MULTIVOCALITY OF CROSS IN POLISH SOCIETY PRACTICES The Semantics of the Cross in Contemporary Polish Language: As Based on Questionnaires, Culture and Dictionaries

• Authors: Brzozowska, Małgorzata

Abstracts

EN

The symbol of the cross has been with humans for centuries. Its significance, meticulously described by ethnologists and ethnographers, is not limited to the sacred, though this is the prevailing domain, which is illustrated with selected dictionaries of symbols. The mainconcern of the presentation is the semantics of the Polish word krzyż, or ‘cross’ in contemporary Polish, together with the changes it has undergone over the last two decades. Theanalyses are based on Polish dictionaries and three questionnaires conducted in ten-year intervals with students in Lublin, Poland. The data show a common cultural base (van Dijk’s shared knowledge) and semantic profiles of krzyż, as well as changes in the semantics, as perceived by the students in Lublin. A comparison is made of extra-linguistic and linguistic symbolic data. For the students of Lublin, the cross is still a symbol of Christianity, suffering and martyrdom. Also stressed is the need for everyone to respect the cross. Unfortunately the questionnaires do not allow one to establish the rank of the cross as a symbol and a value.

Keywords

EN

krzyża; słownikach

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Gdański
• Journal: Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 13(1)

Contributors

author

Brzozowska, Małgorzata

Identifiers

DOI

10.5604/20842937.1093879