Foreword

The Covid-19 pandemic imposes a new way of life on us, and in this new reality, we try in every way to find positive aspects for language studies in particular and science in general. One of such aspects is the switch to online scientific meetings and conferences, which have therefore become more accessible also to language enthusiasts from more remote locations. Besides, the already ongoing digitalization of linguistics in different respects, from teaching and learning materials, linguistic data collection, and others, only seems to accelerate in the situation. And finally, as unfortunate as it is, it nevertheless offers numerous new insights into our social lives. The summer issue of Volume 11 is dedicated though not limited to such insights. In the first article “A Comparative Corpus-Based Content Analysis of Head of Government Addresses in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Japan and Western Countries” by Nagisa MORITOKI ŠKOF discussed the speakers’ perspectives and political orientation in public addresses made by heads of government in Japan, the USA, New Zealand, Germany, and Slovenia in response to the coronavirus disease. Following, SAWADA Hiroko and INOUE Rizu in their article “Network for Supporting Education of Foreign Children During Covid-19: Language Assessments as a Tool for Promoting Community Integration” introduce problems of the present Japanese education system, which does not adequately support children whose mother language is not Japanese. Their action research project in collaboration with several schools and one university proposed a support system through online media that would soften the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The third article in this issue was written by Oleg KALININ. “Comparative Analysis of Coronavirus Metaphoric Representation in Chinese and Russian Online Media” compared the coronavirus metaphorical image in the online media of China and Russia to find out that their basic difference is in discussing or not discussing the positive outcome of the coronavirus battle, which consequently impacts the public opinion. WANG Aiqing’s “Causation in Classical Chinese during the Warring States Period and in the Han Dynasty” explores causation in Classical Chinese and shows that the strategies to form causation structures are compatible with a prosodic theory, according to which agentive and causative constructions involving covert causative verbs are prosodic words, while those involving overt causative verbs exhibit properties of phrases. The article “’I Am Not Punjabi, My Parents Are’: Degradation of the Language of Dominant Majority” by Sham HAIDAR, Tehreem WALI, Tehreem TAHIR, and Mehwish PARVEEN discuss the present status and explore the predicament of the Punjabi language based on the findings that the Punjabi speakers themselves disown their language and the Punjabi identity due to social, economic, religious, and political reasons. Last but not least, Mária IŠTVÁNOVÁ in her article “On The Use of Corpora in Second Language Acquisition – Chinese as an Example” presents several language corpora and points out advantages of their use in the process of Chinese language acquisition together with some practical examples of the corpora's direct and indirect use for teaching and learning Chinese as a second language. Editors and Editorial board wish the regular and new readers of the ALA journal a pleasant read full of inspiration, and a rise of new research ideas inspired by these papers