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The Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics SAS

The language advisory service of the SAS is extremely helpful at the time of the pandemic

21. 4. 2020 | 2872 visits

Scientists from the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics SAS, mainly the employees from the department of language culture and terminology, intensely provide services of the language advisory service even at the time of the corona crises. In comparison with the common season, the linguists register an increased number of questions of wider range from the language users.

“Although we declare on our website that we don´t do homework, during this time the experts answer the questions from parents, pupils, students or teachers regarding the school curriculum of the Slovak language at all school levels - from elementary schools to universities. However, we continue to help authors, editors and translator who work from their homes, and they too have hindered access to some information and book publications,” said the employee of the language advisory service of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics SAS, Katarína Kálmánová.

Moreover, users of the Slovak language who pass the time in their home isolation at the computers, and they see the possibility to get answers to various language questions that have bothered or interested them for a longer time, also turn to the linguists from the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

“We help parents who have become the teachers during the corona crisis, and they need to refresh their knowledge, or to find out what has changed since the times when they have gone to school themselves. We have already responded to a mathematical task, we respond to pupils and students who don´t know how to complete the tasks assigned via the Internet, or perhaps they need help with finishing the bachelor´s and master´s theses, or other works. We are also approached by teachers with their doubts of how to explain the lesson, or how to understand monolingual dictionaries and handbooks. The ordinary language users also have this problem, but we have helped them, through the link to the slovnik.juls.savba.sk webpage, to discover the fortune of sources, however, they often need explaining how to use dictionaries,” said the head of the department of language culture and terminology, Sibyla Mislovičová.

The general public watching the media more intensely during the time of the pandemic is interested in the correct use of different terms, specialised or foreign expressions - compounds with the first part of the corona - such as coronavirus, corona crisis, expressions like the pendler, kurzarbeit.

“Many answers to letters interesting also for other Internet users are being edited and operatively made available on our language advisory service website jazykovaporadna.sme.sk. On our website, we have also prepared the new tests which offer intelligent entertainment that also educates. The evaluation of tests is not limited only to the right - wrong information, but it also enables the interconnection to answers in the advisory service in which the given issue is explained,” said Sibyla Mislovičová.

Employees of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics SAS help the general public to handle the challenging period of the pandemic even in these difficult conditions. The public reacts to this very positively.  A reward to the linguists is, for example, the sent picture of the first grader who learns to use dictionaries on the webpage of the Institute.

Monika Hucáková