A contrastive study of the Czech translation equivalents of the pragmatic markers now and well in electronic parallel texts

This thesis presents a contrastive analysis of the English pragmatic markers now and well and their Czech translation equivalents. The overall material is based on 200+12 occurrences that were excerpted from the electronic parallel corpus InterCorp, with all the instances appearing in fictional dialogues. The contrastive study focuses on the role of translation as a means to understand better the nature of the two pragmatic markers. It analyzes specific marker-collocate sequences and the respective Czech translation equivalents. It demonstrates that certain marker-collocate sequences have a tendency to be translated by specific Czech translation equivalents and that the role of other factors, such as position in discourse structure, prosody, and broader context, play in this respect an important role as well. All this and the finding that both now and well share certain Czech translation equivalents add to the multifunctionality of both now and well and prove that a combination of other factors is needed to comprehend the use of the two pragmatic markers in English. The comparison of the Czech translation equivalents in this thesis to the Czech translation equivalents in the Czech-English dictionary Lingea attempted to provide an example of how a contrastive analysis can be useful in Lexicography