PORADNIK JĘZYKOWY

ISSUE 2 / 2013

ARTICLES AND DISSERTATIONS

  • Jolanta Szpyra-Kozłowska : Successes and failures of teaching the pronunciation of Polish as a foreign language. Comments of an outside observer
    This paper analyses and evaluates the present state of teaching Polish pronunciation to foreign learners, points to its strengths and weaknesses, and indicates directions for future development. The author regards the importance attached to the phonetic training of language teachers and auditory training of foreign learners, the competent employment of exercises based on minimal pairs, tongue twisters, poems and songs as well as techniques taken from speech therapy and speech training as significant merits of Polish pronunciation teaching. She criticizes the small number and low quality of publications devoted to teaching pronunciation, the lack of pronunciation syllabuses for different levels of language learning, the marginal place of phonetics in Polish coursebooks, no integration of pronunciation teaching with the remaining linguistic subsystems, too narrow scope of taught phonetic and phonological issues, the improper use of analytic techniques of pronunciation teaching, the lack of studies on the acquisition of Polish pronunciation by foreign learners and on the perception of foreign-accented Polish that are an empirical foundation of phonetic instruction, and the insufficient use of pronunciation teaching techniques developed for teaching pronunciation of other foreign languages in the Polish pronunciation teaching materials.
  • Elżbieta Awramiuk : The contemporary Polish spelling: between the standard and the usage
    This paper is devoted to discussing the causes of violating the codified spelling standard in the contemporary written texts in the context of correlations between the rules generally adopted in spelling dictionaries (the standard) and the spelling habits of Poles (the usage). Deviations from the spelling standard occur as a result of unfamiliarity with the standard, divergence of the standard from the usage, difficulties with applying the standard, existence of an unestablished standard, and conscious violation of the standard. The enumerated types of relations between the standard and the usage are discussed with the illustration of authentic examples derived from the contemporary written texts, mainly from the Polish nationwide press. The paper is concluded with a reflection on standardisation activities.
  • Joanna Zawadka : The evaluation of selected graphic errors found in papers written by foreigners learning the Polish language
    This paper presents a proposition for describing graphic errors according to a division into four types of realisation of the allograph – grapheme connection (incorrect, untypical, innovative and episodic realisations) and provides an evaluation of such representations by applying the existing division into spelling, inflectional and syntactic errors.
  • Marta Kotarba-Kańczugowska : Plurilingualism in the discursive fi eld of teachers of a small child. References to own research
    This paper presents the results of individual in-depth interviews conducted as part of the research project titled Różne języki w przestrzeni edukacyjnej [Different languages in the educational area]. The research is related to the experience of plurilingualism and the teachers’ attitude to plurilingual competence at early stages of education. These issues have become a part of the plurilingual teaching stream promoted by the European Union.
  • Konrad Kowalczyk, Magdalena Madejska : The same issue differently, that is the language of the press towards sexual minorities
    The subject of this paper is the variant of the Polish language present in press articles related to sexual minorities. The authors analyse the differences in the manners of giving account of the events concerning sexual minorities on the basis of publications from three major Polish nationwide dailies which present diverse attitudes towards such minorities. The prepared material provides multiple examples of characteristic features of the language of a given daily; the specificity of the applied lexical code; the systems of value to which journalists refer, as well as stylistic devices aimed at convincing the reader to a particular attitude. Additionally, excerpts of publications referring to the issues that are crucial for sexual minorities – among others, partnerships – and to the moments when sexual minorities enter the public space, e.g. equality parades, are compiled in this paper.
  • Kinga Banderowicz : Equivalents (?) of specialised consultations – prevention and diagnosis of illnesses by patients (on the example of medical articles in women’s magazines and comments on the Internet)

    The author of this paper intends to focus on the analysis of headlines of texts being medical advice and give some attention to the Internet manners of conceptualising an illness and its diagnosing by patients assuming the role of experts. The aim is to describe the methods of popularising medical achievements related to prevention of various illnesses and manners of treatment, as well as to present the register of linguistic devices used in relation thereto. They serve making the communicated messages more attractive and accessible.

    The senders of messages – assuming the position of authority (in glossy magazines and Internet forums) – share their knowledge most frequently arising from their own experiences. These, however, are not specialists and therefore their advice should not be treated as equivalent to a specialised diagnosis. The power of persuasion of the analysed texts is high although the relations between the sender and the recipients are equivalent (non-specialists). Due to the above there is no need to neutralise these relations and hence both parties use unofficial and nonspecialised vocabulary that is adjusted to one’s own perception capabilities. Certain pieces of advice fulfil their primary function because they are instructive in nature and have an ambition to inform the recipient in a reliable, even if unprofessional, manner.

  • Emilia Danowska-Florczyk : Do payers of compliments always pay compliments? (about “risky compliments” on the Internet portal nk.pl)
    The author of this text makes an attempt to answer the question about the topicality of descriptions devoted to the Polish politeness and etiquette. She discusses this issue in the context of one speech act – a compliment, which is particularly expansive in the language written on community portals. However, from the compilation of over one thousand seven hundred posts and responses to comments placed under the photographs of the nk.pl portal users she selects those which deviate from the typically complimentary ones.
    In the further part of the text she presents the mechanisms that may lead to the so-called unfortunate compliments and she demonstrates the differences in the evaluation of these comments in the real and virtual worlds.
  • Edyta Manasterska-Wiącek : What is striking in weather forecast?
    This paper is devoted to the analysis of the language used by weather forecasters. The research material is constituted by units derived from television weather forecasts. As noticed, weather forecast is not distinguished as a separate journalistic genre. The contemporary weather forecasts inform, on the one hand, and are supposed to make the viewer interested and amused, on the other hand. Hence, the author’s intention is, apart from classifying numerous linguistic and stylistic errors, to distinguish such characteristics thereof that could be used to compare it with other related genres and, possibly, to be able to treat weather forecast as a separate journalistic genre. The conducted research allows the conclusion that weather forecast is an example of infotainment, which is aimed at informing while entertaining, which assumes the creation of a certain show, and which shatters the classical typology. Apart from the extensive group of linguistic and stylistic errors, certain characteristics distinguishing this type of live programmes are observed in the language used by weather forecasters, ones that may constitute its genre indicators, such as: repetitions, vividness, inclusion of elements of the colloquial language, neologisms, strong exhibition of the weather forecaster’s own opinion.

OLD AND CONTEMPORARY DICTIONARIES

REPORTS, NOTICES, POLEMICS

  • Maciej Grochowski : Jubilee of Komitet Językoznawstwa PAN [Linguistics Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences]

REVIEWS

  • Agnieszka Kołodziej : Ivana Vidović Bolt, Životinjski svijet u hrvatskoj i poljskoj frazeologii, Zagreb 2011
  • Marta Piasecka : Różne formy, różne treści. Tom ofi arowany Profesorowi Markowi Świdzińskiemu, ed. M. Bańko and D. Kopcińska, Warsaw 2011

EXPLANATIONS OF WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

  • Ewa Rudnicka : About the multiplicity of grammatical combinations

WORDS AND PHRASES

BIOGRAPHICAL ENTRIES AND MEMOIRS

  • Wanda Decyk-Zięba : A memoire about Professor Halina Satkiewicz as a chief editor of “Poradnik Językowy”