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Stanisław Dubisz : The culture of language behaviours in the history of the Polish language – determinants and areas of presence
The culture of language behaviours is subject to evolutionary changes along with the transformations of the language system, its style and communication variants, forms of public communication, the results of the influence of development tendencies of language and the related scope of hinorifcs categories and textual diversity of the forms of dialogue and polylogue. The considerations of this evolution also depend on the general intellectual culture of language users, the civilisation context of the development of the communication community, the types of public discourse, the social communication planes, as vell as the standards and principles of linguistic politeness. Hence, the determinants of this evolution are present both in the sphere of internal and external history of language.
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Anna Barankiewicz : The pragmatic effectiveness of apocryphal magic formulas in the context of metaphorisation of language
Perceiving language as a form of activity being closely related to the context of a speech act determines its real meaning and leads, among others, to the metaphorisation of language. Language did not create a full symbolic and semantic structure in its earlier stages of development – a „bridge” between a purely pragmatic language use and symbolic thinking is constituted by magic speech, which frequently uses metaphorical expressions. Magic formulas based on metaphor are present also in the language of apocrypha from the Old Polish period. Examples of linguistic metaphors in apocryphal texts illustrate the semantic multi-dimensionality of their language. Metaphors (and metonymies) are one of the exponents of the magic and pragmatic functions of apocryphal phrases in apocryphal utterances. Magic (performative) formulas in apocrypha are characterised by bidimensionality – they cause effects in the fictional (sacred) reality of the apocrypha, at the same time influencing the reality of the apocryphal text recipients (profane reality), that is the history of the humankind.
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Izabela Winiarska-Górska : The search engine for parallel verses of the 16th-century Polish Ewangelie [Gospels] in the work of a language historian
The article is a communication on the editing assumptions of the Internet search engine containing ten Polish translations of Ewangelie [Gospels] from he 16th century, which is being developed as part of a grant. The article presents the source basis for the Internet edition and the principles of publishing, with the account of the possibilities provided by the Internet edition, above all the combination of elements of transcription and transliteration and various types of footnotes. The search engine of parallel verses is also supposed to facilitate searching linguistic forms in the compared parallel places of individual examples (word formations, inflection categories or lexical units), it is to be of a help to all researchers of the Old Polish who need to quickly compile data for detailed linguistic studies.
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Katarzyna Zawilska : Notes on the language of letters of a prioress written in the first half of the 18th century
The material basis for the present article is a collection of letters by Katarzyna Bystrzejowska, a nun from a monastery in Lviv, coming from the years 1700–1712. Presently, the archive records are to be found in the V division of the Radziwiłł Archive (Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw). What deserves a particular attention in the discussed material are individualised spelling (among others the lack of diacritic marks) and punctuation, numerous types of transcript reflecting the image of everyday speech (e.g. strong secondary palatalisation of the l sound), as well as archaic forms with respect to syntax. The letters written in certain circumstances are interesting also from the lexical and stylistic point of view. The nun, performing the functions of a subprioress and a prioress, took care of other nuns and acquired goods and funds from various people, which were necessary for the operation of the convent. In order to obtain the needed goods she used verbal means of persuasion (colloquial idioms or beseeching requests).
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Milena Wojtyńska-Nowotka : Lexical Gallicisms in Rozprawy literackie by Maurycy Mochnacki
The author of the article concentrates on discussing the issue of the influence of the French language on the vocabulary of Rozprawy literackie by M. Mochnacki. She makes an attempt to determine which part of the vocabulary in the work is constituted by Gallicisms, how they were adapted to the phonetic and inflection system of the Polish language, and in which period they occurred in Polish (based on the 19th-century lexicographical sources). On the basis of the presented material the author comes to the conclusion that the discussed lexical sources cannot be treated as innovative ones since the lexemes of the French origin employed by Mochnacki belong to the standard general variant of the 19th-century Polish.
The performed analysis belongs to the stream of research devoted to the lexis of the 19th-century language.
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Agnieszka Bal : Synonyms of the adjective zły [bad] in Beatryks Cenci by Juliusz Słowacki
The article The synonyms of the adjective zły [bad] in Beatryks Cenci by Juliusz Słowacki is aimed at describing the synonymic meanings of the adjective zły (understood among others as: niemoralny [immoral], niegodziwy [vile], gniewny [enraged], rozzłoszczony [angry], niesprawny [defective]) excerpted from the drama Beatryks Cenci by Juliusz Słowacki. The principal part of the article is a comparative analysis of words accounting for sem components and their stylistic function in particular contextual realisations. The meanings of the synonyms used by Słowacki were compared to dictionary definitions coming from the contemporary and the 19th-century sources. The synonyms have an expressive function, they belong to the names of negative values and serve a more precise characterisation of the described designata. The article includes also metaphoric contexts.
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Joanna Wierzchowska : The metaphor of ton Chrystusa [tone of Christ], or conceptualisation of humility in Towiański’s idiolect
The present article contains an analysis of the situation where the dynamics of the message of a text is created by a subtle synthesis of word and image.
The meaning of a message is not exhausted by its lexical layer. The latter is constituted by the tovianist metaphor ton Chrystusa [tone of Christ]. The article proves that the sense of this metaphor needs to be sought with the reference of Towiański to the image of Jesus in the crown of thorns in mind. Due to the association of words with the impressive function of the traditional religious image the tovianist metaphor ton Chrystusa may be filled with the meaning related to image. The latter indicates the humbleness of the Saviour. The discussed situation of correlation of meanings, words and sacred image verging on semiotics with increased persuasiveness of the text. Its analysis proves the essence of the notion ton [tone] in understanding the structure of the discussed intersemiotic textual space with clear allegoric context. This conceptual outline is indicated by the affinity of associations of the notion ton with the Christian topos of harmonia [harmony] which is ensured by the humility of Jesus in the crown of thorns.
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Agnieszka Jawór : The disappearing phraseologisms
The basic aim of this article is a general reflection on the disappearance of idioms. The author also makes an attempt to determine the factors which cause their disappearance. There are numerous reasons of this phenomenon. The major factor is the changes occurring in the external world, but the coexisting synonyms and phraseological variants (redundant units) also play a significant role. In the today’s Polish language certain euphemisms or compounds which are too distinctive in terms of semantics have the status of obsolete units. Yet other units function today in the „folded” form – as phraseology-based derivatives.
