities, separated by the boundary between private and the public, the article elucidates their mutual engagements by reviewing the work on intimacy in the sociology of emotions. Discussing the scholarship on intimacy from this perspective enables us to understand private suffering as a social problem linked to the collective recognition of subjective feelings. To illustrate the point, the article briefly reflects the public discourse on home upended by world-wide stay-at-home orders to contain the spread of coronavirus disease 2019. While this article neither analyzes these orders, nor judges their legitimacy, it takes the particular situation as a chance to review the sociological discussion on the emotional boundaries of home, foregrounding the concept of intimacy. Intimacy is presented as a key sociological category for understanding collective recognition of people's emotions, which impacts the way emotions are seen as relevant and legitimate in public discussions of social problems.

• Klíčová slova
• COVID‐19 pandemic, discourse, emotions, feminism, gender, home, intimacy, power,
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH

OBJECTIVES: This research explores how the representations and meanings of living with dementia are constructed by older adults. METHODS: Focus groups (N = 19) and in-depth interviews (N = 29) were conducted with older adults aged 65+ living in the Czech Republic, representing different levels of personal familiarity with care for an individual experiencing dementia. RESULTS: We identified 2 different discourses: (1) Tragedy discourse with two distinctive repertoires "dementia as a thief of personality" and "dementia as a thief of humanity." Within such discourse, dementia transcends mere medical terminology, serving as a symbolic representation of existential anxieties linked to aging and the perceived loss of control. (2) The discourse of Dementia as a specific way in which people approach the world was articulated mainly by caregivers, providing them with a coping mechanism and a means to reconstruct the agency of the person experiencing dementia. In older adults' representations, references to suffering among family members emerged as a primary association with dementia. Dementia was portrayed as "contagious" in its effect on the family members who were, in a sense, depicted as the primary sufferers of the disease. DISCUSSION: Dementia often serves as a symbolic tool for older adults to articulate concerns about advanced old age, extending beyond its clinical definition to convey deep-seated fears associated with aging. The experience of people surrounding those diagnosed with dementia and the permeability of the impacts of this disease between bodies represented crucial frameworks for conceptualizing dementia in the narratives of older adults.

• Klíčová slova
• Dementia worry, Discourse, Fourth age, Language,
• MeSH
• adaptace psychologická MeSH
• Alzheimerova nemoc * psychologie   MeSH
• demence * psychologie   MeSH
• kvalitativní výzkum MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• osoby pečující o pacienty psychologie   MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• zjišťování skupinových postojů MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Česká republika MeSH

Originating in medical and veterinary spheres, the One Health concept stands as an open call for collaboration also between these disciplines or professions and those of environmental and social science. However, the communities of practice in question show uneasy or under-developed collaborations, due to a variety of factors. We argue that an important factor is the way issues are raised and questions are formulated, i.e., their framing. Based on complementary perspectives on health and knowledge, this overview provides an inter- and trans-disciplinary analysis of the role of the framing of « nature » in One Health discourses as a barrier or a facilitator to collaboration, as revealed by the scientific literature. We find that the lack of reflection by scientists about the framing under which they operate appears as a major factor of misunderstanding between disciplines, and a barrier for inter- and trans-disciplinary solutions to improve management of health risks and benefits. Hence, to build such solutions, framing will have to be a conscious and repeated step in the process, acknowledging and explaining the diversity of viewpoints and values. The interdisciplinary dialogues inherent in this process promote translation between scientific domains, policy-makers and citizens, with a critical but pluralistic recourse to various framings of health risks and benefits associated with nature, and a deep awareness of their practical and ethical consequences.

• Klíčová slova
• Decision-making, Discourse, Epistemology, Health risks and benefits, Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, Positional objectivity, Science–policy–society interface,
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH

BACKGROUND: Patients with synucleinopathies frequently display language abnormalities. However, whether patients with isolated rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) have prodromal language impairment remains unknown. OBJECTIVE: We examined whether the linguistic abnormalities in iRBD can serve as potential biomarkers for conversion to synucleinopathy, including the possible effect of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), speaking task, and automation of analysis procedure. METHODS: We enrolled 139 Czech native participants, including 40 iRBD without MCI and 14 iRBD with MCI, compared with 40 PD without MCI, 15 PD with MCI, and 30 healthy control subjects. Spontaneous discourse and story-tale narrative were transcribed and linguistically annotated. A quantitative analysis was performed computing three linguistic features. Human annotations were compared with fully automated annotations. RESULTS: Compared with control subjects, patients with iRBD showed poorer content density, reflecting the reduction of content words and modifiers. Both PD and iRBD subgroups with MCI manifested less occurrence of unique words and a higher number of n-grams repetitions, indicating poorer lexical richness. The spontaneous discourse task demonstrated language impairment in iRBD without MCI with an area under the curve of 0.72, while the story-tale narrative task better reflected the presence of MCI, discriminating both PD and iRBD subgroups with MCI from control subjects with an area under the curve of up to 0.81. A strong correlation between manually and automatically computed results was achieved. CONCLUSIONS: Linguistic features might provide a reliable automated method for detecting cognitive decline caused by prodromal neurodegeneration in subjects with iRBD, providing critical outcomes for future therapeutic trials. © 2022 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

• Klíčová slova
• Parkinson's disease, discourse, lexical features, prodromal synucleinopathy biomarker, spoken language,
• MeSH
• kognitivní dysfunkce * diagnóza   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• lingvistika MeSH
• Parkinsonova nemoc * komplikace   MeSH
• porucha chování v REM spánku * diagnóza   MeSH
• synukleinopatie * MeSH
• vývojové poruchy řeči * MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

Although Covid-19 was not the first pandemic, it was unique in the scale and intensity with which societies responded. Countries reacted differently to the threat posed by the new virus. The public health crisis affected European societies in many ways. It also influenced the way the media portrayed vaccines and discussed factors related to vaccine hesitancy. Europeans differed in their risk perceptions, attitudes towards vaccines and vaccine uptake. In European countries, Covid-19-related discourses were at the centre of media attention for many months. This paper reports on a media analysis which revealed significant differences as well as some similarities in the media debates in different countries. The study focused on seven European countries and considered two dimensions of comparison: between the pre-Covid period and the beginning of the Covid pandemic period, and between countries. The rich methodological approach, including linguistics, semantic field analysis and discourse analysis of mainstream news media, allowed the authors to explore the set of meanings related to vaccination that might influence actors' agency. This approach led the authors to redefine vaccine hesitancy in terms of characteristics of the "society in the situation" rather than the psychological profile of individuals. We argue that vaccine hesitancy can be understood in terms of agency and temporality. This dilemma of choice that transforms the present into an irreversible past and must be taken in relation to an uncertain future, is particularly acute under the pressure of urgency and when someone's health is at stake. As such, it is linked to how vaccine meaning is co-produced within public discourses.

• MeSH
• COVID-19 * epidemiologie   prevence a kontrola   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• nejistota MeSH
• sociální média * MeSH
• vakcinace MeSH
• vakcíny * terapeutické užití   MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Evropa epidemiologie   MeSH
• Názvy látek
• vakcíny * MeSH