Main R&D areas

The Department of Foreign Languages concentrates on two large research areas. The first area is the linguistic research – pragmatics, translation, lexicology and sociolinguistics. The second important area is the teaching methodology for English for Specific Purposes. Thus, the mentioned research fields influence significantly the pedagogical activities, which are closely connected with the research areas.

The pioneer of linguistic research at the department was assoc. Prof. Milena Krhutová, Ph.D. Her long-standing research activity in the field of English language with the focus on pragmatics, sociolinguistics, linguistic means and their application to electrical engineering education resulted in the publication of the book Parameters of Professional Discourse / English for Electrical Engineering. In cooperation with PhDr. Ludmila Neuwirthová, Ph.D., who dedicated herself to research work in the field of methodology and standardization of foreign language education at technical universities, she led the team of the Department of Foreign Languages to successfully accredit a unique study philological programme English in Electrical Engineering and Informatics.

Milan Smutný, Ph.D., has been conducting research in the field of lexicology and lexical systems for many years. In his contributions within the scientific community, he has dealt with the relationship between conceptual structure and semantic form and other related issues.

Mgr. Miroslav Kotásek, Ph.D., loosely continues in research in the field of literary science. In his articles he focuses on the specifics and differences of scientific and literary texts and their interconnection in science fiction literature.

Mgr. Petra Zmrzlá, Ph.D., has been focusing on discourse analysis and academic English for a long time. She is currently working on research on evaluative language in theses opponents’ reviews with Mgr. Bc. Magda Sučková, Ph.D., who also focuses on the phonetics of English.

Mgr. Ing. Eva Ellederová, Ph.D., carried out design-based research of her own ESP coursebook. The twofold yield of her design-based research resulted in the creation of a coursebook for the subject English for IT and design principles that contribute to the development of theories of English for specific purposes coursebooks design. Currently, she is doing research on information technology students’ spoken language and speaking skills.

Mgr. Agata Walek, Ph.D., after successfully defending her dissertation, continues to work in the areas of phonosemantics, conceptual metaphor theory and phenomenology.

Several other colleagues are researching the needs of companies in the field of language education, implementation of ICT resources in teaching, etc. A major challenge for the future is artificial intelligence (AI) and its use in teaching and the academic environment in general.