Search

From the Polish words to the Polish phrases The quest for the key words to the Polish culture The paper summarizes the ethno-linguistic research on the Polish words (understood as the names of Polish values, both positive and negative), and the Polish phrases (idioms and quotations seen as elements of Polish collective memory which are supposed to be explanatory instruments in the process of description of the Polish culture or, for instance, in creation of the self-portrait of a Pole). The main part of the paper is a presentation of the author’s research inspired by Anna Wierzbicka’s theory of the key words to the cultures and discussion on rules and methods of recognizing the key words and arranging them in a culturally motivated hierarchy. The author perceives the key words – in accordance with the principles of the cognitive semantics – as a linguistic expressions which constitute access sites to an entire network of culturally profiled notions. She claims that the important part of the network of Polish notions is, in the term of cognitive semantics, “profiled” and in other words “programmed” by democratic ideas of the old Polish society: the Polish noblemen (szlachta). By means of the analysis of a few texts, the author proves that there is a connection between the notions of democratic rights of liberty (wolność) and equality (równość) and terms and notions repeatedly used in Polish self-description: willfulness (swawola), anarchy (anarchia), rebelions (bunty), envy (zazdrość, zawiść). Another link is found between the democratic institution of Polish sejm/sejmik (parliament) which is well established in culture and in language and characterized by speeches delivered from different points of view, and the notions of Polish quarrels (kłótnie), strifes (swary) and disputes (spory). Key words: key words to cultures, democratic ideas in Polish culture, network of cultural concepts

This paper describes the possibilities of the diachronic description of Polish inflection by the Chronofleks system and using it in academic didactics of historical linguistics classes. In new didactic seems necessary to use solutions based on new technologies that use students’ digital skills. Therefore, the observations carried out were to check the extent to which Chronofleks is helpful both in verifying the information available in academic textbooks and in the independent acquisition of knowledge by students. Three grammar issues were selected for research: Kopczyński’s rules, distribution of historic singular endings of male nouns, and ending frequency of the first person plural of verbs. The tests showed that a student can successfully learn the morphology of old Polish using the Chronofleks tool. In addition, Chronofleks allows you to implement a self-study teaching model.

This paper is devoted to the analysis of term generation in the field of computer science and i-net communication using the native word-formative tools of the Ukrainian language. Particular attention is paid to the functioning of such neologisms in common usage (linguistic usus). Ukrainian electronic resources are used as a research material and verification tool. Morphemic, word-formative and comparative analysis of derivatives and the method of periphrasis allowed us to determine the reasons for the production of appropriate and inappropriate special names that can compete with English borrowings in this field.

In this text I refererate and comment the work from two decades ago. I recall an article important for corpus linguistics – the work of Tony McEnery and Nick Ostler from 2000. In their paper they argue that corpus linguistics needs to expand to cover a wider set of languages. The challenge of building a multilingual corps is admittedly current. The development of corpus linguistics still depends on technical capabilities, but today we see significant changes in this field. In the article I not only present the reflections of British linguists, but I also show current and outdated problems.

This paper introduces the methodology of compiling and maintaining MoncoPL, a large monitor corpus of web-based Polish. Furthermore, an overview of the search engine of the same name is provided to show how the size and composition of the corpus, currently reaching over 5.6 billion word tokens, facilitates research on distributional properties of rare words, neologisms and phraseological units. Finally, the article exemplifies some advantages of using a densely-sampled diachronic corpus for the purposes of observing frequency trends and cycles of various constructions in online media discourse.

Past participles (ending with -n (-an, -en), and -t) and the group of adjectives referred to in Croatian linguistics as true adjectives are similar regarding their syntactic structure. The paper analyses the collocation potential of the past participles based on data from the Croatian Collocation Database (http://ihjj.hr/kolokacije/english/) developed at the Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics. The article describes both the use of the past participles in the multiword units in Croatian and their status in contemporary Croatian dictionaries. What is described are the criteria for distinguishing the past participles as morphological forms of the verb headword from the lexicalised adjectives that should have the status of independent headwords in the dictionary.

Semantic Structure of Verb Borrowings from German Going Out of Use During the New Polish Period The paper presents the semantic structure of verb borrowing from German going out of use during the New Polish period. Lexical material included 86 semantic units extracted from Słownik języka polskiego (dictionary of Polish language) edited by Witold Doroszewski described as: archaic, obsolete, going out of use. The semantic structure shows that significant part of vocabulary was collected in 2 fields: ‹‹Work life›› and ‹‹Social behavior in the community›› occurring to extralinguistic circumstances like changes of work organization and realities of social life. Key words: thematic structure, semantic fields, German borrowings, vocabulary going out of use, verbs

Redundancy as Camouflage (Based on Media Interviews with Politicians) Media interviews with politicians are messages which shape the views of the audience regarding the phenomena in the world and affect the hierarchy of importance in broadcasts. An analysis of interviews with politicians reveals that the communication purposes of the participants are often divergent and the interlocutors themselves consider on another to be opponents. The rejection of the very idea of conversation as a setting for an agreement sets a new goal: victory, an interlocutor’s particular benefit. These communication conditions provide a setting where redundancy works perfectly as camouflage. The broadcaster in the media, who cares about achieving the implicit purpose of communication, may treat redundancy as a mask – consciously hiding behind multiplicity makes the recipient bear the burden of responsibility for misunderstanding the message or treat what is obtained explicitly from the broadcaster as an indicator to look for meanings. In the paper, two main ranges were distinguished: party messages and universal phrases, indirectly defining the basic tasks of redundancy. The former suggest ways politicians reply to the journalists’ questions; the latter serve to provide statements oscillating around the issue – their generality, predictability and non‑controversiality makes them fit in almost any topic and political option. Key words: redundancy, repetition, excursiveness, political interview, media

Which Model of Grammar is Psychologically Real? Selected Models of Linguistic on the Background of Experimental Results The article is reconnaissance. The author seeks to answer the question: which model of grammar is psychologically real? The content of the paper focuses on issues relating to the hypothesis of grammar: phrase structures grammar and dependency grammar. In close relationship with the analyzed problem author make some experiments. On this basis, the author draws own conclusions. Key words: hypothesis linguistic, psychological reality, epistemological control, laboratory experiment

Lingual Dimension of the Paternalism – on the Examples of Doctor – Patient and Clerk – Client Interaction In the paper, the issue of paternalism in the institutional talks is presented. The main features of paternalism as a communication strategy are shown sketchy. The author analyses two talks: a medical consultations and an institutional talk in the office. On these examples some of the basic manifestations of paternalism are presented, among them the ignoring of the patient`s voice, doctor`s domination including his knowledge regarding the patient`s individual feelings, using of the informal phrase “ty” (“you”), using of diminutive forms. As the result, the voice of patient/client is outgrown or muted, and at the same time the voice of the institution is dominating, and even strengthened. Key words: paternalism, asymmetry in communication, doctor – patient interaction, clerk – client interaction, conversation analysis

The Christian life as a family life in John Henry Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons The present paper aims at analyzing the conceptualization of christian life through the conceptual metaphor christian life is family life in John Henry Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons. After the presentation of the theory of conceptual metaphor in the light of cognitive semantics, the members of the metaphorical family of the Christian life are introduced. Next, the article analyzes the metaphorical way of a Christian’s growing up, whose goal is a spiritual marriage with Christ. Key words: conceptualization, family, Christian life, John Henry Newman, sermons

The pragmatics of casual dialogue In this paper, the author presents the relationships of dialogue and then characterizes dialogue as a text. In dialogue’s characteristics, it is necessary to distinguish its units and both obligatory and optional elements. The author notes that a lively and spontaneous dialogue is dependent on various extralinguistic factors as well as accident. Key words: casual dialogue, coherence, completeness, extralinguistic factors

Role of the Bible in the development of languages and linguistics. An outline of the issue The paper describes a very significant role of Bible translation in the development of the Slavic national languages. The author focuses on the Polish language which in its literary form was shaped in the Middle Ages but its full functional efficiency was reached in the 16th century. Among the medieval relics, the translation of psalms and other Bible passages played a great cultural role. However, the complete Polish translations of the Holy Bible appeared in the 16th century (Biblia Budnego, Leopolity, Wujka). Those renditions enriched the Polish language with a number of new words. Moreover, they provoked a scientific reflection on the Slavic languages. As a result, the author proposes a thesis asserting that the act of Bible philological translations contributed to further linguistic research. Key words: history of language, Bible, development of language, linguistics