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"Animal" words for human world. Opposition man - animal in the Czech Language

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2019

Abstract

The world of animals is always viewed from human perspective, which makes both worlds interconnected and inseparable. This paper aims to show some consequences of anthropocentrism in the Czech language.

It is focused especially on words, which connect both worlds, because in Czech there often exist at least two series of different units - for a man and for an animal. We can use different words e. g. for parts of the body (head, mouth X snout, muzzle, beak), for various activities (eat X feed), sounds (speak X croak, bleat, cluck) etc.

If we use this primarily "animal" words about a man it is usually connected with very negative valuation. The paper is based mainly on the analysis of Czech dictionaries, as well as examples in folk literature.