PORADNIK JĘZYKOWY

ISSUE 8 / 2006

ARTICLES AND DISSERTATIONS

  • Marek Ruszkowski : Tautologies Including an Extraneous Component in Contemporary Polish
    In Słownik pleonazmów i tautologii (Dictionary of Tautologies and Subordinate Connections), prepared by me, there are 307 subordinate connections (77.3%) and 90 coordinate ones (22.7%). Tautology is understood as a coordinate connection of semantically identical elements. The text describes tautologies containing one extraneous component. Examples are extracted both from written and spoken sources of Polish. Tautologies including an extraneous element make 42 connections (of 90), i.e. 46.7%. The remaining 48 connections (53.3%) are structures where both elements are indigenous. The type of tautology under discussion falls into 3 groups: 1. tautologies whose first element is extraneous – 24 (57.1%); 2. tautologies whose second element is extraneous – 16 (38.1%); 3. tautologies whose both elements are extraneous – 2 (4.8%). The prevailing prepositional word order of the extraneous component is determined both semantically (postpositional indigenous element is an explication of extraneous one) and formally, which is based on the Behaghel’s law, which says that in word connections including coordinate elements, the shorter element comes first, followed by the longer one.
  • Joanna Piłat : Intellectual Glossary of Seven-Year-Old Children from Urban and Rural Environment Based on Customs and Habits Topic Area

    The article mainly aims at revealing seven-year-old children’s knowledge of notions referring to customs and habits. The research is based on children’s opinions compared with definitions of the notions from two dictionaries: Słownik języka polskiego (The Dictionary of Polish) ed. by Witold Doroszewski (1958-1969) and Inny słownik języka polskiego (A Different Dictionary of Polish) ed. by Mirosław Bańko (2000). The dictionary definitions contain a description of mature knowledge as opposed to common knowledge of the children.

    The examined children expressed opinions in the form of some connotation qualities associated with a given designate. Few opinions included defining qualities, still fewer included examples of those. Definitions specifying general type were rare which indicates that seven-year-old children are not able to systematize their knowledge of the world.

    The conducted analysis did not show any differences in frequency of occurrence of each category of opinion between urban and rural children. The ability to define the meaning of a word depends on how clear and close to the children’s experiences the notion is. Information covering the indicated topic area turned out to be flexible and changeable.

    According to the contents analysis, no matter where the children live, the same words reflect similar areas of children’s experiences. Yet, rural children use more standard opinions, while urban ones apparently make more complex opinions and refer to someone else’s experiences.

  • Dorota Połowniak-Wawrzonek : Formulating Psychic Processes as an Armed Struggle Appearing in Polish Phraseology
    The metaphor Psychic Processes are an armed struggle shows clearly in Polish phraseology (two types of phrasal connections are conspicuous). Associations between such different spheres as psychic processes and armed struggle arise mostly when opposite forces collide in human psychic. The military metaphor, which appears in descriptions of psychic processes, allows a more suggestive and straightforward description of phenomena which are more complex.
  • Janusz S. Bień : Some Examples of Dictionary Digitization
    The simplest way of digitization is scanning pages as graphical images. DejaVu is a format especially designed for efficient and convenient presentation of scanned publications. In Poland it is used, among others, by Digital Library of Wielkopolska. The paper discusses in particular two dictionaries, which have been scanned by Warsaw University Library and later converted to this format. One of them is 17th century Knapski’s dictionary, the largest lexicographical work of the period. The second is the monumental geographical dictionary in 15 volumes, published in 1880–1902. Last but not least, the first volume of 16th Century Polish Language Dictionary (work still in progress) in DejaVu format is also announced. All the dictionaries mentioned are freely available on the Internet.

POLISH AT SCHOOL

  • Beata K. Jędryka : Polish Language at Polish School and at School for Polish Emigrants. An Attempt to Compare Selected Student’s Books for Primary School Class 2
    In the article the author presents Polish educational contents of Asy z II klasy (Class II Aces), a student’s book for the second class of the Saturday Primary School in the USA. She compares the contents of the book with Wesoła szkoła, the book for the Polish second class. The comparison includes the following aspects: orthography, punctuation, grammar, cultural issues and lexis. The analysis raises the questions like: what lexical material should appear in the book for the children of Polish emigrants and what Polish contents it should include.

REVIEWS

  • Grzegorz Dąbkowski : Ewa Biłas-Pleszak, Język a muzyka. Lingwistyczne aspekty związków intersemiotycznych, Katowice 2005
  • Bożena Ostromęcka-Frączak : Anna Dunin-Dudkowska, Anna Trębska-Kernotopf, Ekonomia – to nie boli. Polski język ekonomiczny dla cudzoziemców, Lublin 2006
Wersja polska