Bachelor's Diploma Thesis Assessment Report Thesis Title:
Field of Study Author:
A Comparative Study of English and Czech Idioms English Language and Literature
Olga Žižkova
PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, Csc.
Mgr. Ondřej Padalík Supervisor:
Reviewer:
Reviewer's recommendation for overall mark:
A - Excellent
The overall mark is based in part on the following assessments:
1. Evaluation of central idea, thesis, focus and purpose:
B - Very Good
2. Evaluation of organization, logic and arrangement:
A - Excellent
3. Evaluation of topic development, support and evidence:
A - Excellent
4. Evaluation of language, style, standard usage, citation and bibliographic standards:
B - Very Good
Comments, and topics and questions for the defence:
The bachelor thesis A Comparative Study of English and Czech Idioms is depicting differences in figurative speech between English and Czech language. It is obvious from the title that the author has chosen to demonstrate them predominantly on idiomatic expressions which are rather thoroughly examined during the thesis development. Almost 300 hundred idioms are used for analytic purposes of the work.
The thesis is divided in two basic sections - theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part is well- structured and logically organized. The author accurately analyses the selected topic and provides the reader with all the information that is necessary to fully understand the procedures made in the practical part. In addition, the aim of the thesis is presented precisely and clearly which forms the logical basis for the following practical analysis. What the reader might miss is a more profound division of idioms, as they should be the main focus of the thesis, though they are discussed rather briefly.
Version 2.3, 25 May 2010
The practical part includes mainly the comparisons of the chosen figurative expressions which are divided into several categories according to the degree of correspondence among the individual expressions. The author analyses idioms not only from the semantic perspective, but she also provides a syntactic comparison which should confirm the nominal tendency in English. The practical body benefits from the logical sequencing provided by the author in the previous sections on which the analyses are based. However, it should be mentioned that the division of idiomatic expressions can be regarded as arguable in several cases, as for instance the expression like "a cat on hot brick/hot tin roof" is given to the category of "partial correspondence" though the Czech equivalent is 'byt/sedet jako na zhavem/reravem uhli". In addition, the expression "like a hot knife through butter/margarine: with its Czech equivalent "jde to jako po masle" is presented as an example of non-correspondence. However, this occurs to be the only arguable point in the practical part.
To come to a conclusion, the author has shown that she is able to deal with the selected topic, since the aim of the thesis set in the introduction has been fulfilled. Moreover, she is able to express her ideas and thoughts in a rather cultivated academic style. The work benefits from the large amount of idiomatic expressions presented which can be regarded as a representative sample when comparing figurative items between two different languages. The author has also proven that she is able to logically analyze the entire problematic which is reflected in the logical development of the thesis.
Thus the recommendation for overall mark is A.
Questions for the defence:
1. Would it be possible to provide another divison of idiomatic expressions distict from the one used in the thesis and what were the reasons for chosing the division given by Cowie?
2. Why do you think that expressions like "a cat on hot brick/hot tin roof" belong to the category of partial correspondence while the expresion "like a hot knife through butter/margarine falls into the catogory of non-correspondence?
Brno, 3 June 2010
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