| Abstract [eng] |
The aim of this Master's Final Degree Project was to analyse the lexis used in Lithuanian and English educational podcasts and for that four main goals were set: to theoretically substantiate the peculiarity of the expression of podcasts as new audio media and their specific lexicon, to analyse lexis used in Lithuanian and English podcasts, to determine whether sociolinguistic factors influence the use of a particular lexis and to compare the lexis and other language features used in Lithuanian and English podcasts. The subject of this project is relevant because podcasts as a spoken expression of currently active electronic discourse is one of the new types of audio media, characterized by many categories, so the lexis used is very diverse and depends not only on the genre, but also on the topic of the podcast and various sociolinguistic factors. The object of this project was one of the possible podcast categories, which is educational podcasts and their lexical expression. The study analysed two podcasts, one in Lithuanian and the other in English. Main theoretical sources were studies by Z. Nauckūnaitė (2003), G. Tamaševičius (2008), P. Foster, A. Tonkyn and G. Wigglesworth, (2000). The study was divided into three parts; in the first part episodes of podcasts on physics and astrophysics, in the second part episodes on technology and knowledge were analysed. In both parts, language and lexical properties were compared. In the third part findings of all episodes were described and analysed whether sociolinguistic factors influenced the lexis used. In the first part it was determined that the episode of the Lithuanian language is dominated by code-switching, and in the English jokes are common, in both episodes many cases of scientific terminology were found. In the second part technology and computer terminology were used in both episodes, a lot of codeswitching and jargon used in Lithuanian episode, form shortening in English. In the third part, a comparison of all the episodes revealed that in educational podcasts specific terminology is often used, in Lithuanian there are a lot of code-switching (English words are inserted into Lithuanian sentences, often without even trying to grammar them, there are also Slavic slangs), and in English form shortening, but there are no code-switching cases. It was noticed that the host of the podcast in Lithuanian is less involved in the discussion, only asks questions, and the hosts of the English podcast frequently get involved in the discussion, which may have been because hosts of English podcast are older and have more experience, in addition, there are strong elements of humour in their speech. The study confirms that the lexical expression in educational podcasts in both languages reflects the features of spoken language, their content determines the use of scientific terminology and professional jargon, some influenced by certain sociolinguistic factors, but specific features of only one language were found, no code-switching was observed in English, and diminutives were present in Lithuanian. |
