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Stanisław Dubisz : “Twenty years later” – the Polish language abroad – the history and prospects of the research
The studies of the Polish language abroad were
initiated by W. Doroszewski in 1938 with his monograph
titled Język polski w Stanach Zjednoczonych A. P.
(The Polish language in the USA). They fall into
four chronological periods: 1945-1970, 1971-1989/90,
1990-2004, after 2004. In the first period, the works
were carries out occasionally due to political restrictions.
The period which proved significant for their development
was the second one, when a programme of
interdisciplinary studies of the Polish community abroad
was developed. The third period saw first synthetic
publications and new research circles, which considerably
expanded both their objective and methodological scope
in the last decade. Due to dynamic changes of the
contemporary Polish home and abroad, there is a need
for commencing works on a new synthesis of knowledge,
one that would cover this branch of Polish linguistics.
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Halina Karaś : Rebirth or decline of the Polish language? On the position of Polish in the old Eastern Borderlands
The object of the paper is to describe the position of
the Polish language in the old Eastern Borderlands:
Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine, and to answer
the question raised in the title, whether we are facing
rebirth or decline of the Polish language in the East.
The position of Polish is diverse not only in each of
the countries but also within the same country, the
conditions in which it functions, the type of bi- and
multilingualism differ, the nature of the changes in
progress is also slightly different although numerous
common processes conditioned by similar or identical
causes can be indicated. The paper characterises
the Polish minority in the mentioned countries in terms
of its population and changes with this respect, territorial
distribution, relation between the national identity
and language, declarations about the mother tongue,
variations in the Polish language of the Eastern
Borderlands, its functions, teaching Polish,
multilingualism, etc.
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Elżbieta Sękowska : European migrations of Poles within the European Union – review of studies
There were two goals of the paper:
1) to present selected problems arising from the contemporary
migration flows in the sending and host societies, namely:
social, cultural and psychological effects;
2) to indicate the main notions, concepts and methods applied in the
contemporary migration studies.
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Władysław T. Miodunka : The command of Polish among foreigners of non-Polish origin. On the need of a research methodology
The author begins with the statement that most
studies of the position of the Polish language outside
Poland are limited to analysing the degree to which Polish
communities abroad have maintained the Polish language,
while completely ignoring the fact that this language
has been learnt also by foreigners of non-Polish origin.
Therefore, he first pints to the works presenting
the Polonisation process undergone by foreigners and
the process of teaching Polish as a foreign language over
the history. He then proceeds to the current situation and,
with the use of the data from the certification process of
the command of Polish as a foreign language, shows who
took certified examinations in 2013 and 2014, when the
total number of examinees was 4,058 foreigners. They
comprised 2,993 B1 level, 842 B2 level and 223 C2 level
candidates. In each of the two analysed years, the number
of foreigners of Polish origin was below 15%, which
demonstrates how many foreigners of non-Polish origin
wish to certify their command of Polish for reasons such
as studies or work in Poland as well as application for
Polish citizenship. The author points to the fact that the
criterion of Polish origin is imprecise as Polish origin of
(both) parents does not ensure their children’s (good)
command of Polish. The paper ends with comments about
the level at which representatives of national and ethnic
minorities living in Poland have mastered Polish.
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Robert Dębski : Impact of new technologies on the dynamics of maintaining the Polish language in the world. In search of a research model
The synthesis of the results of research on the
impact of new communication technologies on
maintaining the Polish language abroad, which is
contained in this paper, leads to the conclusion that:
1) representatives of the first and second generation of
Polish emigrants often choose Polish in the electronic
environment, yet less frequently than the language of
the country of settlement and 2) traditional language
maintenance/loss models are suitable as the point
of departure for such research. New electronic
communication tools contribute to the maintenance
of Polish abroad, affecting traditional language
maintenance/loss factors such as: expansion of Polishlanguage
social networks, maintenance/reconstruction
of the Polish identity and family bonds, access to
institutions propagating Polish culture and Polish
language learning, reduction of the geographical distance,
and bilinguals’ perception of the value of Polish.
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Ewa Lipińska : Attitudes of the youth from the Polish community abroad towards their mother tongue and ethnical identity
The paper touches upon problems faced by young
Poles in exile, related to maturation and seeking one’s
identity as well as adapting to the country of settlement.
This is the background for discussing the results of
a survey conducted among students of Polish schools
in Chicago, Paris and Vienna from the point of view of
their attitude towards their own ethnicity and the Polish
language. The results prove that second-generation
emigrants demonstrate a strong sense of Polishness and
willingness to transmit it, yet see their future neither
in the country of settlement nor in Poland. This survey
also reveals differences in boys and girls’ views on
certain issues, which opens a broad field for researchers.
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Anna Czeniek : The more or less inherited Polish language. Factors infl uencing the language competence of Polish emigrants’ children
This paper is dedicated to the impact of the family
situation on the motivation of emigrants’ children to use
Polish. The material for the research was provided by
survey questionnaires filled in by teenagers and students
who came to Poland to attend a Polish language course.
The results of the survey demonstrate that maintenance of
a command of Polish is extremely important to a vast
majority of Polish parents. It also turns out that factors
such as the family’s affluence, its social position or
parents’ education have an insignificant influence on the
level of language mastered by their children. What
facilitates a high level of language competence is the
respondents’ age – the group of students contained
definitely more persons with a very good command of
Polish than the group of teenagers.
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Elżbieta Łątka-Likh : Polish cultural scripts in contact with speakers of another language. Methodological issues
Cultural scripts for expressing emotions constitute
an important element in the communication exchange and
should be included in foreign language teaching since they
are different in every culture.
In order to highlight characteristic features of
cultural scripts, they need to be analysed in contrast by
comparing at least two languages. Survey questionnaires
and observation are useful research tools. The research
conducted among native French and Polish speakers
permitted identification of cultural scripts for expressing
ANGER for both mentioned languages and observation
how the scripts are used in utterances by Polish migrants
living in France.
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Agnieszka Rabiej : The new national educational policy towards the Polish community abroad
The paper touches upon the issues of the impact of
migration processes on a change in perceiving the
educational mission as regards the Polish community
abroad and, what follows this phenomenon, the new
national educational policy towards the Polish community
abroad. The object of the analysis is the projects
introduced by the Ministry of National Education after the
new wave of migration which took place in 2004 and was
connected with Poland’s accession to the European Union.
The educational resources discussed in the paper were
evaluated with the use of criteria for evaluating electronic
documents since they were ill in that form. They were
evaluated in terms of substance, methodology, as well as
usefulness and availability. The conclusion part
emphasises advantages of electronic communication in the
transmission process of minority languages and
formulates a postulate for in-depth research on the
effectiveness of e-materials in teaching children and youth
abroad.
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Bogdan Walczak : The Polish language beyond the country’s borders in the history of Polish
Chronologically, the first time the Polish language
went beyond the borders of the state (country) was in the
14th c. and resulted from changing the borders after the
country’s reunification (following the period of regional
disintegration in Poland). The regions of Silesia and
Pomerania remained outside the borders at that time. In
the 17th c., Livonia and Courland (which had been
Polonised from the 16th c.) were also outside the First
Commonwealth, and in the period of partitions (1795–
1918) the notion of borders of the country disappeared,
while the notion of the Polish language in the ethnically
Polish area and beyond the area occurred. What is meant
here is mainly the old Eastern Borderlands and the
southern borderland of the First Commonwealth. The fact
that Poland regained its statehood in 1918 and 1945
within different borders changed the territorial reach of
the Polish language abroad.
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Adam Pawłowski : Promotion of the Polish language – on the borderline between linguistics and marketing
The paper discusses the meanings of the term
‘promotion’ and briefly outlines the history of promotion of
the Polish language. Language is approached from the
economic perspective as an informational subsystem of
the state administration. A classification of languages
based on the economic criterion of the power of language
is presented. Thus, profitable, sustainable and lossmaking
languages are identified. The division in internal
and external promotion in the linguistic context is also
discussed. Three recipient groups of the promotion of
Polish are distinguished: residents of Poland, Polish
community and Poles abroad, and foreigners.
