Problem kształtowania się gatunku a stabilizacja jego nazwy - na przykładzie wiadomości prasowej

Abstract

The article discusses the problem of press news genre formation, with special attention devoted to the process of formulating its generic name. The described process ran in a doubletrack manner — the oldest informative texts were leaflets released under the standardised title — nowiny [‘tidings’]. They were short, sometimes two page long printed materials with fixed structure. Sometimes, also several pages long texts occurred, the characteristic feature of which was volatility. They had been published in the Republic of Poland since the middle of the 16th century until the end of the 17th century, whereas in the 80s, the name of the described printed materials has been changed from tidings to wiadomości [‘news’]. Concurrently, in 1661, the first periodical — “Merkuriusz Polski” — started to be released, and since the beginning of the 18th century, in a few Polish cities, other press publications have been edited regularly. Characteristically, though in the periodicals the news lexeme appeared very often, its fixed structure, resembling that of a letter, did not favour placing that generic name in the headline. However, the expressions frequently used for introducing an informative message, such as: the news came / we received the news, undoubtedly, served a pragmatic function, drawing the readers’ attention and anticipating their expectations. In the case of texts released in series, in turn, they contributed to the consolidation of the genre in the readers’ awareness and ultimately, made the lexeme — news — a generic name, used in press until the end of the 18th century.