The paper attempts to synthesize and revise the views on wishing and congratulating as specific speech acts which are represented in Polish by the performative verbs życzę, życzymy ‘I/we wish’, winszuję, winszujemy ‘I/we congratulate’, by optative formulas based on aspect operators (niech, oby, aby, żeby ‘let’, ‘so that’ &c.), and sometimes also by imperative sentences. It examines the conditions of fortuitousness of the wishes and their illocutive value, and especially the quite questionable honorific function of wishing formulas, and their connection with the linguistic relics of primitive magical thinking. The proposed interpretations emphasize the cultural and pragmatic function of wishes, rooted in history and tradition.
Polish linguistic courtesy owes a lot to the gentry’s culture and courtly culture in general. As research suggests, centuries ago the major and specific norms of Polish etiquette (the special position of women) emerged while the noble and courtly origin of the majority of the contemporary forms of address is beyond doubt. Due to the dominant impact of the aristocratic and courtly model of courtesy on the linguistic habits of contemporary Poles and their ancestors, it seemed interesting and useful to present and describe selected elements of Sarmatism’s linguistic etiquette from today’s perspective (with special emphasis placed on words of greetings and farewells) included in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s famous historical novel, Ogniem i mieczem [With Fire and Sword]. This attempt was also stimulated by the book’s cognitive value and the author’s impressive knowledge of the Polish gentry in the mid-17th century, obtained as a result of studies of the literary diaries available to him. Therefore, the attempt made to recreate the world of gentry’s culture and its model of Old Polish etiquette is not just a product of the author’s imagination and it continues to inspire contemporary readers.
The article describes typical language behaviour, which was recommended in savoir-vivre handbooks from the 19th century. On the base of chosen customs codes, which include above mentioned savoir-vivre advices, the author describes the patterns of non-verbal behaviours, that either accompany or even replace the verbal communication. All the basic types of non-verbal communication-visual, auditory and kinesthetic has been analyzed. The article proves that the moderation and restraint are common in all typical language behaviours. We can observe this not only in indications themselves but also in their forms and argumentation used in them.
This article discusses the role of verbal politeness formulas in epistolography from the second half of the 18th century and the first half of 19th century. The authentic letters have been chosen from various classes of writers: landed gentry, bourgeoisie, soldiers, literary and artistic circles. The paper analyses opening and closing acts of linguistic etiquette in this letters. There are also comparisons with pointers in model letter-writers published in analysed period. Conventional verbal formulas, contrary to recommendations included in these letter handbooks, were still commonly used in letter closings. There were very rarely used in salutations, which was also continuation of Old Polish epistolographic tradition.
The article is an attempt of interpreting the Polish rules of linguistic etiquette in Polish epistolography. I consider Polish orthographic rules regulating the usage of capital and lower-case letters for personal pronouns in the context of cognitive aspects and pragmatics. Precisely, I analyze writing Polish forms ‘you’ or ‘your’ with capital letter [Ty, Twój] and pronouns relating to the others with the small letters in correspondence. In other words, I research the possible ways of affecting the Polish epistolographical savoir-vivre both on the remitters and the remittees. Hence, the anthropological aspects of Polish orthography connected with the graphical forms of personal pronouns are the heart of the matter in this work. The motivation for presenting a Polish linguistic and cultural problem during the international conference comes from the fact of increasing multicultural cooperation between different nations. And the key to understand the others is knowing their mentality, which in turn is being shaped especially by the mother tongue and cultural background. Polish epistolographical rules, at least to some degree, show that someone becomes a Person in a direct relationship but a person in other cases. And this in turn reflects the nobility of being a homo sapiens on one hand and insincerity of another. What is important, by this text I want to hasten Polish tradition of writing letters considering both the positive and negative aspects of using capital letter in written communication which shows, as I hope, my efforts to show the problem in real and objective light [1968, 243].
The authors focused primarily on a typical act of politeness i.e., congratulations as understood and verbalized by the students of secondary schools. They were mostly interested in student’s answers to the following questions: Can students construct the correct definition of this notion? What advantages, apart from giving pleasure to the person who receives congratulations, does the sender want to achieve by using utterances of this kind? Can one congratulate against oneself, insincerely? Consequently, the definitions of the lexeme created by secondary school students underwent careful scrutiny, and also the addressee of congratulations, the reasons for expressing the words of praise as well as the intentions of congratulating, which can be very different: from demonstrating admiration for the attainments of the allocutor, through motivating them for further efforts, until the desire to achieve one’s own aims and awaiting reciprocity.
Olga Tokarczuk’s novel The Books of Jacob is a wide and complicated epic panorama the action of which takes place on the borderlands of countries, cultures, and religions. Translating such a work into any language is a task that requires a lot of effort and careful preparation, aimed first of all at exploring all possible contexts: historical, linguistic, religious. A particularly difficult challenge is to translate The Books of Jacob into one of the languages that are part of the reality presented in the novel and are in relationships of interference with other languages used by the characters or functioning in their environments. Ukrainian is such a language. This article is an attempt to summarise the experience of translating the novel into this language, taking into account the greatest difficulties faced by the translator.
PL
Powieść Olgi Tokarczuk Księgi Jakubowe to szeroka i skomplikowana panorama epicka, której akcja dzieje się na pograniczach państw, kultur i religii. Przetłumaczenie takiego utworu na jakikolwiek język to zadanie wymagające dużego trudu i starannych przygotowań, skierowanych przede wszystkim na opanowanie wszystkich możliwych kontekstów – historycznych, językowych, wyznaniowych. Szczególnie zaś trudnym wyzwaniem jest przetłumaczenie Ksiąg Jakubowych na jeden z języków, które są elementem rzeczywistości przedstawionej w powieści i znajdują się w relacjach interferencyjnych z innymi językami, używanymi przez bohaterów lub funkcjonującymi w ich środowiskach. Takim językiem jest właśnie język ukraiński. Artykuł jest próbą podsumowania doświadczenia przekładu powieści na ten język z uwzględnieniem największych trudności, z którymi przyszło zmierzyć się tłumaczowi.
W artykule na materiale tekstów „Gazety Polskiej Bukowiny” reprezentujących pisaną odmianę polszczyzny odziedziczonej na Ukrainie przeanalizowano swoiste na tle skodyfikowanej normy ogólnopolskiej formy grzecznościowe w zakresie sposobów zwracania się do adresata, składania gratulacji i życzeń, podziękowań, a także używania słów pan/pani przed antroponimami w strukturach nieadresatywnych tekstów informacyjnych. Ujawniono przyczyny trwałości tych form w małej wspólnocie komunikatywnej: interferencja z języków wschodniosłowiańskich, oddziaływanie uzusu ogólnopolskiego, tradycyjność określonych struktur na tych trenach, także szereg czynników pozajęzykowych – np. chęć szczególnego wyrażania szacunku wobec odbiorcy, ocieplania z nim relacji, ekonomiczność wyrażeń językowych, wreszcie akceptowalność swoistych jednostek etykietalnych w ramach wspólnoty.
EN
In this article, the author analyses honorifics in relation to the codified general Polish norm in terms of the modes of addressing people, congratulating and well-wishing, as well as the use of the words “pan/pani” (sir/ma’am) in front of anthroponyms in non-addressable structures of information texts, on the basis of the texts of the Gazeta Polska Bukowiny periodical which represent the written version of Polish as a heritage language in Ukraine. The author reveals the reasons for the persistence of those forms among the small linguistic community: instances of interference from East Slavic languages; influence of the general Polish usage; the traditions of specific structures in those areas; as well as a series of extra-linguistic factors, e.g. the intention to express respect towards a recipient, warming relations with them, the efficiency of linguistic expressions, and, finally, the acceptability of specific etiquette units within a community.
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