PORADNIK JĘZYKOWY

ISSUE 9 / 2016

ARTICLES AND DISSERTATIONS

  • Marek Ruszkowski : O godzinie siódmej wieczorem w całym mieście zgasło światło (At seven o’clock in the evening, the light went out in the whole town) – a model initial sentence
    The sentence cited in the title begins the novel Zazdrość i medycyna (Jealousy and Medicine) by Michał Choromański, which was published in 1933. This paper aims at demonstrating that this initial statement can be considered a model one, that is a very good beginning to an epic work. Having studied the characteristics desired in an initial sentence (enumerated in both theoretical studies and style guides) and carried out stylistic and semantic analysis, the author found M. Choromański’s statement a model one. The contributing elements are as follows: 1. euphonic (the melody of the sentence manifested in a clear caesura nearly exactly in the middle in terms of the number of syllables and in classical proportions between vowels and consonants); 2. syntactic (word order and the related distribution of individual parts of the sentence, dynamism of the statement); 3. semantic (introducing the reader to the centre of extraordinary events, drawing their attention and enforcing their reflection); 4. graphic (isolating the initial statement in a paragraph). Only the lexis of the examined sentence remains neutral.
  • Wanda Fijałkowska : Can language afford the luxury of multi-motivation?
    Multi-motivation is considered an indispensible component of a derivation description by researchers of word formation. A more in-depth study of the literature dedicated to this issue and analysis of material permitted a finding that this conviction can change if a thorough and detailed formative paraphrase and semantic analysis of the derivatives which have been treated as multi-motivation ones to date are made and if more difficult cases are subordinated to the principle of system dominance. Such an approach to the problem of the so-called multi-motivation allows its elimination since it has been wrongly sought 1) in words which have been imprecisely paraphrased, 2) in derivatives for which the direct motivation basis has been treated equally, 3) in lexemes in the description of which syntactic connectivity has not been taken into account, and 4) in all (numerous) cases where the principle of system dominance, which was postulated already in 1987, has been ignored. Remedying these deficiencies enables exclusion of multi-motivation from the morphological description.
  • Radosław Pawelec : Lexis related to physical disability in the history of the Polish language
    The lexis related to physical disability belongs to the scopes of vocabulary which have undergone significant changes over ages. This regards the structure of the field, the number of units and their correlations, and the valuation ascribed to them. This paper presents the history of lexemes connected with motor, visual and auditory disabilities, as well as words referring to the disabled in general. The text ends with reflections about the concept of disability in the contemporary Polish and English language and possibility to define it (with historical data taken into account), as well as various values associated with disabilities.
  • Dominika Janus : The obituary in the service of propaganda
    On the basis of the material excerpted from two daily newspapers: Trybuna Ludu and Neues Deutschland, the author of this paper shows that obituaries can be also considered as texts in the service of PRL (Polish People’s Republic) and GDR (East Germany). Obituaries performed – like all other press genres – the ritual function and thus, albeit in a less direct way than typical propaganda texts, served the socialist state and its ideology. The following means of rituality confirm and consolidate the adopted values: structure of the obituary, fixed formulas, keywords, references to the past and the present, adjectives, and full titles of the deceased. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are conducted.
  • Urszula Kolberová : The linguistic worldview of the dog in tombstone inscriptions in virtual pet cemeteries
    The purpose of this paper was lexical and metaphorical analysis of tombstone inscriptions for dogs found on Polish-language websites in the study of the linguistic worldview (LWV) and showing the view of the dog, the attitude of the contemporary human being (a Pole) to the dog. The subject of this paper was taken up as part of the research project carried out by the Department of Slavic Studies of the University of Ostrava The view of the dog in the languages and culture of Slavic nations. The analysis showed that the dog is defined very positively here, as a family member, a friend, happiness, an angel, a sweetheart, a treasure, etc. The similarity between the choice of vocabulary on humans’ and dogs’ tombstone inscriptions is striking.

REPORTS, NOTICES, POLEMICS

  • Kinga Wąsińska, Wioletta Wilczek : Contemporary considerations on the condition of old things – a report on the Congress of Historical Linguists, Katowice, 13–15 Apr 2016
  • Mateusz Adamczyk : A report on X Forum Kultury Słowa „Przyszłość polszczyzny – polszczyzna przyszłości” (the 10th Forum of Language Culture “The Future of the Polish Language – the Polish Language of the Future”)

REVIEWS

  • Ewa Modrzejewska, Paweł Trzaskowski : Agnieszka Budzyńska-Daca, Retoryka debaty. Polskie wielkie debaty przedwyborcze 1995–2010 (Rhetoric of the debate. Polish great election debates 1995–2010), Warszawa 2015

EXPLANATIONS OF WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

  • Katarzyna Kłosińska : How should a new field of medicine and a therapy making use of its achievements be called?

WORDS AND PHRASES