Research Projects Led by Faculty Members of the Department of English Language and Literature
Early Acquisition and Comprehension of Polysemous Words (POLYACQ)
PROJECT LEADER: Assoc. Prof. Ana Werkmann Horvat, PhD
Project type: Croatian Science Foundation Installation Research Project, competitive project funding
Project code: UIP-2025-02-5422
Duration: 1 April 2026 – 31 March 2031
Collaborators: Mia Batinić Angster, Jakov Proroković, Ivana Trtanj, Sara Košutar
Web: https://polyacq.ffos.hr/
Polysemy (or multiple meaning) is one of the most productive ways of creating new meanings. Although it is a universal linguistic phenomenon, the multiple meanings of polysemous words can cause difficulties in comprehension. Nevertheless, natural languages use the ability to encode multiple meanings in a single form to their advantage. This tendency of natural languages is useful because it reduces the burden of memorizing and learning new forms (Piantadosi et al. 2012). Since metaphor and metonymy are among the most important mechanisms for creating polysemy (Pustejovsky & Boguraev 1997; Bowdle and Gentner 2005), the comprehension and acquisition of polysemous words become even more complex due to differences in meaning dominance and abstractness. The human need to facilitate communication and reduce cognitive load, as well as the ubiquity of polysemy in everyday language, make polysemy an important part of children’s language from the very beginning of language acquisition. Although some research has already been conducted on this topic (e.g. Dautriche et al. 2016; Floyd et al. 2020), detailed knowledge of which linguistic factors influence the acquisition and comprehension of polysemous words is still lacking. This topic is complex because of the interrelationships between linguistic factors such as the number of meanings, types of meanings, meaning dominance, and word and meaning frequency. Conventionality of meaning also plays an important role because the figurative nature of meaning often remains unrecognized. However, conventionality is not guaranteed, and new meanings can emerge at any time. The aim of this project is to answer questions about the status of the aforementioned linguistic factors and the role they play in language acquisition and early language comprehension. The project also seeks to contribute to linguistic diversity in language acquisition research by examining relatively recently collected Croatian-language corpora and collecting data from Croatian speakers.
The Language of Desire in Literature and Culture (JEŽEKK)
PROJECT LEADER: Prof. Biljana Oklopčić, PhD
Project type: institutional research project of Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, funded under source 581 – Recovery and Resilience Facility
Project code: 581-UNIOS-60
Duration: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2029
Collaborators: Ivana Buljubašić Srb, PhD, Romana Čačija, Senior Lecturer, Asst. Prof. Tomislav Dagen, PhD, Asst. Prof. Stephanie Jug, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Sanja Jukić, PhD, Asst. Prof. Tihana Lubina, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Ljubica Matek, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Sonja Novak, PhD, Jelena Pataki Šumiga, PhD, Asst. Prof. Ivana Perkušić, PhD, Asst. Prof. Jasna Poljak Rehlicki, PhD, Prof. Ružica Pšihistal, PhD, Prof. Ivan Trojan, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Jadranka Zlomislić, PhD
Web: https://www.ffos.unios.hr/znanstveni-portal/npoo-projekti/jezik-zudnje-u-knjizevnost-i-kulturi/
The project The Language of Desire in Literature and Culture is an institutional research project funded under source 581 – Recovery and Resilience Facility. The project will explore the concept of desire as a narrative strategy, linguistic expression and social construct in the humanities and social sciences. Owing to its interdisciplinary focus and the use of contemporary theoretical approaches and reading strategies, the project will promote new possibilities for representing desire as an instrument for critically understanding the relationship between language, the body and emotions in literature and culture.
The aim of the project The Language of Desire in Literature and Culture is to use an interdisciplinary analysis of the phenomenon of desire in literary, cultural, media, legal and political texts and practices to explore how desire is shaped, regulated and communicated in contemporary and historical contexts and how it influences the formation of gender, sexual, racial, class, ethnic, religious and political identities in literature and culture.
Framing through Figurative Language in Public Discourse (FigFrame)
PROJECT LEADER: Prof. Tanja Gradečak, PhD
Project type: institutional research project of Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, funded under source 581 – Recovery and Resilience Facility
Duration: 1 October 2025 – 30 September 2029
Collaborators: Snježana Babić, PhD, Ksenija Benčina, PhD, Prof. Goran Faletar, PhD, Vlatka Ivić, Domagoj Kostanjevac, Asst. Prof. Goran Milić, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Draženka Molnar, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Goran Schmidt, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Alma Vančura, PhD, Assoc. Prof. Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, PhD, Asst. Prof. Ana Werkmann Horvat, PhD
The central concept around which this project proposal is organized is framing, i.e. the process of “selection and salience of information” (Entman 1993: 52), in which mental representations are created and subsequently activated through a particular linguistic operation, generally spoken or written linguistic structures. Project activities will examine naturally occurring data in English and Croatian or from a multilingual perspective using experimental and corpus methods, create digital and searchable databases, and analyse how topics related to political and media discourse, health and student academic discourse, and youth discourse are framed within particular mental representations and how they can be reframed. The project leader is Prof. Tanja Gradečak, PhD, from the Department of English Language and Literature, together with a total of 11 collaborators from the same department, as well as from the Department of German Language and Literature, the Department of Croatian Language and Literature, and the Chair of Common Courses.
Violence in Contemporary Adaptations and Popular Culture
PROJECT LEADER: Jelena Pataki Šumiga, PhD
Project type: one-year internal FFOS research project, competitive project funding
Contemporary adaptations of literary texts in all media and forms of popular culture often prominently depict violence, frightening events and scenes or, in the case of video games, engage players in participating in violent acts. The aim of the project is to approach the phenomenon of violence in the broadest sense of the word – psychological, verbal, sexual and physical – from different perspectives in an attempt to determine the reasons for the frequency and popularity of such artistic, media and popular-cultural representations and their significance for contemporary readers, viewers or video-game players.
Project duration: 1 September 2024 – 30 September 2025
Collaborators: Assoc. Prof. Ljubica Matek, PhD, Valentina Markasović, Zvonimir Prtenjača, Prof. Kamilla Elliott, PhD (UK), Assoc. Prof. Matthew Leggatt, PhD (UK)
Web: https://www.croris.hr/projekti/projekt/12739
North American Literatures and Cultures in the Croatian and European Context
PROJECT LEADER: Asst. Prof. Jasna Poljak Rehlicki, PhD (2023-2026)
Project type: institutional project of the Centre for North American Studies
Duration: 2023-2026
Collaborators: Jelena Pataki Šumiga, PhD, Valentina Markasović, Barbara Kružić Jovičić
Web: https://www.ffos.unios.hr/en/centre-for-north-american-studies//
The aim of this multi-year project is to examine existing approaches to intercultural translation and select the most appropriate one / devise a new approach through the translation of nine American plays that will be published in two volumes in the Anthology of Affirmative American Drama. In 2026, the plan is to proofread all selected plays, systematize terminology and translations, edit the manuscript of the Anthology and write the forewords.
The main research question of the project is how to approach the translation of American dramatic texts dealing with issues that are not widely represented in Croatia, such as race, sexual orientation, immigrants and health issues such as severe obesity. The question of appropriation also arises (and to what extent it should be used) in order to bring the source text and translation closer to Croatian audiences, particularly when the time of publication of the plays is taken into account, i.e. how best to present the text to a modern reader.
Collaboration on Research Projects
- research project CHERISH-Croatia, Hungary, and Romani: Inclusive Solutions for Harmonized, Interreg Hungary-Croatia (2026-2027), collaborator Prof. Biljana Oklopčić, PhD
- research project 581-UNIOS-57 “Evaluative Meanings of Diminutives and Augmentatives in the Croatian Language (EZUH)”, from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2029, collaborator Prof. Gabrijela Buljan, PhD
- NextGenerationEU project ‘Metonymy in Language and Thought’, led by Kristina Štrkalj Despot, PhD (2024-2028), collaborator Assoc. Prof. Ana Werkmann Horvat, PhD
- • Early Disciplinary Literacy in Croatian: Features of Textbook Discourse – RAPID (Croatian Science Foundation project, IP-2024-05-2755, project leader Prof. Lidija Cvikić, PhD, Faculty of Teacher Education Zagreb), from 2024 to 2027, collaborator Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
- COST project CLIL Network for Languages in Education: Towards bi- and multilingual disciplinary literacies (CLILNetLE); (CA21114, project leader Julia Hüttner, University of Vienna), from 2022 to 2026, collaborator, Core Group member and Management Committee member Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
- COST project European Network on International Student Mobility: Connecting Research and Practice (ENIS); (CA20115, project leader Christof Van Mol, Stichting Katholieke Universiteit Brabant), from 2021 to 2025, collaborator Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
• project of the Centre for Language Research at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, “Local Coherence in Written Texts in the First and Additional Language: A Contrastive Analysis of Connector Use”, led by Assoc. Prof. Leonard Pon, PhD (in 2022), collaborator Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
• Coherence of Written Text in an Additional Language: Croatian, German, English, French and Hungarian in Comparison (Croatian Science Foundation project, IP-06-2016, project leader Vesna Bagarić Medve), from 2017 to 2020, researcher Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD - Croatian Science Foundation project Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Complements and Adjuncts in Croatian (SARGADA IP-2019-04-7896), 2020-2024, led by Matea Birtić, PhD, collaborator Assoc. Prof. Ana Werkmann Horvat, PhD
- NPOO project Executive Functions in Young People – Their Role in Adjustment, Developmental Outcomes and Everyday Challenges (ECLAT-ADAPT) (2021–2026), collaborators: Prof. Marija Omazić, PhD, Tea Tosenberger Lubar, Assistant, Blaženka Šoštarić, Senior Lecturer
- Jean Monnet Module LEULEX Language and EU Law Excellence 620231-EPP-1-2020-1-HR-EPPJMO-MODULE (2020–2023), collaborators Prof. Marija Omazić, PhD, Blaženka Šoštarić, Senior Lecturer, https://www.pravos.unios.hr/leulex
- COST Action CA19102 – Language In The Human-Machine Era (LITHME), 2020–2024, collaborators Prof. Marija Omazić, PhD, Blaženka Šoštarić, Senior Lecturer, https://lithme.eu/
- project of the Centre for Language Research at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek entitled “Patterns of Connector Use in the First and Additional Language”, led by Assoc. Prof. Leonard Pon, PhD (in 2023), collaborator Prof. Gabrijela Buljan, PhD
- project “Challenges for the Social Sciences and Humanities: New Study Programmes and Quality Assurance System” of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, Asst. Prof. Jasna Poljak Rehlicki, PhD, member of the working group for developing occupational standards and qualification standards in the field of English Studies
- project of the Centre for Language Research at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek “Local Coherence in Written Texts in the First and Additional Language: A Contrastive Analysis of Connector Use”, led by Assoc. Prof. Leonard Pon, PhD (in 2022), collaborator Prof. Gabrijela Buljan, PhD
- • project of the Centre for Language Research at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek “Local Coherence in Written Texts in the First and Additional Language: A Contrastive Analysis of Connector Use”, led by Assoc. Prof. Leonard Pon, PhD (in 2022), collaborator Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
• Coherence of Written Text in an Additional Language: Croatian, German, English, French and Hungarian in Comparison (Croatian Science Foundation project, IP-06-2016, project leader Vesna Bagarić Medve), from 2017 to 2020, researcher Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD - bilateral research project “Hedges, Stance and Reader Engagement in the Academic Writing of Novice Researchers in English as a Foreign Language”, led by Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD, from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, in cooperation with the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, Serbia, collaborator Assoc. Prof. Draženka Molnar, PhD
- international competitive project of the Central European Association for Canadian Studies (CEACS) entitled Following (in) Winnetou’s Footsteps: Representations of Canadian Indigeneity in Central Europe (2019–2024), Prof. Sanja Runtić, PhD, project collaborator, member of the central coordination team and chief coordinator of the final part of the project, the preparation of the edited monograph (Un)Following in Winnetou’s Footsteps: Representations of North American Indigeneity in Central Europe (Springer, 2024).
- project of the Croatian Science Foundation and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek “Coherence of Written Text in an Additional Language: Croatian, German, English, French and Hungarian in Comparison” (HRZZ IP-2016-06-5736), led by Prof. Vesna Bagarić Medve, PhD, from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, collaborator Assoc. Prof. Draženka Molnar, PhD
- COST project Study Abroad Research in European Perspective (CA15130, project leader Martin Howard, University College Cork, Ireland), Management Committee member, from 2016 to 2020, collaborator Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
- TEMPUS project Foreign Languages at Primary Level: Training of Teachers (2004/2007, CP_JEP-18049-2003), from 2004 to 2007, collaborator Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
- Reforming Foreign Language Education Policy in Croatia and Hungary (GDN Foundation project; project leader Prof. Jelena Mihaljević Djigunović, PhD), 2004, collaborator Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
Previous Projects
Hedges, Stance and Reader Engagement in the Academic Writing of Novice Researchers in English as a Foreign Language
PROJECT LEADER: Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
Project type: scientific and technological cooperation project between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Serbia, competitive project funding
Duration: from 2019 to 2022
Collaborators: Tanja Gradečak, Draženka Molnar, Mirna Varga, Sanja Vakanjac Ivezić, Biljana Radić Bojanić, Vesna Bogdanović, Sabina Halupka Rešetar, Predrag Kovačević, Jagoda Topalov
The aim of the project was to describe and compare the features of metadiscourse in academic papers written in English by students from Croatia and Serbia. The research focused on the ways in which students express their own stance, establish a relationship with the reader and use hedging strategies. The research was based on the assumption that academic writing is not merely the transmission of information, but also a process in which the author actively shapes communication with the reader. A functional analysis of metadiscourse was conducted on corpora of student papers in English in key parts of academic texts, and the results were compared with a corpus of papers written by native speakers of English.
The results showed that there are differences in the use of metadiscourse elements between non-native and native speakers of English, as well as between Croatian and Serbian students. Certain difficulties were identified, such as the limited use of hedging strategies and insufficiently developed ways of establishing a relationship with the reader, which may affect the clarity and persuasiveness of academic texts.
The project also highlighted the limitations of existing methodological frameworks, which are often too rigid for application in multilingual contexts. Adaptations were proposed so that they would better reflect actual language practices and enable a more precise analysis of metadiscourse.
In addition to its theoretical contribution, the research results also have significant practical value. They can be applied in designing curricula for teaching academic writing at different levels of education, as well as in lifelong learning programmes. This can help students and novice researchers develop more effective writing strategies and participate more successfully in the international research community.
Learner Corpus as a Tool in Researching Discourse Competence
PROJECT LEADER: Prof. Višnja Pavičić Takač, PhD
Project type: research project
Project code: IZIP-2016-29
Duration: from 2016 to 2017
Collaborators: Vesna Bagarić Medve, Gabrijela Buljan, Leonard Pon, Draženka Molnar, Ivana Šarić Šokčević, Barbara Kružić, Beata Siklosi, Mirna Pucelj
The aim of the project was to establish a platform on which a specialized annotated language corpus of written work produced by learners of three additional languages (English, German and Hungarian) whose first language is Croatian could be built. The corpus created on this platform becomes a tool for extracting features of texts produced by additional-language learners with the aim of analysing aspects of discourse competence. Discourse competence (i.e. the ability to use knowledge of linguistic elements in producing a coherent written text that reflects accurate and appropriate language use in given linguistic and situational contexts) is a key feature of a communicatively competent additional-language user and has not been sufficiently addressed in previous learner-corpus research.
In the first phase of the project, several research-team meetings were held and writing tests for German, English and Hungarian as foreign languages were developed. The tests were administered to students of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, thereby collecting material for the second phase of the project. In the second phase, the texts were prepared for inclusion in the corpus and for analysis. A workshop was held by Sylviane Granger and Gaëtanelle Gilquin from the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. In addition to project-team members, the workshop was attended by professors and graduate and doctoral students of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as guests from other faculties.
FP7 Project MIME – Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe
PROJECT LEADER: Prof. Marija Omazić, PhD
Project type: international research project (work package WP7)
Project code: CP-IP SSH.2013.5.2-1.
Duration: 2014 – 2018
Collaborators: Goran Schmidt, Mario Brdar
Multilingualism – Managing multilingualism is one of the European challenges requiring a combination of different approaches developed in the social sciences and humanities, with the aim of reconciling the increasing mobility of European citizens with the requirements of achieving social cohesion and inclusion in linguistically and culturally diverse European societies. The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, in cooperation with 22 partners from 16 European countries, participates in the large collaborative FP7 project MIME – Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe, which successfully combines scientific approaches to multilingualism, mobility and language policy. MIME is tasked with developing ideas and recommendations for European and national language-policy makers at several levels: education, public and private communication, preservation of endangered minority languages, integration of speakers of non-European languages, functioning of institutions, relations in multicultural cities, language teaching, communication strategies, etc. Each individual area seeks to reconcile two goals: fostering a culture of diversity and citizens’ mobility (http://www.mime-project.org/).
The European Context of Croatian Popular Literature
PROJECT LEADER: Biljana Oklopčić
Project type: research project
Project code: UNIOS IZIP-2014-15
Duration: 2015 – 2016
Principal investigator: Biljana Oklopčić
Collaborators: Lucija Saulić
Through an intertextual reading of Marija Jurić Zagorka’s popular romances as gynocritical and feminist narratives, the project explores the cultural, historical and social paradigms that place the romances of this most important representative of Croatian popular literature within a European context. The project considers the discursive interweaving of Zagorka’s romances with European historical and social events (witch hunts, activities of the Inquisition, the Jacobin conspiracy, Bach’s absolutism, the reign of Empress Maria Theresa, etc.) from the perspective of the politics of the popular present throughout Marija Jurić Zagorka’s writing, in which feminism also plays one of the key roles. In addition to attempting to situate Zagorka’s “life and work” within a European context, the project will also seek to challenge widespread negative attitudes concerning the reliability of historical facts in her works.
Analysis of the Mutual Influence of Croatian and English in the Context of the Contemporary Computing Environment
PROJECT LEADER: Tanja Gradečak-Erdeljić
Project type: research project
Project code: UNIOS
Duration: 2013 – 2014
Principal investigator: Tanja Gradečak-Erdeljić
Collaborators: Ana Mikić Čolić, Snježana Babić, Mirna Varga
The purpose of this research is to provide, on the basis of results obtained through different research methods, a clear picture of the most important phonological, morphological and syntactic elements that favour the acceptance of an individual Croatian neologism or the retention of an Anglicism.
The resulting guidelines would be offered to teachers of English and Croatian and to curriculum designers in order to assist them in developing structured elements for teaching English as a foreign language (guidelines for curriculum development, teaching methods for translation exercises, etc.) and in developing practical Croatian computing terminology based on patterns of use and preferences among students as both current and future users and creators of new linguistic patterns in Croatian.
The aim of the research is to verify the initial findings from the pilot study, namely that English-language learners make extensive use of English loanwords in their computer and mobile communication, that they adopt proposed Croatian equivalents and neologisms from the field of computing terminology somewhat slowly, but that they firmly believe Croatian should be used as much as possible and that English will not displace Croatian from use in the future.
The second aim is to determine the extent to which English has undergone structural changes under the influence of Croatian (the omission of certain English verb tenses, articles and passive constructions) and how prescriptive teaching methods should be implemented in order to preserve the structure of English to a degree acceptable to its native speakers.
Erasmus IP Summer School Cultural Landscapes: Negotiating Cultural Encounters with the English Speaking World
PROJECT LEADER: Jasna Poljak Rehlicki
Project type: international professional project
Project code: ERA-IPR-04/11 (2012), ERA-IPR-17/13 (2013)
Duration: 2012 – 2014
Collaborators: Ljubica Matek, Alma Vančura
Over the course of three years, faculty members of the Department of English Language and Literature and students of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek participated in an intensive Erasmus Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP – Erasmus Programme – Intensive Programme (IP)). The programme entitled Cultural Landscapes: Negotiating Cultural Encounters with the English-Speaking World (Erasmus IP Summer School (ERA-IPR-17/13)) took the form of a summer school held in the United Kingdom, in a different location each year: Glasgow, Scotland (2012), Swansea, Wales (2013), and Newcastle upon Tyne, England (2014). In addition to Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, the project included the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), the University of Limerick (Republic of Ireland), the University of Lisbon (Portugal), and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).
Academically, this Erasmus intensive programme was based on a combination of theory and practice, with students acquiring fundamental theoretical knowledge related to cultural differences and the obstacles faced by non-native speakers when communicating within an English-speaking environment, as well as practical experience of intercultural communication in an academic environment consisting of non-native speakers of English for whom English is both an object of academic interest and a means of communication. Cultural, or socially constructed, concepts were analysed not only in terms of dominant British and American culture, but also at the local level (features of Scottish, Welsh and Irish English) and internationally (English as spoken in other countries around the world (postcolonial context) and English as a lingua franca).
Three faculty members of the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek also taught at the summer schools. Jasna Poljak Rehlicki, PhD, taught two courses at each of the first two summer schools: Relating to the Other: War and Soldiers in American Writing and Relating to the Other: Military Jargon in Literature, Media and Culture. At the third summer school, courses were taught by Asst. Prof. Alma Vančura, PhD (Paralanguage as a Cultural Phenomenon) and Ljubica Matek, PhD (Rethinking the Myth: Family in Anglophone Literature and Culture and What Lurks in the Dark: Horror Literature Across Cultures).
The IP Cultural Landscapes: Negotiating Cultural Encounters with the English-Speaking World was primarily intended for interested undergraduate students of English, but also for students of cultural studies, international relations, European studies and similar fields, as well as anyone whose future profession would involve intercultural communication in English. The call was published on the websites of the Department of English Language and Literature and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, and participants were selected on the basis of their applications and motivation letters.
A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to Polysemy in Croatian and Other Languages
PROJECT LEADER: Mario Brdar
Project type: international research project
Project code: MZOS 0122001
Duration: 2003 – 2006
Principal investigator: Mario Brdar
Collaborators: Dubravko Kučanda, Marija Omazić, Višnja Pavičić, Jadranka Zlomislić, Tanja Gradečak-Erdeljić, Gabrijela Buljan, Goran Milić, Dubravka Vidaković, Zoltán Kövecses (Budapest), Rita Brdar-Szabó (Budapest), Klaus-Uwe Panther (Hamburg), Linda Thornburg (Hamburg), Günter Radden (Hamburg), Antonio Barcelona (Murcia), Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza (Logroño)
Metonymy is one of the fundamental and ubiquitous processes linking language with human thought and action. Metonymy is characterized by the fact that part of a cognitive domain can stand for the entire domain, although it is also possible for the whole structure to stand for one part, or for one part to stand for another part, including subdomains within the parent domain. Some typologies of metonymy focus on relationships within domains that result in metonymies and therefore distinguish numerous specific manifestations according to the type of domain. A pragmatic-functional typology distinguishes two main types of metonymy: propositional and illocutionary. The former has two specific manifestations: referential and predicational metonymy. Research generally begins from the assumption of the universality of metonymy, while insufficient attention has been paid to cross-linguistic differences in the possibilities of lexicalization and grammaticalization, as well as differences between individual types of discourse and domains. The initial research hypothesis is that, despite the universality of metonymy as a cognitive process, there are significant differences among individual types in terms of their prevalence and conventionalization, both universally and cross-linguistically, and that referential metonymies are much more common than predicational ones. Differences among types can be motivated by linking them to the pragmatic-syntactic functions of individual types and to the domains in which mappings occur. Other cross-linguistic constraints are qualitatively different in nature. Cross-linguistic differences in the first type can be interpreted as the result of particular conventions related to discourse type, while differences in the second type are the result of interactions among various factors within the system.
Metonymy between the Lexicon and Grammar
PROJECT LEADER: Prof. Mario Brdar, PhD
Project type: MZT research project
Project code: 0122001
Duration: 2002-2026
Collaborators: Marija Omazić, Višnja Pavičić, Jadranka Zlomislić, Dubravko Kučanda, Tanja Gradečak-Erdeljić, Gabrijela Buljan
Web: http://bib.irb.hr/lista-radova?sif_proj=0122001
Adjective Complementation in English and Croatian
PROJECT LEADER: Mario Brdar
Project type: research project
Project code: MZOS 122013
Duration: 1998 – 2002
Principal investigator: Mario Brdar
Collaborators: Dubravko Kučanda, Elvira Petrović, Marija Omazić, Višnja Pavičić, Jadranka Zlomislić, Tanja Gradečak-Erdeljić, Gabrijela Buljan
The general aim of the research was to provide a systematic and comprehensive contrastive description of the complementation systems of predicative adjectives in contemporary English and Croatian. Since English and Croatian belong to different language types with respect to the parameter referred to in functional models as the communicative dynamism of the predicate, i.e. English is characterized as a verbo-nominal language and Croatian as a verbal type, there are significant differences in the prevalence of constructions with adjectival predicates in general and therefore also in different types of complements, particularly prepositional expressions, as well as differences in the status and semantic functions of complements and adjuncts. Empirical verification of the hypotheses involves corpus-linguistic methods for data collection and processing, supplemented and verified through elicitation tests. Prototype theory must be applied in preparing the conceptual framework and subsequently in developing a proposal for the format of a valency handbook. The central hypotheses are tested using vertical and horizontal contrastive procedures. The relevance of the results obtained is verified using typological methods. A systematic and comprehensive contrastively organized description of the complementation systems of predicative adjectives in English and Croatian reveals the most characteristic strategies of structural organization and the functional potential of this type of predicate. The research also points to possibilities for the lexicographic and pedagogical treatment of the similarities and differences identified. Since this is an area that has not previously received sufficient attention in the English linguistics community, the research provides a basis for further theoretical and applied research, while in its theoretical and methodological aspects it goes beyond the narrow framework of English Studies and considers general linguistic phenomena.
Syntactic Functions in English, German, Croatian and Hungarian
PROJECT LEADER: Dubravko Kučanda
Project type: research project
Project code: MZOS 6-03-039
Duration: 1991 – 1995
Principal investigator: Dubravko Kučanda
Collaborator: Mario Brdar
The syntactic functions of subject, direct object and indirect object in English, German, Croatian and Hungarian were investigated in order to characterize these languages according to typological parameters such as pragmatic versus grammatical word order, transparent versus opaque encoding of semantic functions, and nominative-accusative versus absolutive-ergative syntax. The research used the methodology of functional-typological studies and prototype theory. The focus was on the interaction of morphosyntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors in the description of syntactic functions. The research began from the hypothesis that genetically related languages (English and German) do not necessarily use the same strategy for mapping semantic onto syntactic functions, and that genetically unrelated languages may be more similar in this respect than previously assumed (e.g. German and Croatian as representatives of the Indo-European language family and Hungarian as a representative of the Uralic language family). The research had three basic aims. First, a descriptively adequate description of syntactic functions in each of the languages examined was to be provided using a unified research methodology. Second, the research results are mutually comparable and can be used for a contrastive analysis of any two of the four languages included in the research. Third, the research results can also be used for the typological characterization of the languages examined. Each of these points can constitute a separate whole, while at the same time serving as a basis for comparison with other languages, whether within contrastive linguistics or typological research.