The article presents the picture of pain on the basis of analysis of numerous constructions with a lexem ból [pain], derived from dictionaries of contemporary Polish and from Korpus Języka Polskiego Wydawnictwa Naukowego PWN.
The greatest attention was paid to metonymies and conceptual metaphors, with the help of which Polish language users think and speak of physical pain: the way they understand experiencing this type of pain, what they compare it with, what kind of notion models they recall. Facing pain – physical suffering – is showed in the following aspects (profiles): 1) act/process of pain; 2) actions of pain – subject; 3) facing pain by the subject; 4) the subject’s actions to reduce, get rid of pain; 5) means used by the subject to reduce pain; 6) location, locator of pain.
In the last part of the article, the author sketches the research perspectives on the issue of pain in comparative aspect.
We have to do with the conventional use of names of colors when the attribute of a referent is not consistent with the reality or arouses some semantic doubts.
The inconsistency with the actual fact results from the simplification of the world image through contrastive combination of color names: black and white man, white and red wine. It can also be the result of literary convention: purple or coral-red lips (when talking about lips without lipstick).
Semantic doubts arouse in names formed from referents present in different colors: nut-brown, hazel eyes, olive complexion, olive dress.
Today’s press obituaries are a subject to many considerations: sociological, cultural and lingusitic. It is worth to take a closer look at this genre from the point of view of pragmalinguistics and answer the questions: what functions an obituary performs, whether it registers into research trend on speech macroacts. The article is only a contribution to more extensive study.
The analysis of texts from „Gazeta Wyborcza” leads to the conclusion that an obituary is a multipurpose and diverse text and its meaning and functions are dependent on the author’s aim.
Moreover, in the context of speech acts theory, an obituary should be treated as a macroact that unites a number of indirect and direct microacts. The act of ascertainment is dominant, leaving on the background such microacts as: empathy, greatfulness, farewell, request, identification and characteristics of a dead person, addressees and senders of obituaries, assurance of the eternal memory and honorific acts. It is also worth emphasising that major microacts correspond to the names of obituary types, e.g. an obituary – greatfulness (the act of gratefulness), an obituary farewell (the act of farewell), an obituary of condolence (the act of emapthy).
