Abstrakt: | The work inscribes itself into the stream of diachronic studies focusing on
the circumstances of using the language which change with time. Having included
the exact chronicle texts (the exact language usage) in the centre of analyses,
the author aimed at constructing the model of a chronicle way of expression
and its changes. The very aim obliged her to conduct interdisciplinary studies
which, within the scope of linguistic genology, would also take the ways of
a textological and stylistic description into consideration, as well as make use of
the establishments of pragmalinguistics, stylistics and cultural linguistics.
The publication presents the analyses of texts written from the 12th to the
end of the 16th centuries, the time by which the chronicle as a literary genre was
a vital form of expression already being replaced by the current historical works
in the 17th century. The texts of the Polish cultural and writing circle were taken
into account, which means that both the Latin and Polish texts were considered,
assuming that the language, as seen in translations, did not disturb in
any way the genre transmission.
The book is composed of five chapters preceded by an Introduction and followed
by a Conclusion. Having presented methodological assumptions of the
work in Chapter I, the author dealt with the issues of the ancient origin of
a chronicle, its historio-graphic status, and ways of perceiving a chronicle expression
in historical and literary studies in Chapter II. Next, the author made
an attempt to find similarities and differences between the type of text in question
and other genres of historical writing. The second part of the work closes
with an overview of linguistic means of naming and conceptualizing historiographic
expressions. Terminological metamorphoses were considered here on
the basis of the lexicon.
Chapter III characterizes the chronicle from a temporal-locative angle. The
very categories of time and space were regarded to be the main genre indicators,
constituting the skeleton of the chronicle expression.
Subsequent considerations were devoted to a widely-understood phenomenon
of delimitation whereas the scope of analysis covered the issue of the (literary
and linguistic) frame, which allowed for, among other things, an indication
of genre-creative elements of the chronicle composition, and a characteristic of
the very type of expression in terms of its functionality. Chapter V discusses an intertextual dimension of old-Polish chronicles.
Having assumed that the types of intertextual relations and repertoires of their
indicators are historically changeable, it seems legitimate to say that the intertextual
nature of expression is conditioned by any relations connecting them to
other texts, though assuming that the level of revelation and usage of references
to previous expressions varies. What underwent the research analyses constituted
those phenomena of the inter- sphere that significantly influenced the
perception of a chronicle as a form of expression devoid of a categorical sharpness,
i.e. the attention was paid to the issue of direct and indirect speech, and,
within the frame of the latter, the issue of quotation and citation, as well as
multiplicity of genres and stylistics of chronicles.
The aim the issue of intertextuality underwent, i.e. the presentation of the
genre model of chronicle considering means of its creation, demanded that the
presentation of inter- relations should respect the description of functions other
differently-born elements perform in the very type of text. The focal point of
considerations constituted the chronicle expression whereas the category of intertextuality
was to bring the intricate nature of the secondary genre closer.
The examination of an intertextual nature of chronicle allowed for a recognition
of its dynamism, processity and interactionism (i.e. a discoursive status of
a genre).
The work closes with a Summary, where the chronicle was presented in
a full description of its genre indicators of a pragma-cognitive, structural and
stylistic component. |