The presence of insects in our everyday lives is affirmed by their presence in idioms (priden kot mravlja – literally ‘diligent as an ant’, busy as a bee; len kot trot – literally ‘lazy as a drone’, lazy as a toad; delati iz muhe slona – literally ‘to make an elephant out of a fly’, to make a mountain out of a molehill). These topics are the focus of this workshop, which is conducted by researchers from the Faculty of Arts.
In the first part of the workshop, the researchers give an interactive presentation on selected insects, their appearance and way of life as well as related types of forming insect names in Slovenian.
In doing so, they reveal the reasons for some insects’ names and how their names were linguistically formed. By comparing these names with their counterparts in a related Slavic language, Czech, they demonstrate differences and similarities in forming names for these tiny animals.
The second part of the workshop demonstrates selected Slovenian idioms featuring insects, comparing them to idioms with the same meanings in Czech. The participants discover cultural differences between the two Slavic nations and differences in their perceptions of their surroundings.
The workshop is suitable for primary and secondary schools.
Coordinator: Petra Stankovska, PhD, Faculty of Arts