PORADNIK JĘZYKOWY

ISSUE 1 / 2013

JUBILEES

ARTICLES AND DISSERTATIONS

  • Stanisław Dubisz : Linguistic theory in applied linguistics – on the example of glottodidactics in Polish studies.
    In the history of linguistics, the applied linguistics was mainstream until the 18th c., while in the 19th and 20th c. fundamental and theoretical linguistics prevailed. It is only the past few decades that balance the proportions between both types of linguistics, which motivate and complement one another and use each other’s results. This is contemporarily determined with servitude of linguistics towards other fields of science and technology, which naturally places disciplines related to applied linguistics in the foreground and which is conditioned by the modern civilisation’s utilitarianism.
  • Hanna Jadacka : Factors hampering the reception of compound and complex sentences.
    Several compound and complex sentences are analysed in this paper to prove that one of the major sources of difficulties related to their comprehension is an artificial, clumsily high number of grammatical subjects, and in certain sentences – agents. The most significant effects of its reduction (apart from the lexeme reduction), achieved merely owing to editing efforts which condense the content, are simplification, disambiguation and cohesion of a given statement, and hence – increase in its values in linguistic communication. Among the automatic factors facilitating the achievement of such an effect are e.g. the inclusion of the greatest possible number of lexemes in syntactic patterns resulting from the case government, and the unification of the voice category.
  • Jan Mazur : Teaching the Polish language in Germany against the linguistic and educational policy of the Council of Europe.

    The political changes in the 1990s in Europe and the enlargement of the European Union result in intensified migration movements. Poles are among the nations who migrate most actively. Taking this situation into account, the Council of Europe has developed assumptions of the linguistic and education policy recommended to the European Union Member States. The Republic of Poland has been implementing the recommendations related to the national minorities living in Poland, including the German minority, to a large extent. Unfortunately, the German policy with this respect is not based on the reciprocity principle.

    The Polish language and culture promotion programme in Germany presented in this paper requires considerable effort and funds on the part of both Poland and Germany in the sphere of education.

  • Agnieszka Mikołajczuk : Genre models of the text written by students during their upper-secondary school final examination (in the context of the planned modernisation of the upper-secondary school final examination in Polish)
    In the context of the dispute regarding the need to modernise the upper-secondary school final examination in Polish, it is worth considering the criteria for selecting appropriate genres to be included in the writing part of this examination. In this paper, the author invokes answers to the questions about what genre means for linguistic communication, what relation occurs between genre and text, what aspects need to be accounted for in the description of the individual genres, what circumstances should be taken into consideration with respect to the specificity of the school- and examinationrelated situations, and how the genre model affects text evaluation criteria. The author then presents a proposition for categorisation of school genres as well as outlines of selected genre models – an essay (a problem solving essay and an interpretive essay) and a school sketch (in various variants) – as the ones that are possible to introduce to the upper-secondary school final examination in Polish.
  • Władysław T. Miodunka : The quality of the Polish language used by foreigners. Quality assessment methods on the material of certificate examinations in Polish as a foreign language in 2011.
    When briefly presenting the certification system of the command of Polish as a foreign language which has been operating since 2004, the author concentrates on analysing the quality of the Polish language used by the foreigners taking certificate examinations. In the analysis, he uses the data from 2011 which have never been employed for this purpose thus far. In that year, the examinations were taken by 525 foreigners at three proficiency levels: B1 (176 persons), B2 (269) and C2 (80). The author then analyses the quality of the Polish language used by the foreigners depending on the proficiency level and the obtained overall grade and proceeds to discussing the level of command of the individual skills (listening comprehension, grammatical correctness, reading comprehension, writing, and speaking Polish) at each proficiency level. During the analysis, the author uses the average number of points obtained by the examinees at the individual levels. In the final part of this paper, he departs from the averaged data and presents three selected writing assignments from B2 level, which he subjects to quality assessment, at the same time presenting their evaluation methods.
  • Radosław Pawelec : Trouble with lines – about the use of the hyphen and the dash (written in two ways) in the contemporary punctuation and spelling.
    In the second half of the 20th century two lines were used in the Polish editorship: the hyphen, being a short line without spaces on both sides (-), and the em dash, a long line with spaces (―). Since the 1990s, under the influence of the computer programs serving for text editing and typesetting, the em dash has been replaced with a shorter line, the en dash (–). The change of the system in the transition period resulted in the use of various lines in written texts (as many as three in some) and the situation has not been fully standardised until now. This refers particularly to texts written by non-professionals, some of whom do not even distinguish the individual lines, confuse one with another, and do not use spaces where necessary or use spaces where not needed. Since the rules for using lines are not generally known, being at the same time complex, the modifications in computer programs consisting in the simplification in introducing the dash and the hyphen from the keyboard give some hope for the improvement of the current situation.
  • Edward Polański, Maciej Malinowski : About difficulties with spelling appositional compounds.
    Despite unambiguous normative recommendations related to spelling noun compounds with coordinate and noncoordinate elements provided for in the descriptive part of orthographic dictionaries of Polish, it is still problematic for a considerable number of users of Polish, including specialists (authors of academic publications, columnists, etc.). This is reflected in various errors occurring in texts, consisting in unjustified insertion of a hyphen between the non-coordinate elements of a two-element noun (e.g. prezydent-elekt, słowa-klucze) or its removal from classic nominal structures with coordinate elements (e.g. wańka wstańka, ojczyzna polszczyzna, pomnik głaz). In numerous cases, the cause of such a choice on the part of authors is their insufficient knowledge about the applicable rule as well as the semantic aspect of compound nouns that is at times difficult to determine in an unambiguous manner and the primacy of one element over the other. It seems that the discussed issue is worth devoting more space in dictionaries in the future, i.e. entries should be accompanied with spelling examples of compound nouns.
  • Józef Porayski-Pomsta : The French language in “Lalka” by Bolesław Prus.
    The paper titled The French language in “Lalka” by Bolesław Prus presents the function of quotations and borrowings from French in the novel. In his novel, Bolesław Prus depicts the role of the French language in accordance with the reality. This language was a language of communication in certain circles of the Polish society. In the fictional aspect, the introduction of French along with other languages serves the description of the society in the Warsaw of that time as well as the description of the characters occurring in “Lalka”. It is also used for illustrating the atmosphere of Paris. At the same time, borrowings from French – established in the system
  • Halina Zgółkowa, Tadeusz Zgółka : About ideologisation and de-ideologisation of dictionaries.
    The issue of ideologisation of definitions is frequently discussed when evaluating general dictionaries of the Polish language. Indeed, a certain world view is always reflected in semantic paraphrases. In order to answer the question regarding ideologisation of dictionaries in a competent manner, research on historical and comparative lexicography needs to be developed. However, the view that de-ideologisation of a lexicographic definition is illusion suggests itself.