PORADNIK JĘZYKOWY

ISSUE 4 / 2016

ARTICLES AND DISSERTATIONS

  • Elżbieta Awramiuk, Urszula Andrejewicz : Indeterminate points in Polish punctuation – selected issues
    This paper is dedicated to indeterminate points in principles governing Polish punctuation. It indicates that new phenomena, which are not covered by the standard, have occurred in the Polish language. Moreover, it notices that the writing practice of educated language users is alarmingly often inconsistent, also where there should be none as the standard has been considered obvious with this respect to date. There are also issues that are described in principle in a prescriptive, yet too generalised, manner, which fails to allow for all questionable structures. The discussed problems are exemplified with authentic sentences containing controversial punctuation solutions accepted by language editors.
  • Jerzy Podracki : The status of punctuation in old handbooks of Polish grammar
    This paper presents methods of describing and codifying Polish punctuation in the major grammars of the Polish language of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. I am interested in connections of punctuation with spelling and with syntax, as well as the evolution of grammatical concepts and terms in textbooks and general purpose handbooks of those times (from Onufry Kopczyński to Antoni Krasnowolski and Stanisław Szober). I confront the old Polish theoretical and prescriptive tradition in this field with newer (almost contemporary) publications, in particular with studies by Stanisław Jodłowski and Jan Tokarski.
  • Danuta Krzyżyk : On (non-)presence of punctuation in schools
    In this paper, the author shares her observations of and reflections on teaching punctuation at all school levels. She puts forward a thesis that the condition of punctuation is becoming increasingly poorer among children and youth, that punctuation gradually vanishes from their statements. The author makes an attempt at answering the question about the causes of the decreasing punctuation skills of the young generation. She points to institutional factors (contents of the core curriculum and, in consequence, insufficient elaboration of the issues related to correct punctuation in textbooks), teaching factors (the concept of teaching is unclear, the work on correct punctuation of students’ statements is not individualised, the time for consolidating and repeating rules and using the acquired knowledge in practice is insufficient, the students’ motivation is weak), civilisation and cultural factors (the influence of the electronic writing culture on the language of the young generation). In the final part of the paper, the author formulates conclusions and postulates regarding teaching punctuation at all educational stages.
  • Edward Łuczyński : Why is Polish punctuation troublesome for its users?
    Punctuation errors are common in Polish texts. The author of this paper provides numerous examples of this kind of errors from students’ written works in evidence. According to the data, the use of commas proved to be most difficult for the students. From the author’s point of view, the cause of problems with using punctuation is poor knowledge of the difference between spoken and written language. When you treat spoken language as a model for writing, you cannot avoid punctuation errors. The author believes that awareness about the specificity of written language needs to change. Moreover, curricula must be modified with respect to teaching grammar and syntax should be learnt in connection with punctuation.
  • Maciej Malinowski : On Polish punctuation shortcomings (no turning of a blind eye)
    This text analyses selected examples of punctuation shortcomings encountered in Polish statements (an official document, scientific and journalistic texts, a known idiom). The errors consist mainly in misusing commas (unjustified insertion after a phrase in a clause or omission from a subordinate clause). The author puts forward a thesis that the punctuation confusion in Polish texts results from insufficient familiarity with punctuation rules among numerous editors and proofreaders of articles before approving them for publishing. The author admits that, at times, a statement is not as unambiguous when it comes to evaluating punctuation as it seems. In such a situation, optionality of the punctuation standard should be permitted. In the conclusion part, the author points to the fact that “punctuation is a lesson of thinking” and that, as a result of the noticeable deterioration of linguistic competence among authors and editors, a subject such as Advanced Punctuation should be introduced for students of Polish Philology and Journalism.
  • Adam Wolański : Special and specialised uses of brackets, quotes and typographic stokes
    This paper discusses special and specialised (yet extra-punctuation or at least quasi-punctuation) uses of brackets (round, square, double square, curly, angle, pointy and slash ones), quotes (single and double curly, French and German angle ones), as well as typographic strokes (hyphen, en dash and em dash). These marks, along with other non-letter typographic marks, are a type of markers that assign meanings to individual fragments of a text or at least determine the semantic repartition of the text in the contemporary writing practice.

POLISH GRAMMAR

  • Anna Just : Gramatyka polska dla Niemców (Polish grammar for Germans) by Jerzy Samuel Bandtkie, an enthusiast and defendant of the Polish language in Silesia

REPORTS, NOTICES, POLEMICS

REVIEWS

  • Edyta Pałuszyńska : Anna Dunin-Dudkowska, Testament jako zwierciadło kultur. Polsko-amerykańskie studium komparatystyczne (A testament as a mirror of cultures. A Polish-American comparative study), Lublin 2014

EXPLANATIONS OF WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

WORDS AND PHRASES