Department of Linguistic Communication

Male and female teachers of  this department focus on development of language and communication skills in both,  Slovak and foreign languages in their individual courses. They lead female and male students to decency and active mastery of grammar, stylistics, and professional media terminology. Within the profile courses, the male/female students acquire some theoretical knowledge and practical language skills related to  production of journalistic genres and their visual or verbal interpretation.

Aim of the lessons is that the graduates of the study should be able to master various ways of cultivated production of media expressions at  professional level, in both,  their mother tongue and foreign language. They should also be able to establish criteria of effective professional linguistic behaviour, while applying them in various communicative situations. Last but not least, they should  be able to evaluate and solve some  practical linguistic problems critically. Speaking in front of the camera and microphone,  (discursive) analysis of media communications and products is an important part of teaching. By means of  direct interactions between both, male and female  teachers and students, as well as between  male and female  students mutually, the communication skills of the students are acquired, developed and strengthened, and their linguistic and non-verbal expression is cultivated. Technical means of communication enable the students to learn languages also in the global information and communication space, which creates some additional opportunities for their personality development, linguistic creativity and  ability to communicate.

In their teaching, the male/female teachers of the department extensively combine some linguistic studies with media, marketing or communication studies, use the methods and knowledge of media linguistics, interactive media stylistics and apply various modern methods and techniques in practical exercises, including social networks for teaching and studying.

Male and female  members of the department  are focused interdisciplinary in their research interests, whereby primarily focusing on issues in the areas of communication practices, creation of journalistic genres and use of language in the media. They analyse various phenomena from the aspects of linguistic pragmatics, psycholinguistics, media linguistics, focusing on aspects of communication and media. They also address to various communicative situations from  cultural and semiotic perspective.

Priority research goals of the department include research on the functionality and intentionality of the means of expressions  used in the context of current media discourses,  internationalization of language, analysis of the linguistic identity concerning the  media, political language,  verbal expression of professional actors in the media, including the examination of traditional research topics such as orthography, orthoepy, lexicology, phraseology, grammar, stylistics and language culture. Based on interdisciplinary approaches, they investigate, for example, the effects regarding  implementation of information technology on the level of media contents, effects of social networks on language learning, or   phenomenon of political correctness in terms of communication manifestations, limitations of critical thinking due to different levels of linguistic culture. 

Thereby, the core of research is  media or marketing mediated linguistic products, which are examined from different perspectives and in different contexts. The aim of scientific research activities of  department  members is to generate knowledge and develop methods that capture the linguistic aspect of media or marketing communication in all its complexity and with all its aspects, taking the new challenges of linguistic communication in digital environment into account. 

Male/female members of the department are leading male/female researchers and members of scientific research teams, regarding the grant scheme projects  VEGA, KEGA, ESF. They publish some monographs, textbooks, scientific studies in prestigious  domestic and foreign publishing houses. They cooperate in the organization of scientific conferences significantly and  participate in the work of  cabinets,  as erudite  experts. 

Department of linguistic communication cooperates with some renowned domestic and foreign institutions in the field of science and research, such as SAS - Ludovit Stur Institute of Linguistics, Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague, Department of Czech Language at the Faculty of Education, Charles University in Prague, Department of Media Studies at Jan Amos Comenius University in Prague, Institute of Foreign Languages at the Volgograd State Pedagogical University, Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.