Tekst literacki w kręgu językoznawstwa. T. 2

Abstract

This book is a continuation of the studies presented in the 2012 volume Tekst literacki w kręgu jęz ykoznawstwa [The literary text within the scope of linguistics], which, generally speaking, attempted to demonstrate that the dialogue between fiction and linguistics – called for in theoretical studies and much needed in academic teaching – is possible. Like the first book, this second volume of The literary text aims at showing that the focus on a literary text does not mean that the teacher or the student must necessarily give up their linguistic interests or passions. On the contrary, direct contact with a work of fiction may turn into a valuable intellectual adventure, generating the energy necessary to enter the field of linguistic studies and become acquainted with the wide variety of interesting theories they offer. After all, the knowledge of language and the study of literature do not constitute two separate worlds. In its present shape linguistics is part of knowledge of the human being: the culture, worlds of values, and ways of thinking and communicating with others. Literature addresses the same issues. Coming face to face with a literary work may be a chance for linguistics to demonstrate its full potential as a truly humanistic science. The book proposes a specific mode of reading of a literary text, which in the first volume was referred to as “a linguistic reading”. This reading mode consists in entering the supposedly inaccessible world of linguistic issues without giving up on the cognitive satisfaction and aesthetic pleasure which the act of reading brings. The volume consists of thirteen chapters, of which five comprise the theoretical and eight the practical part of the book. They present different perspectives, including polemical views, on selected current issues in linguistics, such as the relationship between language and culture, cognition and thought, and language, ethics and individual biography. The central concern among them, highlighted throughout the volume, is the problem of authorial language and style. Various theoretical aspects of this issue are discussed in chapters forming the first part of the book. They are mostly synthetic in nature, their aim being to present a possibly complete picture of the problem. They offer an overview of theoretical stands and research perspectives on the study of the vocabulary, phraseology and language (style) of particular authors in the context of stylistic varieties of the Polish language. The second part of the book is practical in nature. Each chapter proposes an analysis of selected literary material (coming from a single source or several texts), with a view to presenting particular linguistic theories with the categories and research tools that they have developed.