The Radio Speeches of Czech Exile Politicians in the Period of 1939–1945 – in the Perspective of Thematization of Proper Names
The Radio Speeches of Czech Exile Politicians in the Period of 1939–1945 – in the Perspective of Thematization of Proper Names

Summary/Abstract: The paper focuses on proper names (personal and place names, chrematonyms), and their thematization in Czech ideological speeches. The paper examines texts written by Czech exile politicians and presented in the London and Moscow radio broadcasts between 1939 and 1945, in the course of the Second World War. The texts reflect a wide scale of Czech politicians ranging from the Democrats (National Socialists Edvard Beneš, Prokop Drtina, Jaroslav Stránský; Christian Democrat Jan Šrámek) to the Communists (Klement Gottwald, Zdeněk Nejedlý) and their sympathizers (Social Democrat Zdeněk Fierlinger); speeches written by non-partisan Jan Masaryk are also included. Thematization is presented as an important language device to express, or support, the text tendency. The process of thematization is realized in two structures. In the deep text structure, it is realized as a semantic change (proper name re-semantization), in the surface (visible) structure, it is expressed by collocations, onomastic allusions, metaphors, or metonymies.

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