Co łączy nazwy dźwięków ze świadomością językową?

Names of sound can be used to assess language awareness. Their psycholinguistic aspect is observed in the case of teaching small children language. The second aspect is descriptive and registering in nature, and is related to the knowledge of words. Some names of sounds take on a stylistic character and their use is sometimes assessed by others. Names of animal sounds that have a secondary reference to humans have a negative character, as do names of sounds that are used secondarily as speaking names. The sociolinguistic aspect is associated with the names of sounds typical of cer-tain backgrounds and used in a certain geographical area. The last manifestation of linguistic awareness regarding the names of sounds is related to communicative and discursive usage, i.e. applied to particular situations, persons, and a subject matter of an utterance. One can also see a manifestation of creative activity of people in the area of sound names. Artists and creative individuals not only use well-known names of sounds, but they also create completely new ones.

Selected polite expressions in contemporary Polish written in Ukraine (against the background of the Polish nationwide standard)

The aim of the article is to show some deviations from the Polish nationwide rules in selected polite expressions in the written text on a large amount of research material (over two thousand units), extracted from almost half a thousand issues of Polonia newspapers, published in Ukraine in the 21st century. What is analysed are some peculiarities of the structure of these units against the background of their pragmatic Polish nationwide equivalents, their functions in the press text of the inherited Polish language, and the communication capabilities both within and without the studied communicative community. The influence of Ukrainian polite expressions on the studied expressions of inherited Polish language is evaluated. The research results give rise to a reflection on the issue of differential acceptability — against the background of the general standard — of the features of the linguistic label in the inherited Polish language in Ukraine.

Language awareness of participants of state certificate examinations in Polish as a foreign language (selected issues)

The article presents the results of a survey on the linguistic awareness of participants of state certificate examinations in Polish as a foreign language. The survey was taken by those foreigners who passed the certificate examinations at the University of Wrocław in May 2018 (B1, B2 and C1 levels). The analysis of the survey material shows that the language awareness of the participants of the certificate exams is complex, and its functioning can be described in two basic aspects — competence and convictional. The competence aspect includes linguistic awareness based on recognising the need to know the components of the Polish language system and the resulting communicative effectiveness of utterances. The convictional aspect, on the other hand, relates to consciousness in sociolinguistic terms (the impact of the certificate on social relations) and consciousness in anthropological and cultural terms (revealed in comments on the knowledge of Polish language as a desired value).

Contribution to linguistic politics in the Interwar Period — Ministry of Communication for the sake of language

The article presents the interwar initiatives of the Polish Ministry of Transport (for some time functioning under the name of the Ministry of Railroad) that served to encourage appropriate language use. In order to promote linguistic correctness in rail transport, the ministry established the Language Commission, which functioned in 1919–1938. The members of this organisation, which was an advisory body of the ministry, included linguists (A.A. Kryński, K. Król, S. Szober). The commission published lists of phrases of foreign origin that were deemed incorrect, especially those used in official letters. Recommended equivalents were provided, too. The commission also Polonized German terminology. These initiatives serve as evidence of language awareness at the time. They also bring new arguments to the discussion of Poland’s linguistic politics in the interwar period.

Linguistic aspect of the formation of national identities in Lithuania in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century

The issue of polonisation and the status of the Polish language has been the subject of intense interest in Lithuania to this day, not only in a cultural and historical context, but also in a political context, since Poles constitute the largest national minority there. This article is an attempt to describe the role of the linguistic aspect in the national transformations in Lithuania during the crucial period, i.e. the formation of modern national identities at the turn of the 19th century and their emancipation in the form of the politics of national states of the interwar period. The analysis includes a number of statistics on the presence of Lithuanian and Polish language in public space and their place in the context of a political, social and economic situation of Lithuanian territories. The creation of national states and the formation of linguistic and national processes from the top down by state administration were commonplace on both sides of the Lithuanian-Polish border. In Polish-Lithuanian relations it was the language that became the main hostage of the conflict and a kind of litmus paper for defining national identity, thus marginalising other aspects.

Manifestations of language awareness in the use of persuasive acts of speech in Middle Polish Sejm diaries

Persuasion as a rhetorical action is the basic indicator of parliamentary speech. Therefore, it seems reasonable to ask whether the diarists describing the course of Sejm proceedings were aware of the use of persuasive acts of speech by MPs. The material analysed — 24 lexemes referring to the verbal acts of the speakers — was extracted from a dozen or so Sejm diaries documenting the proceedings in the Middle Polish period. The research has proven that diarists use verba dicendi, which indicate the result of a verbal act (e.g. namawiać, zagrzewać, pobudzać, obmawiać, napominać and animować) or that they pay attention to the persuasion process itself (e.g. dowodzić, emundować się, perswadować, wywodzić, konwinkować, allegować, okazować and remonstrować). In addition, the following nouns are used: dowód, wywód, komparacyja, argument, perswazyja, konkluzyja and racyja. Diarists deliberately use a variety of lexis because they strive to name the verbal acts of the speakers as precisely as possible.

Language awareness of a Radio Wrocław listener

The article analyses the questions directed by the listeners of Radio Wrocław to the persons running the programme Na końcu języka — On the tip of the tongue (until 2016 entitled Język polski — Polish language). The author, who answers the questions that trouble the listeners, collected them and analysed them. The aim of this paper is to present the questions asked by the listeners of Radio Wrocław, grouping them according to the language subsystems and trying to address the question of motivation of the individuals asking them. The material is consisted of questions asked over the last few years, out of which the most interesting or characteristic ones were selected. The results of the analysis show that the main difficulty for those asking the questions is morphology and semantics, but rarely syntax. The author presents the probable causes of linguistic problems of the listeners in the conclusions.

Dialect in the consciousness of rural inhabitants (the example of Kielce and Opoczno regions)

The subject matter of the article is the way in which the rural population of two regions, namely Kielce and Opoczno, sees their language. Field studies were conducted in 2018, involving mainly the oldest residents of the village of Lasocin, Kielce County (1993–1997 and later) and 40 villages in Opoczno County in 2018. The responses, recorded using a voice recorder, show that they treat dialect as a variety of language of a limited geographical range: mainly local (borders of one village, several neighbouring villages); regional (e.g. Silesia, Kaszuby, Kielce, Opoczno, Podhale, Kurpie and others), characteristic of the oldest generation. The dialect is also, in their opinion, a vital indicator of local identity, an essential element of community ties (cf. mówić po nasemu). The dialect in the consciousness of the speakers is distinguished by certain linguistic features from the phonetic subsystem, e.g. a narrowed vowel articulation a→o, e→i, y, articulation broadening i, y→e, e.g. piełka, bieł, beła, labialisation of the initial o, denasalisation of nasal vowels ą→o, ę→e, and lexis, e.g. kaj, źmioki, zaściegacka, podwyrze, plindze, nizinier.

The impact of extra-linguistic factors on the contemporary situation of the Polish language in Lithuania

Researchers of the Polish social environment claim that the development of the Polish language outside of Poland depends on such extra-linguistic factors as: 1) political status of the polonocentric community, 2) the origin of the community in relation to the processes of indigenisation and migration (emigration), 3) intentions towards the culture of the inhabited country, 4) social status and social mobility, 5) legal standards related to the communicative community, 6) the degree of community cohesion, 7) generational differences, 8) history of formation and development. Taking into consideration the above-mentioned statements, one can affirm that the Polish minority in Lithuania has autochthonic traits, and is distinguished by the degree of spatial concentration and preservation of the autonomous character of the culture. The behaviour of the identity and language are influenced by such institutions as school, church, and various socio-cultural institutions, which integrate Poles as a national minority. Among these objective factors, school is the most important institution, because it allows preserving written language. Written language is becoming a tool for cultural development and allows further preservation of multilingualism.