The taboo and its denunciation – public speaking between the “wooden language” and the “true speech”

The language of politics, the medium of ideological presentation of the idea of relations inside a given community is an area of discourse struggle. This means that apart from the offered meanings, there are also attempts to hide the competitive or unassimilable message in it. Thus, taboo is its inseparable element. Today’s public discourse is full of meta-language remarks in which the word taboo appears explicitly or is semantically present in the form of allusions to all sorts of forbidden themes. Through the analysis of contexts in which a word appears in the corpus of public speeches, the paper attempts to prove that, along with the criticism of Newspeak and political correctness, meta-language rejection of taboo by a political opponent has been a kind of a popular rhetoric pattern for the last few years.Le langage de la politique, porteur d’une représentation idéologique des relations au sein d’une communauté donnée, est par définition un domaine de la lutte discursive. Cela implique qu’en dehors des significations proposées, il comporte aussi des tentatives de couvrir le message concurrentiel ou discordant. Différentes formes du tabou constituent par conséquent son élément inséparable. Or, le discours public d’aujourd’hui (avec son côté néo-populiste) est parsemé de remarques métalinguistiques dans lesquelles le mot tabou apparaît explicitement ou est sémantiquement présent sous forme d’allusions à toutes sortes de thèmes interdits. À travers une analyse des contextes dans lesquels ce mot ou cette valeur sémantique apparaissent dans un corpus d’allocutions d’hommes politiques français couvrant la période 2008-2015, cet article – inspiré en partie des travaux du groupe de recherche DiSEM – tente de montrer que, tout comme la critique du politiquement correct et de ce qu’on appelle communément « la langue de bois », le rejet du tabou chez soi et sa dénonciation chez l’adversaire politique s’apparentent, ces dernières années, à une sorte d’artifice rhétorique obligé

Attitudes of Central European political elites towards integration with the EU before accession

This analysis reviews pro-European and anti-European attitudes in the political life of Visegrad Group states in 1989–2004. It was not easy to identify these attitudes, as the profile of Central European political parties often depended on the personalities of their most prominent persons and their political platforms, especially during the first period of the post-communist era, and these did not keep pace with the changes that occurred around them. In the first half of the decade, integration with the EC/EU was considered an issue related to foreign policy. This was conducive to maintaining a superficial consensus on the matter. As negotiations went into more detail and their finalisation came closer, the political scene became more strongly diversified into three main orientations: „pro-European”, „anti-European” and „Eurosceptic” – based on disputes concerning internal reforms and the pace of these reforms, membership conditions, relations with other European countries or the target integration model. Both pro-European and anti-European discourses were based to a certain extent on emotional arguments, and this did not lead to deeper debates on issues related to integration.This analysis reviews pro-European and anti-European attitudes in the political life of Visegrad Group states in 1989–2004. It was not easy to identify these attitudes, as the profile of Central European political parties often depended on the personalities of their most prominent persons and their political platforms, especially during the first period of the post-communist era, and these did not keep pace with the changes that occurred around them. In the first half of the decade, integration with the EC/EU was considered an issue related to foreign policy. This was conducive to maintaining a superficial consensus on the matter. As negotiations went into more detail and their finalisation came closer, the political scene became more strongly diversified into three main orientations: „pro-European”, „anti-European” and „Eurosceptic” – based on disputes concerning internal reforms and the pace of these reforms, membership conditions, relations with other European countries or the target integration model. Both pro-European and anti-European discourses were based to a certain extent on emotional arguments, and this did not lead to deeper debates on issues related to integration

Les « Blogs des indignés » ou la mise en scène de la colère de la Cité

The paper aims to discuss the means of expressing and inferring emotions using as an example the lexical and iconic layers of the blogosphere of the French Outraged movement. The analysis is based on a corpus of content taken from a dozen blogs written in France between 2010 and 2013. In the course ofthe analysis based on theoretical assumptions of modern discourse and argumentation analysis, the author concludes that the expression of outrage in the texts under investigation is a kind of emotional form which the active co-authors of the blogs actualize in their own manner and by doing so they create not so much pathos but rather ethos – both individual and communal, based on a system of shared values and beliefs. On the other hand, argumentation through emotions usually takes place indirectly, mostly by means of axiologically charged subjectification of discourse.The paper aims to discuss the means of expressing and inferring emotions using as an example the lexical and iconic layers of the blogosphere of the French Outraged movement. The analysis is based on a corpus of content taken from a dozen blogs written in France between 2010 and 2013. In the course of the analysis based on theoretical assumptions of modern discourse and argumentation analysis, the author concludes that the expression of outrage in the texts under investigation is a kind of emotional form which the active co-authors of the blogs actualize in their own manner and by doing so they create not so much pathos but rather ethos – both individual and communal, based on a system of shared values and beliefs. On the other hand, argumentation through emotions usually takes place indirectly, mostly by means of axiologically charged subjectification of discourse

BRONCO: Automated modelling of the bronchovascular bundle using the Computed Tomography Images

Segmentation of the bronchovascular bundle within the lung parenchyma is a key step for the proper analysis and planning of many pulmonary diseases. It might also be considered the preprocessing step when the goal is to segment the nodules from the lung parenchyma. We propose a segmentation pipeline for the bronchovascular bundle based on the Computed Tomography images, returning either binary or labelled masks of vessels and bronchi situated in the lung parenchyma. The method consists of two modules, modeling of the bronchial tree and vessels. The core revolves around a similar pipeline, the determination of the initial perimeter by the GMM method, skeletonization, and hierarchical analysis of the created graph. We tested our method on both low-dose CT and standard-dose CT, with various pathologies, reconstructed with various slice thicknesses, and acquired from various machines. We conclude that the method is invariant with respect to the origin and parameters of the CT series. Our pipeline is best suited for studies with healthy patients, patients with lung nodules, and patients with emphysema

Patriotism in exile : Polish education in Belgium in the conditions of the "Cold War" political confrontation

Dzięki analizie między innymi o zasobów archiwalnych Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych Królestwa Belgii autorzy tekstu próbują spojrzeć na problem patriotycznej edukacji młodego pokolenia Polaków żyjących w Belgii jako na swoisty miernik identyfikacji z ojczyzną i narodem. Odpowiadało to i mimo upływu czasu wciąż odpowiada przekonaniu, że w etycznym pojęciu ojczyzny na pierwszym miejscu stoją czynniki kulturalne, a z miłością do kraju wiąże się ściśle obowiązek tworzenia warunków do jak najgłębszego jego poznania. Polonia pojmowała zatem posyłanie dzieci do polskich szkół, wpajanie im wiedzy o polskiej historii i kulturze oraz podtrzymywanie znajomości języka jako zagadnienie o szczególnym znaczeniu. W środowisku polskiej diaspory w Belgii jak w soczewce skupiały się przy tym dylematy wyborów ideologicznych i cywilizacyjnych okresu zimnej wojny. W warunkach zagrożenia bytu narodowego i dualizmu organizacyjnego dwóch odrębnych sieci szkolnych, „niepodległościowej” i „konsularnej”, ta wierna rządowi londyńskiemu traktowała edukację jako jedno z głównych pól walki z propagandą komunistyczną, nastawioną na gloryfikowanie ustroju socjalistycznego.Based on, for example, the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Belgium, the authors of this text approach the patriotic education of a young generation of Poles living in Belgium as a specific measure of identification with the homeland and its nation. This has always reflected (still does, despite the passing of time) the belief that cultural factors are predominant in the ethical concept of the homeland and that the love of Poland is closely associated with a duty to create conditions for acquiring in-depth knowledge about the country. Therefore, the Polish diaspora has understood the sending of children to Polish schools, the teaching about the Polish history and culture, and the maintaining of the command of the Polish language as particularly important matters. The community of the Polish diaspora in Belgium had dilemmas regarding ideological and civilisational choices of the Cold War era. In the conditions of a threat to the nation’s existence and organisational dualism of two separate school networks (the„independent” and the „consular” ones), the one faithful to the London government treated education as one of the main battlefields against the communist propaganda which glorified the socialist system

Les exilés polonais en France et la réorganisation pacifique de l’Europe (1940- 1989), Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, P. Lang, 2017, 375 p.

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Transmedial and multimodal narratives and discourses in the face of civilizational threats : radicalisation of the language and attitudes of Poles in the 21st century

Tematyka książki obejmuje opis, analizę i diagnozę współczesnych transmedialnych i multimodalnych narracji i dyskursów w mediach, polityce, literaturze i sztuce dotyczących współczesnych zagrożeń cywilizacyjnych, takich jak choćby pandemie (COVID 19), wojny czy terroryzm oraz towarzyszące im domniemane lub realne wynaturzenia postaw i idei

Exils d’Europe médiane en France dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, Paris, Institut d'études slaves, 248 p

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