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Irena Kamińska-Szmaj : The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Poland of 1952 as Declarative Act of Propaganda Nature
The purpose of the paper is to present linguistic and stylistic features, as well as generic features of the Preamble to the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Poland of 1952, which make it a declarative act of propaganda nature. The composition of the Introduction to the Constitution is tripartite. In the first part, the most important historical events were highlighted, those which had occurred before the Constitution was passed. The choice of these events proves ideological and propaganda nature of historical policy. The second part of the Preamble is clearly declarative in nature; it includes the most important principles of new constitutional order. The last part, which evokes postulated world of values and shows purposes of the Constitution, is written in a sublime style, referring to Poles’ positive emotions. It plays a role of rhetorical captatio benevolentiae. The most frequent words repeated in the Preamble, which are discussed in the paper, prove that it is a declarative act of propaganda nature. Moreover, the paper portrays the press propaganda campaign around the constitution draft. The propaganda action lasted three months. Its aim was to demonstrate involvement of entire nation in creating new constitutional grounds and to make an impression of full social approval of the people’s government.
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Anna Cegieła : About Rhetoric of Contempt and Exclusion in Polish Public Discourse
Polish public discourse is most often rhetoric. Politicians and media use vulgar expressions, unethical ways to discredit an opponent, such as insinuations and lies. Every discourse becomes politicized and ideologized, disputes become confrontational; moreover it is a commonplace to employ a variety of techniques to impose your ideas aggressively. Media use methods typical for rhetoric of contempt. Contrary to what philosophers and linguists say about communication value, not enough attention is paid in the discourse to argumentation concerning essential facts, seeking an agreement in the name of the common good. Instead, one may clearly notice a desire to exclude the opponent from the dialogue, and even from the public space. Such activity follows a fixed scenario which includes subsequent measures: categorization – creating simplified, stereotypical image – stigmatization by giving somebody a name with negative connotation or false, arbitrarily given meaning – degradation – marginalization – exclusion. This phenomenon is a dangerous sign of media reaching for power over language and thinking.
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Małgorzata Marcjanik,
Magdalena Romańska : Structure of Mobile Phone Voice Mail Greetings
- On the basis of cursory observation of people calling on mobile phones and listening to greetings recorded there, in which a caller is asked to leave a message, a conclusion may be drawn that these texts are poor in terms of content and form. That results from the fact that their main purpose is to inform a caller that this person cannot answer the phone, so asks to leave a short message or do something else to assure contact.
- However, detailed analysis of recorded greetings shows that not only do they fulfill their primary communication goal, but also a person who records them uses many polite phrases so that a caller – who did not get through – and is disappointed, could be satisfied, as such acts are used to address him/her as: greeting, introducing oneself, excusing for not answering the phone, thanking for a call, promising to contact in the future, and saying goodbye. From the cognitive point of view, the construction of these recordings is interesting; it resembles a real conversation which begins with a signal initiating contact and finishes with a signal ending contact, thus it is wrapped in polite phrases.
- In the paper methods used in linguistic pragmatics and sociolinguistics were used.
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Anna Tereszkiewicz : Some Remarks on Headlines in Traditional and Internet Press
In recent years there has been a dynamic development and increase in popularity of press published in the Internet. These processes are accompanied by changes in the generic structure of press texts. Taking into account significance of press among mass media, it is essential to characterize articles published online if it comes to their generic and stylistic features. This paper focuses on press headlines. The aim of the analysis is to describe form and syntax of headlines of articles published in online newspapers and to compare electronic titles with headlines in traditional press. Headlines of articles published in traditional papers and on websites of selected all-Polish and regional dailies were subject to analysis. It showed similarities and differences between traditional and Internet press. The differences concern form and style of headlines; headlines with expanded, complex structure, lower level of expressiveness, stylization and figurativeness are used in the Internet press.
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Krzysztof Wróblewski : Acronyms in Banking Vocabulary (years 1989–1999) on the Basis of Compendium of Banking Terms by Robert Patterson
In the paper the author describes acronyms which are part of banking terminology compiled in Compendium of Banking Terms by Robert Patterson. This publication contains Polish banking terminology in 1989–1999, which was an important period of its formation as a transition from command economy to market economy took place then. This process required not only the change of mentality and the way of work organization, but also new terminology appropriate for changing economic reality. The terminology was based on English terms, and acronyms became its important part. For several reasons they were a big challenge, among others, for translators. Firstly, they could refer not only to economic reality; secondly, sometimes they were ambiguous (even in relation to economy); thirdly, they were quite frequently created ad hoc, and authors not always indicated words in the text from which they made an acronym. The analyzed material includes four groups of acronyms: 1) formed from the English term having the Polish equivalent, 2) acronyms formed from both – Polish and English terms, 3) formed from the Polish term, functioning as a term in Polish and English (one example) and 4) acronyms formed only from English terms which had no Polish equivalents.
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Iwona Piwowarczyk : Language of the Law and Its Place among Functional Styles of Contemporary Polish Language
The author analyzes typologies of varieties of contemporary Polish language proposed by researchers working on stylistics, and tries to find a place among them for legal texts. She notices that in most classifications of the Polish language there are no studies on legal texts; moreover researchers do not indicate clearly the group where they would place texts of this type. Next, the author describes features of scientific and official style and compares them to features of language of the law. She proves that legal texts use both styles, however she pays attention to their specific character which makes language of the law different from other functional varieties, including typical official style. The author suggests that in order to demonstrate peculiarity and significance of normative texts, the most frequently used term – styl urzędowy [official style] should be replaced with the term an styl urzędowo normatywny [official normative style] or styl prawno-urzędowy [legal official style]. The paper finishes with stylistic analysis of the act chosen as an example of using language of the law.
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Przemysław Wiatrowski : About Opipiały Kałmuk and Zadudlana Bojónczka, in Other Words Expressing Emotions in Poznań Urban Language
(on the Basis of Słownik gwary miejskiej Poznania Edited by Monika Gruchmanowa and Bogdan Walczak)
So far, in the linguistic literature on lexis of Poznań urban language (and its semantic structure) there has been no study focusing on vocabulary expressing emotions. In the paper the author presents words and set phrases, copied out of Słownik gwary miejskiej Poznania edited by Monika Gruchmanowa and Bogdan Walczak, which serve the Poznań inhabitants to articulate their feelings. They were subject to semantic analysis, due to which terms naming emotions could be separated (e.g. fefry, galara, launa, racha), including those which mean experiencing emotions (e.g. drygać, libować się, uroczyć się, dłuży się komuś), defining the subject of emotions (e.g. ćwok, mrukot, muk, bojączka/bojónczka) and his/her features (e.g. zadudlany, zduczniały, opipiały, zdalasiały), denoting arousing emotions (e.g. wytrykus, rajcowny, kintopiczny, umolny, faksy, jok, lury, wystwarzać/wystworzyć fify, iść komuś na nerwy, rozjadowić), as well as their signs (e.g. rąbać w pory, mieć glut w spodniach, patrzeć jak byk na pyrkę, duczeć, lachać się, zagałuszyć się). Some of these elements are at the same time expressivisms, as well as archaisms, dialectisms and loanwords from German.
