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The author, a Czech social anthropologist who returned home from exile in order to help in the introduction of his discipline, writes a field report in which he describes in relative detail the vicissitudes of Czech social anthropology during the last thirteen postcommunist years. Even though lecturing on social anthropology became common in Czech universities, the institutionalization of the discipline encounters stiff resistance from the conservative academic establishment. Social anthropology gets support in new provincial universities (Pardubice, Plzen) & only very reluctantly in Prague (Charles U). As a result, Czech protagonists of social anthropology are scattered throughout various institutions. Nevertheless, the author concludes, social anthropology has become known in the Czech Republic as a dynamic part of the social sciences. Grant agencies have given support to fieldwork projects on minorities, political culture, & identity problems during the transformation process. If the momentum gained during the recent years were to be sustained, social anthropology has a bright future on the Czech academic scene.

The following comments compare the present orientations of Czech sociology with recent developments in European sociology. The analysis of sociology in Europe shows that the attention of European sociologists has shifted to social theory & social philosophy, sociology of culture, media, gender & feminism, political sociology, nationalism, ethnicity, & racism. Czech sociology, in the opinion of the author, still does not pay sufficient attention to such pressing issues of Czech society as national identity, nationalism, value transformations, the role of traditions, & European integration processes.

Max Weber, Clifford Geertz, & Rudolf Bultmann are often cited by anthropologists & sociologists who are trying to determine the essence of human sciences through a deep analysis of the subjective meanings that the actor sets to his/her behavior. This article provides an analysis of theoretical & epistemological conceptions of the three thinkers mentioned above, & the author concludes that each of them uses the construction of subjective justification in a different way. Weber distinguishes behavior itself from its meaning, which is constituted by a subjective reference to the values of the actor, & also of the recipient (or researcher). In Weber's point of view, someone else's meaning of behavior is eventually undeterminable, & the researcher can only come close to the subjective meaning through an ideal-typical construction, although Weber eventually does not refuse such ideal-typical constructions behind the cognitive possibilities of the actor. Geertz's attempt at an orientation of a description according to the actor primarily leads to the view of cultural & social facts from a bird's eye perspective, to a presumably deeper understanding than the actor is able to have. In this article the author argues that the differences between Weber's & Geertz's theoretical constructions originate in their contrasting conceptions of the nature of culture. Another such case is Bultmann, owing to the fact that he does not concentrate on the subjective meaning of action in a narrow sense, while he aims at, in his eyes, all human existential experience of reality.

First, the author examines European & world lessons for the study of Czech transformation. Then, he describes legacies of the (mostly communist) past & the risks of transformation: atomization, demoralization, & materialization. The main topic is the failure of the social sciences, which isolated themselves instead of engaging in the reform process, verbally governed by mainstream neoclassical economics. In particular, sociology failed to show the moral dimension & embeddedness of economic processes in the social structure. Most tasks have thus remained for the future, which will stream transformation research towards (1) multidisciplinarity & complexity, (2) the replacement of unidimensional & static conceptual apparatus with a multidimensional & dynamic one, & (3) the understanding of endogeneity of social research & the explicit acknowledgment of its policy dimension.

The widest framework available for the treatment of language problems is offered by sociolinguistics. The author of the article begins by introducing sociolinguistics, & claims that one of its four basic thematic clusters, which he calls 'Sociolinguistics IV,' is fully devoted to language problems. Mainstream Sociolinguistics, a US-based social network that has made a fundamental contribution to sociolinguistics since the 1960s, developed a version of 'Sociolinguistics IV' that is known as Language Planning. It is in confrontation with Language Planning that the theory of Language Management grew in the 1980s & 1990s. This paper briefly discusses the contribution & problems characteristic of Language Planning & outlines the main features of the Language Management theory. Among these, special attention is paid to the process of language management, which develops out of deviations from norms, whereby some of the deviations are noted, some of the noted deviations are evaluated, & certain adjustment plans are considered & implemented. Finally, the paper suggests that the Language Management theory could perhaps make a valid contribution to other social science disciplines, such as sociology or political science.