Book Review: Holger Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam (Handbook of Oriental Studies / Handbuch der Orientalistik. Section 1. The Near and Middle East 111; Leiden - Boston: Brill 2015). Pp. XIV + 451. €162,00. ISBN 978-90-04-28509-5, ISSN 0169-9423.
This article is a reflection on the current discussion concerning the relation ‘language vs thinking'. It has been inspired by the book ‘O relacji między myślą a językiem. Studium krytyczne stanowisk utożsamiających myśl z językiem' [On the Relation between Thought and Language. A Critical Study of Approaches that Identify Thought and Language] by Arkadiusz Gut (published by Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II in 2009). The paper consists of three parts. The first part presents the history of dealing with the relation ‘language vs thinking' within philosophy, language philosophy and cognitive linguistics. The second part outlines the remarks on the modern discussion concerning this relation. It refers in particular to the fallacies of this discussion which ignores the ontological questions concerning language and thinking. The last part suggests, on the basis of the anthropocentric theory of human languages, the manner of putting the relation of ‘language and thinking' in order
The aim of the article is to have a closer look at the selected modern schoolbook texts used in the process of teaching/learning at the Polish secondary school. The analysis of the above-mentioned material seems interesting and important because of the fact that the system of education in Poland has been under the constant change for almost 15 years, teenage students and the society are changing, the availability of the newest technological devices is growing and all these must have influenced the ability to perceive the information, the way and methods of teaching/learning and, as the result, school textbooks themselves, too. The author presents the set of chosen definitions of ‘text’, shortly characterises a schoolbook text, presents the set of linguistic parameters that can be used when analysing it and applies the majority of the parameters in her brief research of the chosen schoolbook texts for secondary-school use.
The subject of the article is related to the issue of construction and instruction in the didactics of foreign languages. Although instruction isn't a recommended approach, there are some instructive measures imposed in glottodidactics, such as teaching plans, handbooks, fixed time of classes, etc. On the other hand there is more and more construction in the methodological advice including learning on one's own, autonomy, self-reflexion, self-evaluation, learning by doing, just to name a few. The main part of this paper is an analysis of both approaches and provides some considerations about their positive and negative sides and their place in glottodidactics.
Despite being known for a very long time, the toast as a non-literary genre still has been attracting re-searchers’ interest. The main reason for this interest is an enormous variety of this genre in terms of its topics and generic composition. Toasts are a part of etiquette consisting of linguistic behaviour and non-verbal effects serving as a kind of reference if interpretation problems arise. Toasts are usually treated as an illocutionary act expressing a certain intention. In the formal semantic analysis of toasts, a significant role is played by the situational context involving the speaker – the person proposing a toast, the hearer i.e. a group of people to whom the toast is made, and neutral observers participating in the act who are not direct addressees of the toast. The context also involves non-verbal behaviour accompanying words, such as certain gestures and requisites.
In 2005 the Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków launched a two-year MA program in teaching Polish as a foreign language. This article discusses the MA curriculum, focusing especially on three types of courses: methodology of linguistic research, Polish linguistics and didactics of Polish as a foreign language compared to didactics of other foreign languages. The author elaborates on the reasons of changes made in the curriculum and discusses the features of the curriculum in comparison with other Polish foreign language teacher educational programs. The article also presents „Computer assisted language learning (CALL)", a program which was introduced for teaching Polish as a foreign language in 2009.
Wprawdzie językoznawstwo korpusowe istnieje od lat sześćdziesiątych, to językoznawstwo sądowe jest stosunkowo młodą dyscypliną, która obejmuje dowody językoznawcze wykorzystywane w sądzie jak i szersze zastosowanie językoznawstwa do tekstów sformułowanych w języku prawa oraz analizy dyskursu prawniczego. Wprawdzie korpusy języka naturalnego mogą być w różny sposób oznaczane i analizowane, zazwyczaj są to korpusy ogólne (np. the Cobuild "Bank of English") a nie tematyczne skonstruowane na potrzeby prawa. Ponadto, lingwiści zajmujący się językoznawstwem korpusowym niekiedy umieszczają teksty prawnicze w swoich korpusach, ale czynią to by dokonywać badań socjolingwistycznych czy historycznych, a nie w celu analizowania języka i prawa. Celem tej pracy jest zachęcenie językoznawców zajmujących się językoznawstwem korpusowym oraz sądowniczym do połączenia sił i do tworzenia korpusów na potrzeby językoznawstwa sądowego. Autorka przedstawia jakie teksty powinny się znaleźć w takim korpusie i jakie narzędzia są potrzebne do jego skutecznego wykorzystania.
EN
While corpus linguistics has existed since the 1960s, Forensic Linguistics isa relatively new discipline, involving both linguistic evidence in court and wider applications of linguistics to legal texts and discourses. Computer corpora of natural language may be marked up in various ways, grammatically tagged, parsed, lemmatised and analysed with concordance, collocation and other specialist soft ware. In the relatively short history of forensic linguistics, its exponents have oft en employed corpus linguistics techniques in orderto throw light on questions like disputed authorship. However, the corpora employed have been general ones such as the Cobuild “Bank of English”, rather than purpose-built databases of language used in legal contexts, with the result that such research sometimes raises more questions than it answers. Conversely, corpus linguists have from time to time incorporateddata from legal settings into their collections; but they have tended to use these resources as the basis for sociolinguistic or historical linguistic research rather than as a means of exploring topics in language and law. This paper makes a plea for these two fi elds, which are both already cross-disciplinary, to join forces and create a purpose-built corpus for forensic linguistics. It illustrates how corpus techniques may be successfully applied to questions of disputed authorship, citing both hypothetical and actual examples. It ends with an outline of the kinds of texts which a proposed new corpus for Forensic Linguistics should contain and the tools required to exploit it eff ectively.
According to the anthropocentric definition of information by F. Grucza (1997), information is to be perceived as a dynamic individual phenomenon rather than a spatially determined static mental entity. Stimuli impinging on the receptor's receptive field are identified by the receiver of a given piece of information as an individual phenomenon as well as categorized (on the basis of stimulus' distinctive features) as a potential component of a certain information set. Considering its dynamic character, the anthropocentric theory of information demands a profound reflection on its applicative dimension. Therefore, this article attempts to present F. Grucza's theses in the context of the modern correlative models of knowledge and their experimental background.
This article aims to give an overview of research into communication audits in companies conducted since 1954. It begins by discussing the role of communication and communicative rules in companies, and exploring the meaning of the term ‘communication audit'. It goes on to discuss the documents that present guidelines and procedures for carrying out communication audits. It attempts to define the meaning of the term ‘communication audit' from a linguistic point of view. The article finishes with a research perspective on the linguistic exploration of communication audits.
Phraseological units are an integral part of foreign language teaching. The present paper is an attempt to improve and describe the state of selected errors made by learners when they use idioms as fixed and restricted word combinations in language. The aim of the paper is to explain selected errors in written texts produced by learners of German as a foreign language in the neophilological education. It is argued that the use of the mother tongue with the lack of knowledge of the foreign cultural background is the reason for the lexical errors when producing phraseological units in a foreign language. Errors are made because learners have not acquired sufficient linguistic und cultural knowledge to produce the given phraseological units correctly. The learners make use of their Polish knowledge in German production. They produce lexical calques that do not exist in German. The mother tongue influences cultural patterns of thought and perception through a culture-specific segmentation of the extralinguistic reality. Errors of this type are a result of the incomprehensibility and/ or misunderstanding of cultural differences between languages.
This article is a review of: Studia logopedyczno-lingwistyczne. Księga Jubileuszowa z okazji 70-lecia urodzin profesora Edwarda Łuczyńskiego, ed. S. Milewski, K. Kaczorowska-Bray, B. Kamińska, wyd. Harmonia: Gdańsk 2017.
CEL NAUKOWY: Artykuł mieści się w lingwistycznym nurcie badań nad pamięcią. Autorka bada leksykalno‑semantyczną kategorię pamięci we współczesnej polszczyźnie, jej redefinicje i rekontekstualizacje. PROBLEM I METODY BADAWCZE: Tekst jest kontynuacją i uzupełnieniem wcześniejszych analiz Anny Pajdzińskiej i Wojciecha Chlebdy. Na podstawie danych językowych pochodzących z wybranych słowników języka polskiego oraz badań tekstów internetowych autorka konstruuje model pamięci i wskazuje starsze, nowe i najnowsze konteksty leksykalne, w jakich to słowo się pojawia. Zauważa znaczne przeobrażenia w tym zakresie. Zmiany w funkcjonowaniu tego leksemu i jego semantyce są oznakami zmian we współczesnej kulturze. PROCES WYWODU: Autorka przypomina m.in. praindoeuropejską etymologię tego wyrazu, odnosząc ją nie tylko do ludzkiej dyspozycji mentalnej, ale i do aspektu (samo)świadomości. Ukazuje najważniejsze metafory pojęciowe (m.in. pamięć jako naczynie w umyśle), utrwalone w dawniejszych i współczesnych słownikach językach polskiego. Analizuje także obecne przemiany semantyczne i frazeologiczne dokonujące się w obrębie tego pojęcia, badając dwa typy tekstów internetowych: frazy w wyszukiwarce Google i elementy werbalne w ramach tzw. demotywatorów. WYNIKI ANALIZY NAUKOWEJ: Autorka wskazuje, że pamięć rozszerza obecnie swoje znaczenia, z jednej strony w stronę biologii/ psychologii i wysokiej technologii, z drugiej – w stronę potoczności, prywatności, dystansu i humoru.WNIOSKI, INNOWACJE, REKOMENDACJE: Badanie tekstów internetowych pokazuje znaczne przemiany w obrębie domeny pamięci. Tworzone są nowe quasi‑definicje i nowe profile znaczeniowe tego słowa, te mniej istotne jeszcze kilka lat temu – obecnie stają się centralne. Artykuł pokazuje, w jaki sposób analizy językoznawcze mogą prowadzić do refleksji kulturoznawczej.
In the didactic chain, the teacher influences the student with the help of specified utterances (here: texts) and specified didactic methods in such a way as to shape specific skills of the student. More precisely, the teacher influences the student in such a way that the student develops the skills which constitute the aim of the science. Thus, the didactic chain is characterised by interactivity that takes place between the teacher and the student. The process of language and translation competence must, on the one hand, develop an ability to understand other texts (linguistic utterances) and, on the other hand, produce his/her own texts (linguistic utterances). In the process of (foreign) language and translation learning, texts constitute the key didactic material that enables the language learner to develop specific language skills (competences). When dealing with the effectivisation of the didactic process, one can pose a question if – and if yes then to what a degree and with the help of what kind of didactic platforms (tools and software) – the "teacher-student" direct interaction can be replaced by the "didactic platform-student" interaction, the latter being indirectly initiated by the teacher. The Internet didactic modules for the purposes of teaching languages and translation have been marked by a low degree of interactivity so far. Tests have been proven and assessed automatically by an operating system, solely according to the answers entered to the system beforehand. Unlike the previous systems, the aim of the preparation of the Linguistically Smart Software System for Glottodidactics and Translation Didactics is to enable an automatic assessment of all full sentences written by the students themselves. From the scientific point of view, the main goal of the given project is to prepare a productive, linguistically smart software consisting of standard didactic modules concerning Polish-German linguistic issues. From the point of view of academic didactics, the main goal of this project is to prepare software which can be used at Polish and German universities on a large scale in order to teach a given language and translation effectively.
The aim of the paper is to investigate certain semantic properties in texts dealing with acts of law from the point of view of F. Grucza's anthropocentric theory of human languages. The intention is to outline the problems experienced by people with no legal training and linguists investigating texts about the law. It will be shown how languages and texts used for specific purposes are defined from the view point of Grucza's theory. Furthermore, it will point out that there are differences between the meanings of the expressions in the texts for specific purposes compared to their use in every-day communication. Finally, I shall refer to F. Grucza's suggestion of creating a special subfield of linguistics, called "legislative linguistics", which will concentrate on systematic analysis of texts dealing with the law.
The paper deals with mnemonic word sequences as sequences opposed to non-mnemonic word sequences and mnemonic non-verbal sequences. On the basis of both non-special and special mnemonics I analyse to what extent the mnemonic word sequences satisfy the criteria of textuality formulated by R.-A. de Beaugrande and W.U. Dressler: cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality, and intertextuality. I attempt to show some of their specific features, originating from their role as a memory aid to be used in a situation far from being a typical "act of speech". These features concern relations with the author and the user, with the situation, with the literal meaning of their lexical components and with information to be memorised. My special attention is paid to relation of mnemonic word sentences with other word sequences, particularly with texts. To explore this relation I refer to the G. Genette's distinction between intertextuality, paratextuality, metatextuality, hypertextuality, and architextuality.
Different traditions in various research circles and writing cultures cause that similarly sounding concepts and terms are frequently understood and interpreted in different ways. Even within the German Studies, we may notice considerable differences in understanding certain terminology. The term discourse serves as a good example as it is one of the most frequently occurring and passionately discussed terms in several disciplines and it is explained in a number of ways. Its ‘inflational' use is emphasized. The concept of discourse may be compared to a chameleon. The paper presents critically the relationship between text and discourse in Germanistic linguistics, asking questions concerning the status of discourse, and indicates its research desiderata.
The article discusses the role of the age of onset of language acquisition in the early multilingualism. The differences between first language acquisition and adult second language acquisition have been established in the literature. The explanation of them is still under discussion. This paper aims at showing why the investigation of child second language acquisition is relevant for this issue. The presented neurolinguisitic and linguistic studies explore the nature of the differences between developmental patterns of language acquisition of children starting their exposure to the second language at different age. The results of the studies are shown to be consistent with the hypothesis assuming that many differences between various types of language acquisition are due to the different age of the onset of acquisition.
The paper presents the issue of language education in the contemporary Polish school, which is outlined against the background of the ideas of the interwar period’s linguists and teaching specialists. The presented text contains basic differentiation of the tasks that school should fulfill within the scope of one’s mother tongue acquisition. The teaching process can be based on the course of grammar system or on performance and emulation, which was already discussed almost hundred years ago and has since provided the foundation for main educational concepts. The paper is particularly focused on spelling which is a predominantly neglected field.
The author of the article proves the existence of a strict connection between the broadly understood humanities and the areas of linguistic research that refer back to the cultural, communication, and in part also the structuralist paradigms. In order to substantiate his thesis, the author provides examples of such connections, with particular emphasis on the character and outcomes of research conducted by Krakow-based linguists.
There are not many publications dedicated to the topic of graphemics and featuring it as the main tool of research. In fact, this can be the reason why there is a lack of a regular, systematic description of this field. Hence, the aim of this paper is, firstly, to characterize graphemics as a branch of linguistics. Secondly, to analyze its research items and tools. Lastly, to describe its field of interest. The following article examines the division of graphemics research areas into phonographic and ideographic systems of writing, and distinguishes their characteristic features. Moreover, the article presents the current state of research in the field of graphemics and suggests the possibilities for further interdisciplinary inquiries.
PL
Pojawia się niewiele publikacji, w których grafemika stanowi główny przedmiot rozważań. Podobna sytuacja na scenie naukowej powoduje brak systematycznego opisu tej dziedziny. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest scharakteryzowanie grafemiki jako działu językoznawstwa, wskazanie jej aparatu badawczego oraz opisanie obszaru refleksji naukowej. Praca przedstawia podział zagadnień badawczych na grafemikę pisma fonograficznego oraz ideograficznego i wyróżnia ich cechy charakterystyczne. Ponadto, artykuł analizuje stan badań w dziedzinie grafemiki oraz sugeruje możliwości zastosowania zagadnień związanych z tym aspektem językoznawstwa w badaniach interdyscyplinarnych.
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