Different but the same? – gender stereotypes in selected textbooks for teaching Polish as a foreign language (A1 and A2 levels)

The article discusses the problem of functioning of stereotypes in the process of teaching the Polish language and culture as foreign language to an adult student. Thanks to the didactic materials presented during the course, learners re-construct the stereotypes of, for example, Polish, Poles, Polish woman, Polish family and social relations. The description was limited to gender stereotypes and social roles of women and men, their interests, as well as appearance and character traits. The analysis allows to claim that the stereotypical gender image in the didactic materials is present to a different extent. In the analyzed textbooks for teaching Polish as a foreign language, published at the beginning of the 21st century, the content of the stereotype of a woman and a man undergoes modifications. Young people, regardless of gender, are open to the world, they study, travel around Poland and Europe, and maintain contacts with their peers from all over the world. Women who have already finished their studies appear to be people performing professions previously considered female and male professions, similarly they perform almost all activities at home, and men are people for whom professional work is the most important.Artykuł podejmuje temat funkcjonowania stereotypów w procesie nauczania dorosłego ucznia języka i kultury polskiej jako obcych. Dzięki prezentowanym podczas lektoratów materiałom dydaktycznym, m.in. podręcznikom i zbiorom ćwiczeń, uczący się (re)konstruują stereotypy Polski, Polaka, Polki, polskiej rodziny, stosunków społecznych. Opis został ograniczony do stereotypów płci i związanych z nimi ról społecznych kobiet i mężczyzn, zainteresowań, a także ich wyglądu zewnętrznego i cech charakteru. Analiza materiału pozwala stwierdzić, że obecny w środkach dydaktycznych stereotypowy obraz płci występuje w różnym stopniu. W analizowanych podręcznikach do nauki języka polskiego jako obcego wydanych na początku XXI wieku treści stereotypu kobiety i mężczyzny ulegają modyfikacjom. Młodzi ludzie bez względu na płeć są otwarci na świat, studiują, podróżują po Polsce i Europie, utrzymują kontakty z rówieśnikami z całego świata. Kobiety, które skończyły już studia, jawią się jako osoby wykonujące zawody dotąd uznawane za profesje kobiece i męskie, podobnie w domu odpowiadają za niemal wszystkie czynności, a mężczyźni to osoby, dla których praca zawodowa jest najważniejsza

Postawa Kościoła wobec wydarzeń społeczno-politycznych w Polsce na początku lat osiemdziesiątych XX wieku

In Polish historiography the martial law period is still an issue that causes a lot of controversy. It also seems that even growing period of time and psychological distance do not automatically facilitate developing clear and objective assessment of the dramatic events of the years 1981–1983. The difference between presented opinions is strongly influenced by current trends of political correctness as well as inaccessibility of classified documents still kept in the Polish and Russian archives. An attempt to conduct a thorough and multifaceted evaluation of the martial law period seems impossible without analysing tense sociopolitical situation as well as difficult economic situation of Poland at the end of 1970s and the beginning of 1980s. It is also necessary to take into account an important factor – the Solidarity movement that was founded in 1980. It was the first post-war mass opposition movement, rooted firmly on the ground of Christian ideas. Thus, it seems impossible to ignore the role of the Polish Catholic Church during the period of the martial law. It was within the framework of the Church structures – due to suspension of almost every social organization – that the victims of repression and their families were granted physical, legal, and spiritual support. The attitude presented by the hierarchy and numerous representatives of the clergy (e.g. Primate J. Glemp, Archbishop B. Dąbrowski, Fr. J. Popiełuszko or Fr. K. Jancarz) clearly proved that numerous cases of violating the law, in particular arresting and detaining the members of the Solidarity movement, were strongly condemned. The ideas and conclusions presented in the article, although still imperfect and probably premature, enable the reader to assume that the events of 1981–1983 were caused by the lack of both authority of the government as well as fundamental social freedom rather than insufficient supply of food, economic crisis or a threat of a military intervention from the East. In those times and during those conditions the Catholic Church stood in the defence of human rights and human dignity, inter alia, drawing strength from the teachings and the attitude of John Paul II.W polskiej historiografii stan wojenny stanowi ciągle zagadnienie budzące wiele kontrowersji. Wydaje się też, iż nawet powiększający się dystans czasowy oraz psychologiczny nie ułatwia wypracowania jednoznacznej i obiektywnej oceny dramatycznych wydarzeń z lat 1981–1983. Na ową dyferencjację prezentowanych opinii duży wpływ mają bieżące trendy poprawności politycznej oraz niedostępność stale jeszcze utajnionych dokumentów z archiwów polskich i rosyjskich. Próba dokonania rzetelnej i wieloaspektowej oceny stanu wojennego nie może obyć się bez analizy napiętej sytuacji społeczno-politycznej oraz trudnego położenia gospodarczo-ekonomicznego Polski na przełomie lat siedemdziesiątych i osiemdziesiątych. Konieczne jest również uwzględnienie ważnego czynnika, jaki stanowiła założona w 1980 roku „Solidarność” – pierwszy powojenny masowy ruchu opozycyjny, zakorzeniony silnie na podłożu przesłanek chrześcijańskich. Z tego zaś punktu wychodząc, nie da się pominąć roli, jaką odegrał w okresie stanu wojennego polski Kościół katolicki, bowiem to właśnie w ramach struktur kościelnych – wobec zawieszenia działalności niemal wszystkich organizacji społecznych – udzielane było materialne, prawne i duchowe wsparcie dla ofiar represji oraz ich rodzin. Zaś postawa hierarchów oraz licznych przedstawicieli duchowieństwa (np. prymasa Glempa, abpa Dąbrowskiego, ks. Popiełuszki czy ks. Jancarza) dobitnie świadczyła o zdecydowanym potępieniu mających wówczas miejsce licznych przypadków łamania prawa, a w szczególności – aresztowań oraz internowania działaczy „Solidarności”. Rozważania powyższe – jakkolwiek ciągle niedoskonałe i zapewne przedwczesne – pozwalają wysnuć przypuszczenie, iż wydarzenia lat 1981–1983 wywołane były raczej brakiem autorytetu władz oraz podstawowych wolności społecznych aniżeli niedostatecznym zaopatrzeniem w artykuły żywnościowe, kryzysem ekonomicznym czy groźbą zbrojnej interwencji ze Wschodu. Kościół katolicki stanął w tej sytuacji w obronie praw człowieka i godności ludzkiej, czerpiąc siłę między innymi z nauczania i postawy Jana Pawła II.

Praca z uczniem zdolnym na lekcjach języka polskiegoi zajęciach pozalekcyjnych

Publikacja powstała w ramach projektu „Opracowanie i wdrożenie kompleksowego systemu pracy z uczniem zdolnym”Publikacja współfinansowana przez Unię Europejską w ramach Europejskiego Funduszu Społeczneg

Wartościowanie w internetowych komentarzach do artykułów prasowych dotyczących stosunków niemiecko-polskich : próba analizy pragmalingwistycznej

The subject of the following monograph is strategies for expression of ethnic evaluative statements in Internet comments on press articles concerning German-Polish relations. The comments appeared in Internet forums of German daily and weekly newspapers, including: Die Welt, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Bild-Zeitung. The research period comprised the years from 2009 to 2013, which were dominated by political events and media coverage prompting Internet users to be extremely active. In their comments often emerged acts of speech negatively evaluating Polish characteristics and ways of behaving. The analysis of German comments is based on a critical discourse analysis. On that basis, an attempt will be made at answering the following questions: 1. What linguistic resources are used to call the Polish people? 2. What characteristics are ascribed to Poles? 3. What arguments serve to justify discrimination against Poles? 4. From what perspective are the pejorative terms relating to Poles and Poland formed? 5. Are evaluative statements about Poland and Poles expressed directly or obliquely? Are they amplified or rather toned down? The analysis of the collected material allows us to distinguish the following evaluation strategies in Internet comments: simplification and/or generalization of views, categorization of ethnic features, emotionalization based on the opposition „we – they”, and positive auto-presentation of one’s own group and depreciation of a foreign group

Od kołysanki do trenów : z hermeneutyki form poetyckich

The book includes interpretations of the poetic works from the second half of the 20th century. The perspective of reading is determined by the meaning search initiated by traditional poetic and genre forms, such as lullaby, pastiche, occasional poem, turn to addressee poetry, confessions, elegies, and laments. The analyses cause verification of the questions asked in the theoreticalliterary sketch opening the dissertation, namely In what way is historical poetics possible today? The assumption made by the author consists in the perception of literary genres as “potentially existing”, i.e. in the poems alone, in the literary practice. “The situation of genres” in the second half of the 20th century is organized around the total lack of constraints, the borderline conditions at the level of the awareness of the participants of the process of literary communication. It means as well the lack of easiness in reading the meaning of the work. Thus, the questions asked in the book concern the consistency of the contemporary “genre disintegration”, the horizon of endless semiosis. The place of benefits obtained from yet impossible system (taxonomy) was replaced with the proposal of levelling the genre with the “meaning possibilities”. Instead of systematicity, the author suggests semantics and hermeneutics of genres. Historical poetics presents itself in such a perspective as a discipline capable of historical observations of the very changeability of factors generating meaning. The factors involve those genres or discourse types which, according to a certain intertextual perspective, being the part of a given “textual organization” constitute “historical and social coordinates”. For example, Kołysanka (Lullaby) by Adam Zagajewski, apart form the effects of references to a traditional folk song, presents the meanings evoked by “histoiy and memory discourse” confronted with “the language of media and mass culture”. The whole, revolved around the elegiac tendencies, appears to be a realization of the contemporary “black lullaby”. On the basis of Dla Jana Polkowskiego (For Jan Polkowski), a poem by Marcin Świetlicki, play with poetics of the ocassional text was shown. The poetry by Jacek Podsiadło is analysed as the example of pastiche based on the poems by. Stanisław Barańczak. The chapter entitled Nieskończone Ty (Infinite You) deals with the matter of the lyrical addressee in the poetry by Julian Przyboś. In the sketch Pomnik czy wiersz? (A Monument or a Poem) the author follows the contemporary topos re-interpretations of “the text as manifestation” based on the example of Kartka (A Page) by Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz. The elegiac confessions summarize an elegiac-ironic discourse, typical of the mature poets, such as Miłosz, Herbert, Różewicz, Kozioł, and dominating in the poetry of the last half of the 20th century. The chapter on elegy was devoted to the poem by Zbigniew Herbert entitled Elegia na odejście pióra atramentu lampy (Elegy for pen ink a lamp). The question about the shape of the contemporary lament concentrates on Orfeusz i Eurydyka (Orpheus and Eurydice), a poem by Czesław Miłosz. In the last chapter, the author examines a genological status of achievements by Czeslaw Miłosz. He discusses the two so far most important and oppositional proposals in this field. According to the first one, the work by Miłosz is a religiously motivated Book. According to the second one, it is a sylvic form being the result of “the account of deconstructive strategy”. The author of this work, referring to the ancient idea of genus universum, suggests the third solution of the unconfined form of the encyclopaedic and methodic orientation directed towards the mythical origin of the whole knowledge

Małe miasta: codzienność

Publikacja została sfinansowana ze środków Wydziału Historyczno-Socjologicznego Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku i Stowarzyszenia Kulturalnego „Collegium Suprasliense”2

Parafernalia : o rzeczach i marzeniach

The book is a collection of studies conducted systematically for thirty years. All of them are devoted to the research on the literary representation of objects and the historical variability in the way they were depicted. The author regards the history of European art as the process of gradual “emancipation” of the object. He is particularly interested in its literary autonomization — the slow release from serving authors and ideologies, completed with the “dehumanization” of the object. The thesis, published in the essay O rzeczach [About Objects] (1993), was confirmed in the humanities a few years later, together with the famous “turn towards objects” (turn to materiality, turn to non-human). The analysis of the artistic output of Skamander — a literary poetic group, which already in 1920s started to discover the value of everyday life — is the reference point to the present study. In its members’ imagination, individual “complexes” related to the environment and the matter may be observed. In Józef Wittlin’s works, it is “a spoon of soup”, saving lives amongst the attrocities of war, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska uses the “aquatic” imaginings, in the poetic pieces of Jan Lechoń, paraphernalia related to the suicidal complex perform that role, whereas in the works of Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz the personal objects, which build the author’s autobiography, are being employed. Julian Tuwim turned out to be most sensitive to the civilizational transformations, discerning magical powers in the ordinary things: from the role that the musical instruments play to the status of a murder weapon. Other writers described in the book include: Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, who showed the subtleties of everyday existence in the realities of Nazi occupation, and Ewa Graczyk — an essayist, designing an imaginative “Exhibition” of the material emblems of the People’s Republic of Poland. The book ends with the panoramic overview of the Polish lyric poetry after 1956, in which, owing to Miron Białoszewski, Zbigniew Herbert, Wisława Szymborska and many others, the poetic “phenomenology of the object” could be created — a phenomenon unappreciated in the history of the European literature. Here, also “paraphernalia” — the title concept, expressing the intimate dimension of the human-object relation — has been elucidated