alternate construals księga abstraktów

Transkrypt

A BOOK OF
ABSTRACTS
Opracowanie:
Michał Szawerna
Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu
ul. Sienkiewicza 32, 50-335 Wrocław
tel. (071) 328 14 14, fax (071) 322 10 06, e-mail: [email protected]
KSIĘGA
ABSTRAKTÓW
CONTENTS / SPIS TREŚCI
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE / KOMITET NAUKOWY ....................................................................... 10
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE / KOMITET ORGANIZACYJNY ......................................................... 10
PHILOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF HIGHER EDUCATION – CONFERENCE ORGANIZER
WYŻSZA SZKOŁA FILOLOGICZNA WE WROCŁAWIU – ORGANIZATOR KONFERENCJI .............. 11
THEMATIC SCOPE OF THE CONFERENCE – ZAKRES TEMATYCZNY KONFERENCJI ................... 15
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE / HARMONOGRAM KONFERENCJI .................................................... 19
ABSTRACTS / STRESZCZENIA WYSTĄPIEŃ ................................................................................. 27
KORDIAN BAKUŁA - Strumień mowy. Mowa jako ciecz (substancja płynna).............................. 27
VERA BENCZIK - A Hero with a Thousand Faces: Re-enactment and Subversion
of the Campbellian Quest Narrative in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Short Story ”Dancing
to Ganam” ................................................................................................................................... 27
LESZEK BĘDKOWSKI - Twórcza zdrada i cała prawda (?) o współczesności. Uwagi
o „niepoprawnym” odczytywaniu powieści Janusza A. Zajdla ................................................... 28
ADAM BIAŁY - The Construal of Prepositional Phrases: A Comparative Study ........................... 29
RADOSŁAW BIEŃ - Struktury narracyjne a alternate history. Analiza problemu na
przykładzie cyklu o inkwizytorze Madderdinie J. Piekary .......................................................... 30
OLGA BINCZYK - An Alternate Apocalypse in John Shirley’s The Other End ............................... 32
TERESA BRUŚ - Childhood Readings in Autobiographical Writings:
Anglo-Irish Revisions ................................................................................................................... 32
ŠÁRKA BUBÍKOVÁ - Growing up Under Lindberg’s Presidency: Philip Roth’s
The Plot Against America as Alternate History .......................................................................... 33
CORINNE BUCKLAND - Transcendent History: Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief.......................... 34
ANNA BUDZIAK - The Contradictory Flâneur – Lost in the City, Found in the Text .................... 35
ANNA IZABELA CICHOŃ - Half a Life and Magic Seeds as V. S. Naipaul’s Alternative
Autobiographies .......................................................................................................................... 36
ANNA CISŁO - Irish Revival and National Identity: From Tradition to Innovation ...................... 36
BEATA CISOWSKA - Światy równoległe w powieściach młodzieżowych
(na przykładzie książek o Harrym Potterze i Artemisie Fowlu) ................................................... 37
PIOTR CZAJKA - Tożsamość jako prywatny konstrukt uczestnika komunikacji ........................... 38
JUSTYNA DESZCZ-TRYHUBCZAK - An Alternative History of Humanity?
Critical Dystopia in Gary Crew and Shaun Tan's The Viewer...................................................... 38
STEPHEN DEWSBURY - A 1980s Alternative Construal of Captain W.E Johns’
Flying Ace and Adventurer Biggles .............................................................................................. 39
WOJCIECH DRĄG - The Construction of an Alternative Reality in Kazuo Ishiguro’s
The Unconsoled and its Metaphorical Capacity”........................................................................ 40
AGNIESZKA DZIOB - Tożsamość językoznawstwa jako dyscypliny naukowej ............................. 41
TOMASZ FOJT - Metaphor-induced Construal Alternations ....................................................... 42
CHRISTINE FRANK-SZARECKA - Two Visions of the Year 2137 in Marge Piercy’s
Woman on the Edge of Time ....................................................................................................... 43
ŁUKASZ GIEZEK - Rewriting Oscar Wilde: Peter Ackroyd’s The Last Testament
of Oscar Wilde ............................................................................................................................. 44
IZABELA GRADECKA - Speaking Softly in Code: The Queer Perspective in the Works
of Tennessee Williams................................................................................................................. 44
JAROSŁAW HETMAN - Jak gdyby Ameryka. Alternatywne wizje historii politycznej
i ekonomicznej Stanów Zjednoczonych w prozie Paula Austera ................................................ 45
PAUL VAN DEN HOVEN - A Chair Is Still a Chair, Even When There's No One Sitting There.
About the Semiotics of the Trivial ............................................................................................... 46
IVAN KASABOV - Word’s Connotations and Semantic Construals .............................................. 48
EWA KĘBŁOWSKA-ŁAWNICZAK - Writing London in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere ....................... 49
ELŻBIETA KLIMEK-DOMINIAK - Alternate History of an American Family in Toni Morrison’s
Novel The Bluest Eye ................................................................................................................... 50
JUSTYNA KOCIATKIEWICZ - Coping with the Antisemitic Universe: The Construction
of Alternate Realities in Bellow’s The Victim and Roth’s The Plot Against America ................... 51
HALYNA KOLPAKOVA - Aspectual Anomalies: The Imperfective Paradox and
the Atelic Interpretation of Achievements ................................................................................. 52
MARIUSZ KRASKA - Fikcja możliwości? O powieści kryminalnej z perspektywy
czytelnika ..................................................................................................................................... 54
SŁAWOMIR KUŹNICKI - Genetically Modified Future: Pre- and Post-Apocalyptic
Visions of the World in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake ..................................................... 54
ANNA LEDWINA - Transgresja w twórczości Marguerite Duras ze szczególnym
uwzględnieniem adaptacji filmowych jako przykład konstruktów alternatywnych ................... 55
NATALIA LEMANN - PODobna historia. Rzecz o historii alternatywnej i jej miejscu
we współczesnej historiografii i literaturoznawstwie ................................................................. 57
TADEUSZ LEWANDOWSKI - The Hollywoodization of Hawthorne: Roland Joffé’s
Cinematic Construal of The Scarlet Letter ................................................................................... 57
AGNIESZKA LIBURA - Kto, komu i dlaczego grób kopie. O różnych sposobach
analizy semantycznej wyrażenia kopać sobie grób ..................................................................... 58
MAJA LUBAŃSKA - Grammaticalisation and Generative Theory: The Case
of Epistemic promise................................................................................................................... 59
JOLANTA MACHOWSKA - Alternatywne konstrukty w opowiadaniach uczniów
w młodszym wieku szkolnym ...................................................................................................... 60
MARTINA MACÚCHOVÁ - The World of Academe Construed by David Lodge .......................... 61
MATEUSZ MARECKI - The Actual, the Possible and the Hypothetical:
The Significance of the 2nd Conditional for the Creation of Multidimensional
Worlds in Bruce Boston’s Speculative Poems ............................................................................. 62
MAGDALENA MĄCZYŃSKA - A Worldview Constructed: The Ultimate Vision
of Reality in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials ........................................................................ 63
LENKA MICHELČÍKOVÁ - European Union´s Terminology and its Impact
on National Languages ................................................................................................................ 64
MARI NIITRA - The Danger of Becoming Extinct: Estonian Novel The Man
Who Knew Snake Words ............................................................................................................. 65
EMMA OKI - Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishiguro and Alternate History........................................ 66
MAREK OZIEWICZ - Alternate History as a Way to Cope with the Trauma
of National Betrayal: Konrad T. Lewandowski’s “Noteka 2015” and Marcin
Ciszewski’s WWW.1939.COM.PL trilogy ..................................................................................... 67
KÁROLY PINTÉR - The Analogical Alien: Constructing and Construing Alternative
Reality in Wells’ The War Of The Worlds ................................................................................... 68
JAROSŁAW POLAK - The Discontinuity of Time: The World and History as
a Reflection of Individual Mind in the Works of Philip K. Dick (in The Light of Paul Ricoeur’s
Theory of Time and Narrative) .................................................................................................... 68
MAGDALENA ROSZCZYNIALSKA - Jak się pisze i rozumie historię w powieściach Mariusza
Wolnego ...................................................................................................................................... 69
MARCIN RUSNAK - Blessings and Curses of the Silver Screen. Film Adaptations
of Coraline and Stardust by Neil Gaiman .................................................................................... 70
MONIKA SADOWSKA - Na granicy realności i fantastyki – przestrzeń podzielona
w Poczwarce Doroty Terakowskiej ............................................................................................. 70
PIOTR STASIEWICZ - Alternatywna historia Europy w powieściach fantasy na przykładzie
utworów J. Vance’a, M. Zimmer Bradley i G.G. Kaya .................................................................. 72
ARIADNA STRUGIELSKA - Towards a Corpus-assisted Interactive Conceptual Model
of the Language of Emotions: The Case of fear in English .......................................................... 72
LAURA SUCHOSTAWSKA - An Alternate Construal of Humans and Nature in Deep Ecology ..... 73
MICHAŁ SZAWERNA - Superpower Corruption: The Blended Universe
of Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins ................................................. 74
ALEKSANDRA SZUDY-SOJAK - Cognitive Perspective through Naomi Klein’s Fences
and Windows ............................................................................................................................... 75
MONTY VIERRA - Retracing Racial Memory in Andrea Hairston’s “Griots
of the Galaxy” .............................................................................................................................. 76
ERIK VOGT - Speaking the Inhuman in the Human: The Testimonial Structure of Language
'After' Auschwitz.......................................................................................................................... 77
ZDZISŁAW WĄSIK - Constructivism as an Investigative Perspective: From
Dichotomous Personal Constructs to the Social Construction of Intersubjectively Shared
Experiences ................................................................................................................................. 78
KAROLINA WIEREL - Czym jest Kyś? Alternatywne konstrukty językowe, literackie
i kulturowe w Kysiu Tatiany Tołstoj ............................................................................................. 79
MARCIN WOLSKI - O pożytku z historii alternatywnych ............................................................. 80
LECH ZABOR - Definiteness, Specificity and Partitivity in the Acquisition of
the English Article System by Polish Learners ............................................................................. 80
LIST OF CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS / INDEKS UCZESTNIKÓW KONFERENCJI ............ 82
Alternate Construals / Konstrukty Alternatywne
Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław, September 17-18, 2010
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE / KOMITET NAUKOWY
• Prof. dr hab. Ewa Kębłowska-Ławniczak Uniwersytet Wrocławski /
University of Wrocław, Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu /
Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław
• Prof. dr hab. Michał Post Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu /
Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław, Uniwersytet
Wrocławski / University of Wrocław
• Prof. dr hab. Zdzisław Wąsik Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu
(Rektor) / Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław (Rector),
Kolegium Karkonoskie w Jeleniej Górze / Karkonosze College in Jelenia
Góra, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu /
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań,
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE / KOMITET ORGANIZACYJNY
• Prof. dr hab. Marek Oziewicz Uniwersytet Wrocławski /
• dr Piotr Czajka, Prof. WSF Uniwersytet Wrocławski /
• dr Michał Szawerna Uniwersytet Wrocławski / University of Wrocław,
Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu / Philological School of Higher
Education in Wrocław
• mgr Anna Zasłona (Secretary / Sekretarz) Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna
we Wrocławiu / Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław
• mgr Grzegorz Ziemkiewicz Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu /
• mgr Katarzyna Pasławska Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu /
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PHILOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF HIGHER EDUCATION –
CONFERENCE ORGANIZER
The Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław (or WSF) was founded in 2002.
It is a rapidly developing school specializing in modern languages and literature studies
which runs both BA and MA programs. Since its foundation, WSF has gained a sound
position among both public and non-public philological universities.
The school's mission is to develop practical language skills at an academic level and
equip students with broad interdisciplinary knowledge. The mission is also carried out
via WSF academic faculty’s self-development, which ensures the highest standards of
education as well as extensive academic research. For many years, the WSF faculty
members have run their own research in the fields of linguistics, literary and cultural
studies. The research, presented at academic events organized by WSF, is of great
value to our students and faculty alike. International linguistic conferences at WSF are
an unquestioning opportunity to meet fellow linguists, share opinions and discuss the
latest trends in the field of language and literature studies. Over the years, WSF has
organized a number of both local and international conferences which have received
interest of scholars from all over the world. Post-conference materials are regularly
published by WSF in Philologica Wratislaviensia.
Philologica Wratislaviensia is WSF's own publishing house, which focuses on articles,
post-conference materials and monographs on linguistics. Professor Zdzisław Wąsik,
Rector of WSF, has been its chief editor since its foundation in 2007. Philologica
Wratislaviensia publishes two sub-series: Philologica Wratislaviensia: Acta et Studia
and Philologica Wratislaviensia: From Grammar to Discourse. So far, as many as ten
titles have been published and more are in preparation.
WSF is known for the care and attention it puts into the quality of teaching, which is
ensured by careful selection of the academic faculty and high standards of education.
WSF uses a modern interdisciplinary program based on original programs of our
professors. Departments of Modern Languages and Literature, Linguistic Semiotics and
Communicology, Lexicography and Translatology Studies, and Axiological Lingustics
constitute the bulk of the academic and educational potential of the Philological
School of Higher Education in Wrocław.
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The school is located in the center of Wrocław, one of the most picturesque cities in
Poland. Wrocław, a renowned academic centre, attracts young people who want to
study, live and work here enjoying the unique atmosphere of the city. Wrocław is often
called The Meeting Place, where different cultures and languages merge, providing
a powerful incentive for philological development.
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WYŻSZA SZKOŁA FILOLOGICZNA WE WROCŁAWIU –
ORGANIZATOR KONFERENCJI
Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu rozpoczęła swoją działalność w 2002 roku,
jako pierwsza niepubliczna stricte filologiczna uczelnia na Dolnym Śląsku. Obecnie WSF
kształci studentów na kierunku Filologia na studiach zarówno pierwszego, jak
i drugiego stopnia. Studia licencjackie są prowadzone w zakresie filologii angielskiej,
germańskiej, hiszpańskiej, włoskiej oraz amerykanistyki, natomiast studia magisterskie
obejmują anglistykę, germanistykę oraz iberystykę. W 2006 r. uczelnia otrzymała
pozytywną ocenę Państwowej Komisji Akredytacyjnej w zakresie jakości kształcenia na
kierunku Filologia i jako jedna z nielicznych uczelni niepublicznych posiada zezwolenie
na działalność ważne na czas nieokreślony.
Od początku swojego istnienia uczelnia jest wierna zasadzie widniejącej na sztandarze:
Verba docent, exempla trahunt! (Słowa uczą, przykłady pociągają!). Dewiza ta jest
realizowana w życiu codziennym uczelni i jasno wytycza kierunek działań. Wypełnianie
misji oznacza dla WSF dbałość o stały rozwój uczelni, kadry i studentów oraz
utrzymywanie wysokiego poziomu kształcenia w myśl zasady, że nauka jest wspólnym
dobrem służącym społeczeństwu. Jednym z cenniejszych wyróżników uczelni,
świadczących o sumiennym wypełnianiu jej misji, jest zwiększająca się z roku na rok
oferta edukacyjna obejmująca zarówno nowe specjalności, jak i specjalizacje. Katedry
przedmiotowe kierowane przez wybitnych specjalistów pozwalają WSF na
prowadzenie dogłębnej działalności badawczej skutkującej coraz mocniejszą pozycją
uczelni w środowisku akademickim.
Równolegle do rzetelnego kształcenia studentów, wyposażania ich w szeroką
interdyscyplinarną wiedzę, umiejętności praktyczne i zawodowe, oraz motywowania
do ciągłego samorozwoju, uczelnia prowadzi badania naukowe, a w szczególności dba
o rozwój kadry naukowo-dydaktycznej poprzez organizowanie konferencji naukowych,
udział pracowników naukowych w konferencjach krajowych i zagranicznych. Liczne
międzynarodowe konferencje organizowane przez uczelnię z roku na rok cieszą się
coraz większym zainteresowaniem lingwistów z całego świata i stanowią doskonałe
forum do prezentacji najnowszych osiągnięć badawczych z dziedziny filologii i nauk
pokrewnych. Angliści, germaniści i hispaniści zyskują dzięki temu sposobność do
twórczych spotkań, których owocem są materiały pokonferencyjne wydawane
w ramach Philologica Wratislaviensia. Philologica Wratislaviensia to własne
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wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Filologicznej we Wrocławiu. W jego skład wchodzą dwie
serie wydawnicze – krajowa Philologica Wratislaviensia: Acta et Studia oraz
zagraniczna: Philologica Wratislaviensia: From Grammar to Discourse, których
redaktorem od początku pozostaje Rektor WSF – prof. dr hab. Zdzisław Wąsik. Od maja
2007 r. ukazało się już dziesięć pozycji.
Lokalizacja uczelni we Wrocławiu stanowi jej dodatkowy atut – stolica Dolnego Śląska
jest miastem pięknym, o bogatej historii i niepowtarzalnej urodzie, a jej
wielokulturowość w sposób wyjątkowy sprzyja rozwijaniu kompetencji i kontaktów
w dziedzinie interkulturowości i kształcenia języków obcych.
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THEMATIC SCOPE OF THE CONFERENCE
Centered around the inspirational idea that people perceive, comprehend, and
interpret the world around them in diverse ways, the conference will focus on
linguistic, literary and cultural construals of alternatives to the dominant modes and
codes both within and across these broad fields. The ability to imagine alternatives to
the status quo, whether seen as subversion, reinterpretation, creativity or
deconstruction, is vitally important to keep the study of language, literature and
culture alive. It allows constant expansion, questioning and reformulation of the
borders of these semiotic phenomena and invites cross-fertilization across disciplines.
Papers are invited to explore the broad issue of alternate construals in language,
literature and culture, preferably from an interdisciplinary angle. We encourage
submissions from postgraduate students, junior and established scholars working in
linguistics, literature and cultural studies. Crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries,
we hope to examine the alternate construals of a broad array of issues situated along
the multidimensional continuum comprising language, literature, and culture.
LITERATURE & CULTURE
By its nature, literature is a form of alternate construal. It deals with imaginative
alternatives to the status quo, projecting narrative accounts which in one way or
another engage the real and the imagined. Among the many types of alternate
construals offered by literature is a refiguring of history also known as the genre(s) of
alternate history, alternate universes, allohistories or uchronias. Popular especially in
fantasy, science fiction and other genres of speculative fiction, this convention is quite
vast. The history which is revisioned may be factual, as is the case in Orson Scott Card’s
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alternate history of 19th century America in The Tales of Alvin Maker, or imaginary, as
is the case in Donna Jo Napoli’s retelling of Rapunzel in her novel Zel. It may be history
of the past, as is the case in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, of the present, as in Philip
Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, or of the future, as in Nancy Farmer’s The House
of the Scorpion. The adaptation of a book to a movie, or any other change of the
medium, the retelling of a familiar story from a different perspective, a reconfiguration
of gender or power relations which pushes at the boundaries of a given generic
convention—all those usually involve a retelling of the original and so are forms of
alternate construals. In the literature and cultural studies section of the “Alternate
Construals” conference we propose to look at these and other types of alternate
construals in novels and films, particularly those addressed to young audience. We are
especially interested in proposals examining alternate histories and alternate futures
as forms of commentary on the present and the status quo.
LINGUISTICS
The notion of construal, understood as a relationship between language users and the
conceptualizations they entertain for purposes of linguistic expression, has become
one of the hallmarks of cognitive linguistics. Characterized in this way, construal
appears to be ubiquitous in linguistic categorization, inasmuch as any act thereof
involves interpretation of a continuous flux of stimuli on the part of a language user.
Recognizing the ubiquity and inherent flexibility of construal, cognitive linguists (1)
took it as a point of departure for the development of a range of theoreticaldescriptive constructs, (2) elevated it to the status of a principal factor accounting for
both inter- and intra-categorial semantic variation encountered along the entire
grammar continuum, and (3) recognized its potential for facilitating the process of
language development by approaching such major mechanisms of semantic extension
as metaphor, metonymy, and subjectification in construal-related terms. The import of
construal for linguistics is not, however, limited to its many uses in modeling linguistic
knowledge. The realization that linguistic metalanguage—as utilized by researchers of
virtually all theoretical persuasions—is in itself largely metaphorical has alerted the
linguistic community to the potential pitfalls of linguistic theorizing. Linguists have
become aware of the fact that the theories they adhere to, despite their indisputably
high level of intricacy and sophistication, do not necessarily bring them closer to
discovering the whole truth about language, inasmuch as they select, highlight, and
perspectivize some aspects of language at the cost of discounting, backgrounding,
or altogether excluding others.
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ZAKRES TEMATYCZNY KONFERENCJI
Celem konferencji poświęconej różnym sposobom ludzkiego postrzegania, rozumienia
oraz interpretowania rzeczywistości jest zbadanie fenomenu językowych, literackich
i kulturowych konstruktów alternatywnych, które kwestionują, poszerzają lub
uaktualniają dominujące sposoby postrzegania w obrębie tych trzech szerokich
obszarów semiotycznych. Umiejętność konstruowania alternatyw wobec status quo
jest kluczowa dla rozwoju języka, literatury i kultury. Umożliwia ona ekspansję oraz
redefiniowanie granic owych obszarów, jak też otwiera je na wpływy innych obszarów
i dyscyplin. Zapraszamy do składania propozycji wystąpień, które z różnych perspektyw
omawiają rodzaje, rolę i funkcjonowanie konstruktów alternatywnych w języku,
literaturze i kulturze. Konferencja adresowana jest do doktorantów oraz pracowników
uczelni wyższych, specjalizujących się w językoznawstwie, literaturoznawstwie
i dziedzinach pokrewnych. Preferowane będą propozycje analizy zagadnień związanych
z konstruktami alternatywnymi w perspektywie interdyscyplinarnej.
LITERATURA I KULTURA
Z racji swego charakteru, literatura jest rodzajem konstruktu alternatywnego. Opisuje
wyobrażeniowe alternatywy wobec status quo oraz dokonuje sfabularyzowanych
projekcji, które na wielu równoległych poziomach łączą to, co faktyczne z tym, co
wyobrażone. Wśród wielu różnych rodzajów konstruktów alternatywnych
oferowanych przez literaturę mieści się grupa utworów dokonujących rekonfiguracji
historii określanych mianem gatunku historii alternatywnej, rzeczywistości
alternatywnej, allohistorii lub uchronii. Szczególnie popularna w fantasy, science fiction
oraz innych gatunkach z kręgu tzw. fikcji spekulatywnej, konwencja ta występuje
w wielu odmianach. Historia, która zostaje w utworze zrekonfigurowana może być
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historią faktyczną (np. XIX-wiecznej Ameryki, jak dzieje się w cyklu Orsona Scotta Carda
Opowieści Alvina Stwórcy), lub też zmyśloną (np. Grimmowską historią Roszponki,
opowiedzianą na nowo w powieści Donny Jo Napoli Zel). Może być to opowieść
ulokowana w przeszłości, w przyszłości, lub dziejąca się obecnie. Adaptacja powieści do
formy filmowej lub pod kątem innego odbiorcy; zmiana medium lub perspektywy
narracyjnej w opowiadaniu danej historii; rekonfiguracja relacji między płciami czy
bohaterami, aby przedstawić historię w nowym świetle – wszystkie te zabiegi zwykle
dokonują reinterpretacji oryginału, a przez to są rodzajami konstruktów
alternatywnych. W sekcji literaturoznawczej i kulturoznawczej konferencji “Konstrukty
Alternatywne” pragniemy przyjrzeć się zabiegom tworzenia konstruktów
alternatywnych w powieściach i filmach adresowanych głównie (choć nie wyłącznie)
dla młodego odbiorcy. W centrum naszego zainteresowania znajdą się propozycje
omawiające historie oraz/lub przyszłość alternatywną jako formy komentarza na temat
uwarunkowań, kwestii oraz tematów szczególnie istotnych dla współczesności.
JĘZYKOZNAWSTWO
Zjawisko ujmowania werbalizowanej treści na różne sposoby, zwane też jej
konstruowaniem (ang. construal), stało się jednym z przewodnich tematów
językoznawstwa kognitywnego. Konstruowanie rozumiane jako relacja zachodząca
pomiędzy użytkownikiem języka a konceptualizacją, którą ten pragnie zwerbalizować,
stanowi zdaniem kognitywistów podstawowy mechanizm językowej kategoryzacji,
polegającej w dużej mierze na odpowiedniej interpretacji nieprzerwanego strumienia
odbieranych bodźców. Z uwagi na kluczową rolę, jaką w posługiwaniu się językiem
odgrywa mechanizm konstruowania werbalizowanej treści oraz ogromną elastyczność
tego mechanizmu, kognitywiści (1) sformułowali w odniesieniu do niego szereg
stosowanych przez siebie konstruktów teoretyczno-opisowych, (2) uznali go za główny
czynnik motywujący zróżnicowanie semantyczne obserwowane na całej przestrzeni
kontinuum obejmującego leksykon, morfologię i składnię oraz (3) określili jego
niebagatelny wpływ na ewolucję języka wykazując, że podstawowe mechanizmy
ekstensji semantycznej, takie jak metafora czy metonimia, mają z nim wiele cech
wspólnych. W tym miejscu warto jednak podkreślić, że pojęcie konstruowania
werbalizowanej treści nie jest ograniczone w językoznawstwie do wspomnianych wyżej
zastosowań tego pojęcia w modelowaniu wiedzy językowej. Rosnąca w społeczności
językoznawczej świadomość, że metajęzyk lingwistyki – niezależnie od przyjętej przez
badacza orientacji teoretycznej – jest sam w sobie w dużym stopniu metaforyczny,
zwróciła uwagę na zagrożenia związane z bezkrytyczną akceptacją szeregu
teoretycznych założeń współczesnej lingwistyki. Językoznawcy uświadomili sobie, że
przyjmowane przez nich perspektywy badawcze, pomimo ich niewątpliwie wysokiego
poziomu złożoności i wyrafinowania, niekoniecznie przybliżają badaczy do odkrycia
całej prawdy o języku z uwagi na to, że wysuwają one na plan pierwszy wybrane
aspekty języka, a jednocześnie marginalizują lub całkowicie pomijają inne.
Językoznawcza część konferencji „Konstrukty alternatywne” poświęcona będzie
zarówno językowej, jak i metajęzykowej roli pojęcia konstruowania werbalizowanej
treści w językoznawczej teorii i praktyce.
18
Alternate Construals / Konstrukty Alternatywne Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław, September 17-18, 2010
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE / HARMONOGRAM KONFERENCJI
ALTERNATE CONSTRUALS IN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE
KONSTRUKTY ALTERNATYWNE W JĘZYKU, LITERATURZE I KULTURZE
The Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław
TIME/
GODZINA
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2010 / PIĄTEK, 17 WRZEŚNIA 2010
8.00-9.30
REGISTRATION / REJESTRACJA
OPENING ADDRESS / OTWARCIE KONFERENCJI (room 114 / sala 114)
9.30-10.00
Zdzisław Wąsik (Rector of the Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław)
Marek Oziewicz (University of Wrocław, Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław)
KEYNOTE SPEAKER / WYKŁAD PLENARNY (room 114 / sala 114)
10.00-11.00
Marcin Wolski (Author and poet)
“O pożytku z historii alternatywnych”
11.00-12.00
Erik Vogt (Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut; University of Vienna)
“Speaking the Inhuman in the Human: The Testimonial Structure of Language 'After' Auschwitz”
12.00-12.30
COFFEE BREAK / PRZERWA NA KAWĘ (room 107 / sala 107)
19
SESSION 1 / SESJA 1 (Room 114 / Sala 114)
12.30-13.00
13.00-13.30
13.30-14.00
14.00-15.00
Chair / Przewodniczący: Adam Biały
Chair / Przewodniczący: Anna Cisło
Chair / Przewodniczący:
(University of Wrocław, Philological School
of Higher Education in Wrocław)
Ewa Kębłowska-Ławniczak
Kordian Bakuła
Magdalena Roszczynialska
Anna Budziak
(University of Wrocław)
(Pedagogical University of Cracow)
„Strumień mowy. Mowa jako ciecz (substancja
płynna)”
„Jak się pisze i rozumie historię w powieściach
Mariusza Wolnego”
“The Contradictory Flâneur: Lost in the City, Found
in the Text”
Agnieszka Libura
Mariusz Kraska
Martina Macúchová
(University of Gdańsk)
(Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra,
„Kto, komu i dlaczego grób kopie. O różnych
sposobach analizy semantycznej wyrażenia kopać
sobie grób”
„Fikcja możliwości? O powieści kryminalnej
z perspektywy czytelnika”
Slovakia)
Agnieszka Dziob
Natalia Lemann
Małgorzata Bieszczanin
(University of Łódź)
„Tożsamość językoznawstwa jako dyscypliny
naukowej”
„PODobna historia. Rzecz o historii alternatywnej
i jej miejscu we współczesnej historiografii i
literaturoznawstwie”
(Philological School of Higher Education
in Wrocław)
“The World of Academe Construed by David
Lodge”
“Magical and Non-magical Worlds in the Harry
Potter series as Alternate Construals”
LUNCH BREAK / PRZERWA OBIADOWA (room 105 / sala 105)
20
15.00-15.30
15.30-16.00
16.00-16.30
16.30-17.00
Chair / Przewodniczący: Piotr Czajka
Chair / Przewodniczący: Anna Ledwina
Chair / Przewodniczący: Anna Budziak
(Opole University, Philological School
Ivan Kasabov
Leszek Będkowski
Ewa Kębłowska-Ławniczak
(New Bulgarian University in Sofia, Bulgaria)
(Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa)
“Word’s Connotations and Semantic Construals”
„Twórcza zdrada i cała prawda (?) o współczesności: Uwagi o ‘niepoprawnym’ odczytywaniu
powieści Janusza A. Zajdla”
“Writing London in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere”
Michał Szawerna
Mateusz Marecki
Justyna Kociatkiewicz
“The Actual, the Possible and the Hypothetical:
The Significance of the 2nd Conditional for the
Creation of Multidimensional Worlds in Bruce
Boston’s Speculative Poems”
“Superpower Corruption: The Blended Universe
of Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons,
and John Higgins”
Aleksandra Szudy-Sojak
Radosław Bień
Izabela Gradecka
(Toruń School of Banking)
(University of Rzeszów)
“Cognitive Perspective through Naomi Klein’s
Fences and Windows”
„Struktury narracyjne a alternate history: Analiza
problemu na przykładzie cyklu o inkwizytorze
Madderdinie J. Piekary”
in Wrocław)
“Coping with the Antisemitic Universe:
The Construction of Alternate Realities in Saul
Bellow’s The Victim and Philip Roth’s The Plot
Against America”
“Speaking Softly in Code: The Queer Perspective in
the Works of Tennessee Williams”
21
17.00-17.30
17.30-18.00
20.00
Chair / Przewodniczący: Michał Szawerna
Chair / Przewodniczący: Radosław Bień
Chair / Przewodniczący: Sarka Bubikova
(University of Rzeszów)
(University of Pardubice, Czech Republic)
Jolanta Machowska
Piotr Stasiewicz
Tadeusz Lewandowski
(Pedagogical University of Cracow)
(University of Białystok)
(Opole University)
„Alternatywne konstrukty w opowiadaniach
uczniów w młodszym wieku szkolnym”
„Alternatywna historia Europy w powieściach
fantasy na przykładzie utworów J. Vance’a,
M. Zimmer Bradley i G. G. Kaya”
“The Hollywoodization of Hawthorne: Roland
Joffé’s Cinematic Construal of The Scarlet Letter”
Piotr Czajka
Karolina Wierel
Marcin Rusnak
(University of Białystok)
„Czym jest Kyś? Alternatywne konstrukty językowe, literackie i kulturowe w Kysiu Tatiany Tołstoj”
“Blessings and Curses of the Silver Screen:
Film Adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline
and Stardust”
Anna Cisło
Anna Ledwina
Károly Pintér
(Opole University, Philological School of Higher
Education in Wrocław)
(Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest,
Hungary)
“Irish Revival and National Identity: From Tradition
to Innovation”
„Transgresja w twórczości Marguerite Duras
ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem adaptacji
filmowych jako przykład konstruktów
alternatywnych”
“The Analogical Alien: Constructing and Construing
Alternative Reality in H.G. Wells’
The War of the Worlds”
„Tożsamość jako prywatny konstrukt uczestnika
komunikacji”
18.00-18.30
DINNER IN GOSPODA WROCŁAWSKA / BANKIET W GOSPODZIE WROCŁAWSKIEJ
Gospoda Wrocławska, Wrocław, ul. Sukiennice 6
22
TIME/
GODZINA
8.30-9.00
9.00-9.30
9.30-10.00
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2010 / SOBOTA, 18 WRZEŚNIA 2010
SESSION 12 / SESJA 12 Room 313 / Sala 313
Chair / Przewodniczący: Marek Kuźniak
Chair / Przewodniczący: Marek Oziewicz
Chair / Przewodniczący: Károly Pintér
(University of Wrocław, Philological School of
Higher Education in Wrocław)
(Pázmány Péter Catholic University,
Budapest, Hungary)
Maja Lubańska
Vera Benczik
Monty Vierra
(Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary)
(Karkonosze College in Jelenia Góra)
“Grammaticalisation and Generative Theory:
The Case of Epistemic promise”
“A Hero with a Thousand Faces: Re-enactment and
Subversion of the Campbellian Quest Narrative in
Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘Dancing to Ganam’”
“Retracing Racial Memory in Andrea Hairston’s
‘Griots of the Galaxy’”
Adam Biały
Šárka Bubíková
Christine Frank-Szarecka
(University of Pardubice, Czech Republic)
(College of Foreign Languages in Częstochowa)
“The Construal of Prepositional Phrases:
A Comparative Study”
“Growing up Under Lindberg’s Presidency: Philip
Roth’s The Plot Against America as Alternate
History”
“Two Visions of the Year 2137 in Marge Piercy’s
Woman on the Edge of Time”
Halyna Kolpakova
Magdalena Mączyńska
Sławomir Kuźnicki
(Ivan Franko National University of L’viv, Ukraine)
(Opole University)
(Teachers’ Training College in Opole)
“Aspectual Anomalies: The Imperfective Paradox
and the Atelic Interpretation of Achievements”
“A Worldview Constructed: The Ultimate Vision of
Reality in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials”
“Genetically Modified Future: A Pre- and PostApocalyptic Visions of the World in Margaret
Atwood’s Oryx and Crake”
10.00-10.30
10.30-11.30
Paul van den Hoven (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
”A Chair is Still a Chair, Even When There's No One Sitting There. About the Semiotics of the Trivial”
23
11.30-12.30
Zdzisław Wąsik (Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław,
Karkonosze College in Jelenia Góra, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań)
“Constructivism as an Investigative Perspective: From Dichotomous Personal Constructs to the Social Construction
of Intersubjectively Shared Experiences”
12.30-13.00
Chair / Przewodniczący: Michał Post
Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak
Chair / Przewodniczący: Teresa Bruś
(University of Wrocław, Philological School of
Higher Education in Wrocław)
13.00-13.30
13.30-14.00
of Higher Education in Wrocław)]
Tomasz Fojt
Beata Cisowska
Mari Niitra
(Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń)
(Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa)
(University of Tartu, Estonia)
“Metaphor-Induced Construal Alternations”
„Światy równoległe w powieściach młodzieżowych
(na przykładzie książek o Harrym Potterze i
Artemisie Fowlu)”
“The Danger of Becoming Extinct: Estonian Novel
The Man who Knew Snake Words”
Ariadna Strugielska
Monika Sadowska
Marek Oziewicz
(University of Silesia in Katowice)
“Towards a Corpus-Assisted Interactive
Conceptual Model of the Language of Emotions:
The Case of fear in English”
„Na granicy realności i fantastyki: przestrzeń
podzielona w Poczwarce Doroty Terakowskiej”
24
“Alternate History as a Way to Cope with
the Trauma of National Betrayal: Konrad
T. Lewandowski’s ‘Noteka 2015’ and Marcin
Ciszewski’s WWW.1939.COM.PL and
WWW.1944.WAW.PL”
Laura Suchostawska
14.00-14.30
„An Alternate Construal of Humans and Nature
in Deep Ecology”
14.30-15.30
15.30-16.00
LUNCH BREAK / PRZERWA OBIADOWA (room 105 / sala 105)
SESSION 18 / SESJA 18 (Room 313/ Sala 313)
Chair / Przewodniczący: Anna Cisło
Chair / Przewodniczący: Monty Vierra
Chair / Przewodniczący: Anna Izabela Cichoń
(Karkonosze College in Jelenia Góra)
Agnieszka Kaleta
Corinne Buckland
Jarosław Hetman
(Jan Kochanowski University in Piotrków
(University of New England in Armidale)
Trybunalski)
“Transcendent History: Markus Zusak’s The Book
Thief”
„Jak gdyby Ameryka: Alternatywne wizje historii
politycznej i ekonomicznej Stanów Zjednoczonych
w prozie Paula Austera”
Lech Zabor
Emma Oki
Olga Binczyk
(University of Wrocław; Philological School
(The Warsaw School of Social Sciences
and Humanities)
(College of Foreign Languages in Częstochowa)
“Definiteness, Specificity and Partitivity
in the Acquisition of the English Article System by
Polish Learners”
“Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishiguro and Alternate
History”
Lenka Michelčíková
Stephen Dewsbury
Elżbieta Klimek-Dominiak
(Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra,
Slovakia)
(Opole University)
“The Semantics of English Non-Finite
Complementizers”
16.00-16.30
16.30-17.00
“European Union’s Terminology and Its Impact on
National Languages“
“A 1980s Alternative Construal of Captain W.E.
Johns’ Flying Ace and Adventurer Biggles”
25
“An Alternate Apocalypse in John Shirley’s
The Other End”
“Alternate History of an American Family in Toni
Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”
17.00-17.30
17.30-18.00
18.00-18.30
18.30-19.00
COFFEE BREAK / PRZERWA NA KAWĘ (room 107 / sala 107 )
Chair / Przewodniczący: Justyna Kociatkiewicz
Chair / Przewodniczący: Corinne Buckland
(University of Wrocław; Philological School
Elżbieta Klimek-Dominiak
(University of England in Armidale, Australia)
Łukasz Giezek
Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak
Anna Izabela Cichoń
in Wrocław)
“Rewriting Oscar Wilde: Peter Ackroyd’s The Last
Testament of Oscar Wilde
“An Alternative History of Humanity? Critical
Dystopia in Gary Crew and Shaun Tan's
The Viewer”
“Half a Life and Magic Seeds as V.S. Naipaul’s
Alternative Autobiographies”
Wojciech Drąg
Jarosław Polak
Teresa Bruś
“The Construction of an Alternative Reality in
Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled and its
Metaphorical Capacity”
“The Discontinuity of Time: the World and History
as a Reflection of Individual Mind in the Works of
Philip K. Dick”
“Childhood Readings in Autobiographical Writings:
Anglo-Irish Revisions”
CLOSING ADDRESS / ZAMKNIĘCIE KONFERENCJI (room 114 / sala 114)
Zdzisław Wąsik (Rector of the Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław)
Marek Oziewicz (University of Wrocław, Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław)
26
ABSTRACTS / STRESZCZENIA WYSTĄPIEŃ
Strumień mowy. Mowa jako ciecz (substancja płynna)
KORDIAN BAKUŁA
Uniwersytet Wrocławski
Zgodnie z tytułem zamierzam opisać mowę jako ciecz, w kategoriach
charakteryzujących ciecz, takich jak płynność, rozlewność, wylewność, strumień, bieg,
prąd, potoczność i potoczystość i in. Traktuję to jako naturalną konceptualizację mowy.
Opisu dokonam na materiale leksykalnym i frazeologicznym. Mowa pojmowana jako
ciecz stanowi alternatywę poznawczą dla ujęć strukturalnych.
A Hero with a Thousand Faces: Re-enactment and Subversion of the Campbellian
Quest Narrative in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Short Story ”Dancing to Ganam”
VERA BENCZIK
Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary
The central theme of Ursula K. Le Guin’s ”Churten-trilogy” (”The Shobies’ Story”,
”Dancing to Ganam” and ”Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea”) is how
transilience – instantaneous space travel – affects objective reality: churten
technology, which results in the elimination of the physical voyage, elicits the
destabilization of the monolithic reading of data that is consensus reality, and thus
undermines the unity of the narrative, fragmenting it into as many independent, valid
realities as there are ’readers’ in the text.
While ”The Shobies’ Story” deals with verbalization as the crucial element in the
process of defragmentation necessary for the survival of the space ship’s crew,
”Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea” focuses on the possibility of parallel
narratives of the same character existing side-by-side.
”Dancing to Ganam” relates the narrative(s) of a space ship crew of four who
”churten” to a newly discovered planet with a highly developed humanoid culture,
whose narrative has not yet received an authoritative reading. Despite initial harmony
the four characters experience variations in perception, and each of them constructs
their – misread – version of Ganam. At the center of these stories stands Dalzul,
captain of the crew, who is established as the traditional hero of a quest narrative. The
interaction of the four parallel realities may be read as both a re-enactment and
a subversion of the Campbellian heroic quest narrative, as Dalzul persistently misreads
Ganam to fulfill his desire to enact the heroic voyage, right to its tragic end, while the
27
other three characters struggle to interpret the data in order to construct a ’correct’
reading of the planet. Both the Campbellian monomyth and the dialogue of narratives
are doomed to failure as neither of them produces a version of Ganam that
incorporates the possible death of Dalzul, which inadvertently happens.
In my paper I will examine how the Campbellian quest narrative is constructed and
subverted at the same time, how dialogue is at first established over monologue as the
facilitator of the scientific cultural reading process, yet is unmasked as equally invalid
when the culturally determined prejudices result in the fatal misreading of the
narrative. I will also look at the interaction between the reader and the text read, and
what may come of the interchangeability of these positions.
Twórcza zdrada i cała prawda (?) o współczesności. Uwagi o „niepoprawnym”
odczytywaniu powieści Janusza A. Zajdla
LESZEK BĘDKOWSKI
Akademia Jana Długosza w Częstochowie
Powieści Janusza A. Zajdla należące do socjologicznej odmiany science fiction
i publikowane w latach 70. i 80. ubiegłego wieku (Limes inferior, Paradyzja, Wyjście
z cienia) najczęściej odczytywano jako skrywające „prawdę” o polskiej
(komunistycznej) rzeczywistości. Wynikało to z dostrzegania przez ówczesnych
czytelników szeregu analogii pomiędzy Zajdlowskimi obrazami społeczeństw
a rzeczywistością pozaliteracką. Poszerzeniem interpretacji akcentującej znaczenie
aluzji politycznych jest uznawanie fikcyjnych rzeczywistości wykreowanych w utworach
pisarza za modele społeczeństw totalitarnych. Tym samym powieści Zajdla są również
postrzegane jako odnoszące się do każdego (czyli również nie komunistycznego)
systemu społecznego zniewolenia.
Kierunki interpretacji wymienionych utworów pisarza pozwalały przypuszczać, iż po
1989 roku wizje społeczeństw autora Paradyzji nie będą mogły być odnoszone do
rzeczywistości empirycznej doświadczanej przez polskich czytelników (polskie
społeczeństwo). Stało się inaczej, utwory science fiction Zajdla okazały się bardzo
podatne na twórczą zdradę, co po części jest związane z nieoczekiwanym
dostrzeżeniem podobieństwa pomiędzy przedstawionymi w nich modelami
społeczeństw zniewolonych a zjawiskami obserwowanymi we współczesnych
społeczeństwach demokratycznych. Jest to zatem „zastanawiająca” twórcza zdrada,
zasadniczo odmienna od tej, która towarzyszyła lekturze Zniewolonego umysłu
Cz. Miłosza. Niestety zachodzące w Polsce pod koniec XX wieku przemiany społecznopolityczne, związane min. ze wzrastającą rolą mediów, globalizacją oraz
oddziaływaniem światopoglądów wiązanych z kulturą ponowoczesną, nie pozwalają
ignorować pojawiającej się nowej perspektywy dla interpretacji powieści pisarza lub
traktować jej jedynie jako ciekawostki. Ich współczesne odczytywanie nazwano tu
„niepoprawnym”, ponieważ skłania ono do zajęcia stanowiska wobec aktualnych
28
zjawisk, niekiedy bardzo kontrowersyjnych, budzących emocje i uwikłanych w politykę.
Wśród nich uwagę zwraca monitorowanie komunikatów, polityczna poprawność,
dominacja perswazyjnej retoryki powszechnie wypierającej informację oraz relatywizm
etyczny. Zjawiska te mogą doprowadzić (lub może już doprowadziły) do sytuacji
przedstawionej w literackich wizjach Zajdla: społeczeństwo nie działa we własnym
interesie z powodu niemożności rozpoznania, jakie działania, postawy służyłyby dobru
tego społeczeństwa. Tym samym dyskusja o wyobrażonym (fikcyjne społeczeństwa)
w powieściach pisarza ponownie staje się dyskusją o otaczającej nas rzeczywistości.
The Construal of Prepositional Phrases: A Comparative Study
ADAM BIAŁY
University of Wrocław, Poland
Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław, Poland
The idea that natural language is a system which is both universal and diverse is a
common denominator of most generative theories on language, e.g. the Principles and
Parameters framework (Chomsky 1981), the Minimalist Framework (Chomsky 1995). It
assumes that a natural language is characterised by two types of features: those that
are language universal and those that are language specific. The proposed form of
these features differs, but at present the drive is towards the claim that the set of all
features is a closed one and the grammar of a particular language, or groups of
languages, specifies the manner in which these features are realised. For example,
number can be associated with specific morphological realisation in the phonological
form, but does not have to, as it can be inferred by other means. Thus typological
differences between languages and group of languages are a matter of ‘fine tuning’
(i.e. parameter setting) in the system and not of an altogether different system. As a
result, the grammar of any given language can be construed in a unique fashion but
only within a closed set of possibilities.
The greatest amount of diversity is ascribed to the verbal and nominal domains.
However, more recent accounts indicate that other syntactic categories (e.g.,
adjectives) can also be associated with a complex structure. Even more recently quite
rich structure has been proposed for prepositions and prepositional phrases (e.g.,
Koopman 2000, Svenonius 2007, to appear, Talmy 2000). It appears that prepositional
phrases reveal a number of characteristics which were reserved for verbal and
adjectival constructs, like the ability to take arguments.
The paper is going to focus on a syntactic, morphological and semantic analysis of
prepositions and prepositional phrases in selected Germanic and Slavic languages.
Following the approaches where typological differences in grammar between
languages are assumed to reflect different realization patterns in the syntax, the
analysis of prepositional phrases needs to be uniform on the one hand, but account for
the discrepancies on the other. The results of such comparative analysis should
29
indicate whether the hypothesis that prepositional phrases reflect general patterns of
syntactic realization, otherwise reserved for the verbal and nominal domains, can be
maintained.
(Selected) References:
Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on Government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
Chomsky, N. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.
Koopman, H. 2000. “Prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions, and particles.”
In The Syntax of Specifers and Heads, edited by H. Koopman, pp. 204-260.
Routledge, London.
Svenonius, P. 2007. “Adpositions, particles, and the arguments they introduce.”
In Argument Structure, edited by E. Reuland, T. Bhattacharya, and G. Spathas,
pp. 71-110. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Svenonius, P. To appear. In The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, vol. 6, edited by
Guglielmo Cinque and Luigi Rizzi, Oxford University Press.
Talmy, L. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics: Concept Structuring Systems, vol. I. MIT
Press, Cambridge, Ma.
Zwarts, J. 2005. “Prepositional aspect and the algebra of paths.” Linguistics and
Philosophy 28: 739-779.
Struktury narracyjne a alternate history. Analiza problemu na przykładzie cyklu
o inkwizytorze Madderdinie J. Piekary
RADOSŁAW BIEŃ
Uniwersytet Rzeszowski
Cykl opowiadań o inkwizytorze Mordimerze Madderdinie z pewnością zasługuje na
miano „wizytówki” dorobku literackiego Jacka Piekary. Czytelnik poznający kolejne
przygody głównego bohatera, z pewnością nie może oprzeć się wrażeniu, że pomiędzy
wieloma utworami cyklu zachodzi daleko idące podobieństwo. Literaturoznawca ma
zawsze ambiwalentny stosunek do powtarzających się elementów badanych tekstach.
Z jednej strony owa cykliczność pozwala na ujęcie fabuł za pomocą przejrzystych
i wygodnych struktur narracyjnych, z drugiej pojawia się niebezpieczeństwo,
iż zaobserwowany schematyzm osiągnie stopień, każący zastanowić się krytykowi nad
sensownością kontynuacji badań.
Na cykl o Madderdinie składa się obecnie sześć pozycji: Sługa Boży, Młot na
czarownice, Miecz aniołów, Łowcy dusz, a także pierwszy tom „prequela” Płomień
i krzyż oraz interquel Ja, inkwizytor. Wieże do nieba. Według zapowiedzi autora całość
dopełnić mają jeszcze dwa kolejne tomy Płomienia i krzyża, dwie części Ja, inkwizytora
oraz powieści Czarna śmierć (będąca bezpośrednią kontynuacją ostatniego
opowiadania z tomu Łowcy dusz) i Rzeźnik z Nazaretu (przedstawiająca wydarzenia,
jakie rozegrały się w Jerozolimie w 33 r.).
30
Chronologia wewnętrzna cyklu przedstawia się natomiast następująco (* poprzedzone
zostały utwory zapowiedziane, a oznaczeniem [p] powieści, lub zbiory minipowieści):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
*Rzeźnik z Nazaretu [p]. (zap. wyd. na rok 2010)
Płomień i krzyż. Tom 1. (2008).
*Płomień i krzyż. Tom 2.
*Płomień i krzyż. Tom 3.
Ja, inkwizytor. Wieże do nieba [p] (2010).
*Ja, inkwizytor. Bicz Boży [p]. (zap. wyd. na rok 2010)
*Ja, inkwizytor. Dzieci z kolorowymi oczami [p].
Sługa Boży. (2003; wyd. II rozsz. popr. 2006; wyd. III 2009).
Młot na czarownice. (2003; wyd. II popr. 2007; wyd. III 2009).
Miecz aniołów. (2004; wyd. II popr. 2007, wyd. III 2009).
Łowcy dusz. (2006; wyd. II 2009).
*Czarna śmierć [p].
Oczywiście niniejsze zestawienie wymaga krótkiego komentarza. Zapowiadany Rzeźnik
z Nazaretu będzie nie tyle prequelem cyklu, co raczej jego spin-offem. Ponadto nie
można wykluczyć, iż nowopowstały subcykl Ja, inkwizytor zastąpił z zamyśle autora
(i w planie wydawniczym) 3 tom Płomienia i krzyża.
Celem niniejszego artykułu jest chęć ujęcia analizowanego cyklu w przejrzyste
struktury. Pomysł ten nie jest nowy, w literaturoznawstwie światowym znajdziemy
wiele przykładów podobnych działań. Do najbardziej znanych opracowań
poruszających tę problematykę należą Morfologia bajki Władimira Proppa, Wstęp do
analizy strukturalnej opowiadań Rolanda Barthesa, czy Struktury narracyjne u Fleminga
Umberto Eco. Także polscy literaturoznawcy interesowali się tym zagadnieniem, czego
dowodem niech będą pozycje takie jak praca Antoniego Smuszkiewicza pt. Stereotyp
fabularny fantastyki naukowej, czy studium Henryka Markiewicza Zawartość
narracyjna i schemat fabularny będące częścią jego Wymiarów dzieła literackiego. Nie
mogę także nie wspomnieć o pozycji, która choć, nominalnie przynależy do
antropologii, to miała wpływ na kształtowanie się teorii literatury XX wieku. Mam tu
oczywiście na myśli Antropologię strukturalną Levi-Straussa, a zwłaszcza studium
będące jego częścią pt. Struktura mitów.
Jak widać idea stojąca u genezy niniejszego opracowania nie jest oryginalna, mimo to
nowe jest pole zastosowania jej, którym jest cyklu opowiadań o inkwizytorze
Mordimerze Madderdinie Jacka Piekary.
31
An Alternate Apocalypse in John Shirley’s The Other End
OLGA BINCZYK
College of Foreign Languages in Częstochowa, Poland
The disturbing thought that the realm of the living must terminate one day has for long
been present in man's history. Not before Zoroaster’s Gathas, however, had the
terrifying idea of the consummation of the earthly time been soothed by the belief in
God’s plan for his people, in divine interference thanks to which the righteous would
finally be granted eternal life in a new Kingdom, necessarily preceded by a battle
between the forces of good and evil and the Final Judgment. From among a number of
texts dramatizing this teleological pattern, only one was accepted into the Christian
canon and has accompanied the sinusoidal history of Western apocalyptically-tainted
anxiety ever since – the Book of Revelation of John of Patmos. Its impact on the
Western Mind, quite obvious in orthodox cases, is also traceable in the reactions of the
sworn critics of the most popular Christian apocalyptic prophecy. John Shirley’s The
Other End from 2007 seems to be a perfect example of modern distrust of the biblical
Final Judgment and, at the same time, strong evidence for the need to substitute the
compromised concept with none other than its updated and, at least in the author’s
understanding, more just alternative. This study analyzes Shirley’s revision of the endof–time myth - how it deviates from its Christian antecedent and what it offers to the
contemporary reader that cannot be found in or, perhaps, has been lost through
misinterpretation of the Revelation of John. Exploring Shirley’s choice of an apocalyptic
scenario I make use of D. H. Lawrence’s charges against John of Patmos for the
promotion of the “thwarted collective self”, “non-individualism”, “second-rated[ness]”
and pseudo-humility. Finally, I try to access the effectiveness of The Other End as the
end-of–the-world-as-we-know-it alternate blueprint.
Childhood Readings in Autobiographical Writings: Anglo-Irish Revisions
TERESA BRUŚ
The paper proposes to engage questions of essayistic ways of embracing the
experience of childhood reading in twentieth century autobiographical texts by
Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Louis MacNeice and Cecil Day Lewis. The analysis of
the essayists’ personal and critical staging of experience of reading will reveal
integrational, polyphonic relations inscribed in reading experience in which books and
words mean more than they say. Essaying childhood books, the authors acknowledge
being essayed by them. Reading for these readers, readers who admit they spent their
lives in the “orgy of reading,” is always an intersubjective experience interrelated with
living, re-reading and reviving memories of previous readings and feelings connected
with them. In the process of essayistic reading what was previously created, they re32
create. Their essays become ideal templates for testing themselves as readers, testing
the life seasons of their reading, testing the books, their lives, and audience as readers.
Additionally, I will argue after Korhonen, such practice betrays a strong desire for
“ultimate fullness of experience” and an “imaginary personal satisfaction.”
The early reading, T.S. Eliot remarks, is usually a form of infatuation or inundation or
invasion of the undeveloped personality by the stronger personality of the writer.
Showcasing influential early books, the paper will argue, that the essayists in question
test numerous ways of absorbing and renouncing that influence in the process of
personal transformation of reading habits. Yet while personal essays show these
affecting and infecting books read in childhood as a residuum in memory only, used up
and devitalized in mature years, critical essays tend to solicit more continuous
aesthetic responses to atone for personal lapses.
Growing up Under Lindberg’s Presidency: Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America
as Alternate History
ŠÁRKA BUBÍKOVÁ
University of Pardubice, Czech Republic
In recent decades, we can witness a flourishing of novels that focus on the growing up
of a member of some minority. These contemporary variations on the Bildungsroman
genre very often address young adult audience and try to present a new, multicultural
vision of American society. At the same time, they often use the youthful protagonist
to draw attention to issues of ethnicity, acceptance into the mainstream society, and
the reinterpretation of history from the minority’s point of view. Philip Roth’s The Plot
Against America (2004) is one of those novels. It tells the story of the young Jewish
American boy Philip whose contended and secure childhood is harshly disrupted by
political circumstances. Set in the 1940s, The Plot Against America is, at the same time,
a political dystopia depicting what could have happened if in the 1940 US presidential
election Charles Lindbergh, well known for his isolationism and anti-Semitism, won.
Told from the boy’s point of view, even if somewhat mediated by an adult’s reflection
of the boyhood, the novel follows the traditional scheme of a Bildungsroman as the
protagonist matures and is initiated into the world of adults. By choosing Philip
(i.e. himself) as the novel’s protagonist, Roth at the same time creates a kind of
alternative autobiography – what could have his boyhood looked like if history was
different.
In my presentation I would like to analyze how Roth creates an imaginative alternative
to US history and to what ends he uses this refiguring. At the same time, I will discuss
how he innovates the traditional genres of the Bildungsroman and autobiography.
33
Transcendent History: Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief
CORINNE BUCKLAND
University of New England in Armidale, Australia
This paper is about the difficulties of genre-labelling, especially when applied to
strongly innovative literary works of high quality. It aims to show how the movement
of texts pushing against and beyond genre boundaries is a life giving process, and the
criticism that struggles to accommodate this process needs to be similarly flexible and
creative.
The alternate history genre is an excellent example of this process. Although it began
as a marginal genre, responding to innovative types of historical fiction, it is slowly and
inevitably becoming a prolific and mainstream member of the postmodern genre
canon. Recent critical works have begun to define and categorise alternate history,
inventing new subgenres within it in an attempt to contain its fluid scope. The most
interesting yet elusive feature of alternate history is its challenge to the notion of
‘what is real’, a challenge which intersects with historiography and narratology to
produce labels such as secret history, metahistory, counterfactual texts and faction.
In order to test the limits of these labels they will be measured against a modern
masterpiece, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which seems at first to be a type of
alternate history. This crossover text is a recent addition to a string of contemporary
Holocaust novels seemingly addressed to a young audience. It crosses over, however,
in more ways than one: not only in the ages of readership, but also in its unique
blurring of the boundaries between fantasy and realism, and in its resistance to sitting
firmly within any one genre or subgenre. While alternative history has been explained
as a shifting of the lens through which we view ‘what really happened', and alternate
history as the imaginary invention of 'what if' or ‘what might have happened’, what are
we to make of this remarkable historical novel where Death is the all-pervasive and
compassionate narrator? The discussion of these issues will refer to the foundational
theories of Vaihinger and Ricoeur and to the recent work of genre theorist Karen
Hellekson. The visual elements of the text as well as its various cover images will be
explored because they too make an important contribution to its categorisation. The
paper concludes by postulating a new variation of the alternate history genre:
transcendent history.
34
The Contradictory Flâneur – Lost in the City, Found in the Text
ANNA BUDZIAK
In the 19th century, the flâneur was an outcast figure, a self-declared émigré from
bourgeois society. He was a cultural, and cultured, rebel allied with other figures that
populated the margins of respectable city society, linked (by Walter Benjamin) with
“the apache, dandy, rag picker, [and] prostitute.” His alliance with this spectrum of
outcasts, city “heroes” and heroines, is telling: in the flâneur, polished manners mix
with tarnished reputation — all is combined in an impossible synthesis. And indeed,
the concept of flaneurism is full of contradictions; it is made up of never-resolved
alternatives. Flaneurism comprises the historical figure of the notoriously extravagant
Regency dandy, Beau Brummell, as well as Baudelaire’s semi-fictive Monsieur C. G.
(alluding to Constantine Guy and Edouard Manet), and figures created by literary
imagination but, nevertheless, epitomizing flaneurism: Wilde’s dandyesque Dorian
Gray, Huysmans’ Des Esseintes, and Max Beerbohm’s Monsieur L. V. But then, this
figure crosses not only the boundaries between the historical and fictive, it also shifts
in time—from 16th-century London to 19th-century Paris, to modernist Berlin, and to
Musil’s Vienna—evolving on the way from the figure of a dandy to that of an
intellectual. This intellectual aspect, however, was present already in Poe’s “The Man
of the Crowd,” and in his flâneur-as-sleuth (in his detective Dupin), though it really
culminated in the modernist Benjamin, who was both flâneur and the theoretician of
flaneurism. This line of the flâneurs extends further into postmodernist philosophy and
literary theory, finding its representatives in Michelle de Certeau and Richard Rorty.
This paper seeks to explore the attributes of this self-contradictory figure. Is he like
a badau (a gaper) or a perceptive observer? Is he full of sympathy or just driven by
curiosity? Is he a detective scrutinizing the criminal or a trespasser protective of his
own anonymity? Is he really a walking figure? And is the flâneur always a he?
Finally, is it really a matter of choosing between alternatives? Shifting between these
alternatives, the flâneur is endlessly adaptable to changing times and topography and
constitutes an ever-valid critique of mainstream culture. In the 19th century,
as a dandyesque Baudelairean dandy, the flâneur posed a challenge to the religious
tepidity of the bourgeois with his literary and aesthetic Satanism. In the 20th century,
as a Rortian ironist, the flâneur questions the totalizing discourses by exposing their
contingency. Whether a dandy or a bookworm, whether strolling or sedentary—
a figure comprising irreducible alternatives—she is equally effective in changing
a sense of complacency into a productive sense of unease.
35
Half a Life and Magic Seeds as V. S. Naipaul’s Alternative Autobiographies
ANNA IZABELA CICHOŃ
In her study of V. S. Naipaul's work, Teresa Dooley observes that two of Naipaul's
novels, Half a Life (2001) and Magic Seeds (2004), are the author's alternative
autobiographies, kinds of cautionary tales of what "Naipaul’s life might have been
without impulse or discipline to keep writing in spite of early discouragement. This
frightening sense of the blankness of the life he feels he narrowly missed feeds into
the desolation and despair" of the two books (2006: 131).
Taking as the starting point V. S. Naipaul’s alternative life-stories in Half a Life and
Magic Seeds, the paper proposes to view the genre of alternative autobiography
as a narrative form by means of which an author may as if rehearse various life-scripts
and tame his fears and traumas.
Irish Revival and National Identity: From Tradition to Innovation
ANNA CISŁO
By the end of the nineteenth century, as a consequence of Anglicization, most
inhabitants of Ireland had adopted English as their first language. Thus a basic task
facing Irish people attempting to reconstruct their national identity on the eve of the
establishment of an independent Irish state was that of redefining the position of their
national language. The questions asked were to what extent the Irish language was still
part of the national culture and in what ways it should be protected and promoted.
The objective of the language restoration movement became twofold: (1) the
preservation of Irish as a national language and the extension of its use as a spoken
tongue and (2) the study and publication of existing Gaelic literature as well as the
cultivation of modern Irish works. This paper will explore the tools used by language
revivalists to formulate and disseminate Irish identity and will examine how successful
they were in carrying out their goals. It will also ask what alternatives were available to
the people of Ireland in their effort to recreate a sense of cultural and historical
distinctiveness. The options considered will include, for instance, rediscovery of local
history and heritage, sport, religion, music, literature in English as well as the use of
Hiberno-English varieties. The paper will address the question as to whether the
elements employed were part of authentic Irish culture or whether some of them
were simply invented to facilitate the formation of national distinctiveness.
36
Selected bibliography:
De Fréine, Seán. 1978. The Great Silence: The Study of a Relationship between
Language and Nationality. Dublin—Cork: The Mercier Press.
Kiberd, Declan. 1995. Inventing Ireland. London: Jonathan Cape.
McGuinne, Dermot. 1992. Irish Type Design: A History of Printing Types in the Irish
Character. Dublin: Irish Academic Press.
Nic Pháidín, Caoilfhionn and Seán Ó Cearnaigh (eds.). 2008. A New View of the Irish
Language. Dublin: Cois Life.
Ó Cuív, Brian (ed.). 1969. A View of the Irish Language. Dublin: Stationery Office.
Ó Riagáin, Padraig. 1997. Language Policy and Social Reproduction: Ireland 1893-1993.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Purdon, Edward. 1999. The Story of the Irish Language. Cork: Mercier Press.
Światy równoległe w powieściach młodzieżowych (na przykładzie książek o Harrym
Potterze i Artemisie Fowlu)
BEATA CISOWSKA
Akademia Jana Długosza w Częstochowie
W analizowanych przeze mnie powieściach rzeczywistość przedstawiona, będąca
terenem akcji, jest światem równolegle występującym do świata normalnego,
tradycyjnego i codziennego. Świat alternatywny oddzielony jest w obu seriach
powieściowych granicami, które przekraczać mogą tylko wtajemniczeni. Światy te są
dodatkowo zabezpieczone czarami. Tylko jeden z tych światów wie o istnieniu
drugiego, co powoduje, że ma nad nim przewagę i może uczestniczyć w jego życiu, nie
dając jednocześnie takiego prawa drugiej stronie. Światy te są zorganizowane we
właściwy sobie sposób, choć na podobieństwo świata normalnego. Obowiązują w nich
jednak inne zasady funkcjonowania znanych nam instytucji. Pomiędzy obiema
książkami istnieją jednak dwie zasadnicze różnice. Pierwsza to ta, że w Artemisie Fowlu
świat podziemny jest całkowicie niedostępny dla osób z zewnątrz i ma wyraźnie
nakreślone granice dostępności nawet dla swoich mieszkańców. W Harrym Potterze do
świata czarodziejów włączani są zwykli ludzie, którzy spełniają określony warunek:
muszą wykazywać magiczne uzdolnienia. Druga różnica istniejąca pomiędzy
równoległymi światami w omawianych tekstach zawiera się w obszarze
prezentowanego świata. W Harrym Potterze poznajemy właściwie cały świat
czarodziejski w Anglii, a nawet otrzymujemy sygnały o istnieniu takich samych na
świecie. W Artemisie Fowlu terytorium , które poznajemy jest bardzo ograniczone.
Książka o Artemisie Fowlu jest właśnie dlatego bardziej powieścią sensacyjnokryminalną niż przygodową czy baśnią, tym bardziej, że odwraca się w niej znane
toposy baśniowe.
37
Tożsamość jako prywatny konstrukt uczestnika komunikacji
PIOTR CZAJKA
Referat ten będzie próbą skonstruowania modelu opisu tożsamości osobistej
i społecznej w odniesieniu do języka naturalnego i komunikacji interpersonalnej,
widzianych z perspektywy antyesencjalizmu i antyreprezentacjonizmu Ernsta von
Glasersfelda oraz Richarda Rorty’ego. Opis taki, jak zostanie pokazane, wydaje się
możliwy, jeśli von Glasersfelda koncepcję porozumienia komunikacyjnego opartego na
kompatybilności uzupełnić koncepcją słownika finalnego przedstawioną przez
Rorty’ego.
Ponadto, autor będzie starał się dowieść, że połączenie wspomnianych koncepcji
zaowocować może powstaniem ram teoretycznych, które dają możliwość mówienia
o płynności i przygodności ludzkiej tożsamości oraz o jej ścisłych związkach z rozwojem
coraz bardziej zaawansowanych technologii przekazywania fizycznie rozumianych
sygnałów uznawanych za komunikaty.
An Alternative History of Humanity? Critical Dystopia in Gary Crew and Shaun
Tan's The Viewer
JUSTYNA DESZCZ-TRYHUBCZAK
Since 1939, the View-Master has been a device used to view stereo images on a paper
disk. According to a fan website, it “has given generations a 3-D look at everything
from man’s first moonwalk to the adventures of SpongeBob SquarePants. The iconic
toy occupies a place in the national Toy Hall of Fame, alongside Barbie and Mr. Potato
Head…” (http://www.viewmaster.co.uk/htm/history.asp). The history of the ViewMaster, its use, and intricate structure are the central motif in The Viewer (2003),
a cross-over post-modern picture book by Gary Crew and Shaun Tan, in which the
device travels through the history of humanity. As readers and Tristan, the young
protagonist, examine the View-Master, it becomes clear that its three discs change
without human agency, replaying images of aggression, decay and death in one epoch
after another. One can conclude – and such seems to be the authors' intention – that
the View-Master is meant to highlight how the world is going from bad to worse in
a series of steps arising from the existing social order and the choices that precede
each crisis. Still, in this presentation I shall argue that The Viewer does not endorse the
anti-utopia of cultural and political pessimism, the stance which negates any endeavor
to create, or at least envisage, a new society. Nor does the story offer a false sense of
reassurance that one should remain contended with the status quo. Reading its
38
narrative with Ernst Bloch’s utopianist understanding of the past as a repository of
unfilled possibilities and a catalyst for future-oriented imagination, I attempt to show
that The Viewer is a critical dystopia whose utopian impulse resides in educating
readers' historical perception by calling for the recovery of the link between history,
memory, choice, responsibility, and action. Contrary to traditional dystopias in which
hope is limited to the warning directed to the reader, critical dystopias allow both
protagonists and readers to hope by opening a concrete space of opposition.
The Viewer does so by leaving readers with Tristan’s eye looking at them through the
viewmaster as if the boy was leaving the page to enter their world so as to observe and
record their actions: It is now up to readers to learn from the past and create more
positive images to be preserved in the View-Master. Hence, the device may be seen as
a tool for the education of historical perception. Contrary to its habitual use as
a source of nostalgic and escapist entertainment, the very possibility of changing its
pictures and discs makes it act as readers' new eyes that enable them to see reality not
as fixed but fluid and filled with positive potential for the future, the effect that is also
encouraged by the post-modern porosity and dynamic interaction between the
illustrations and the text.
A 1980s Alternative Construal of Captain W.E Johns’ Flying Ace and Adventurer
Biggles
STEPHEN DEWSBURY
Opole University, Poland
The fictional English pilot and adventurer Biggles is the main character and title given
to a series of youth-oriented books written by W.E. Johns. The first story appeared in
a 1932 edition of Popular Flying and the series was continued until the author’s death
in 1968. By that time nearly a hundred books had been published. The Biggles
adventure series originally entertained boys by trying to recreate the more primitive
days of early air combat. Biggles flew a variety of aircraft from a Sopwith Camel to a jet
fighter, giving him an unusually long-flying career while presenting an account of the
history of British Military aviation. The character of Biggles is well known in the world
of British boys fiction, passed down from generation to generation. In 1986 an
adventure film based on W.E.Johns’ books was released. Biggles: Adventures in Time
attempted to add a more modern twist to the Biggles character by adding a science
fiction element, riding the wave of appeal in the 1980s for time travelling feature films.
An inconspicuous salesman Jim Ferguson falls through a time hole to the year 1917,
where he saves the life of the debonair English pilot James “Biggles” Bigglesworth after
he is shot down. Before Jim can fathom what has happened, he is zapped back to the
1980s. Ferguson learns that he and Biggles are “time twins,” which means they both
travel through time unexpectedly when one or the other is in mortal danger. This
paper compares Biggles’ portrayal as an English hero for boys in W.E. Johns’ works
with the notably unfaithful alternative construal of the time-traveler in Biggles:
Adventures in Time.
39
“The Construction of an Alternative Reality in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled
and its Metaphorical Capacity”
WOJCIECH DRĄG
Ishiguro’s fourth novel is widely regarded as his most experimental and challenging
work. On its publication, The Unconsoled was received by critics with a mixture
of scepticism, confusion and admiration. Most reviewers were thoroughly baffled by
the author’s radical departure from the intricately constructed realistic narrative that
he had been praised for in his first three novels. Indeed, in a variety of ways, The
Unconsoled marks a notable shift in Ishiguro’s creativity, which is also evidenced by his
later works. Perhaps the most striking quality that sets apart this novel from Ishiguro’s
previous works is the portrayal of a highly disturbing reality which the protagonist
finds himself immersed in. This incomprehensible and forever fluid realm has been
described by critics as built up of the elements of surrealism, expressionism and
fabulism (Holmes 11-12).
The Unconsoled is an over 500-page-long, first-person account of three days spent in a
highly mysterious unnamed eastern European city. The protagonist – a renowned
pianist named Ryder – arrives in the city to give a concert which he has no memory of
ever agreeing to perform. The novel chronicles his many engagements connected with
the preparations for the concert and a number of puzzling interactions with the local
people encountered during his wanderings around the maze-like city. The plot of the
novel unravels according to the logic of an increasingly bizarre dream. From the
opening scene the reader realises that the narrative is not governed by the laws of
realism. It becomes ever more evident that they have entered an alternative realm
with laws and rules of its own making, where time and space are possessed of
a curious elasticity. The reality of The Unconsoled has been referred to as “solipsistic”
as it appears to be a product of the protagonist’s mind (or his unconscious).
It is populated by characters from Ryder’s past and figures who serve as displaced
versions of Ryder himself at different stages of his life.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the devices that Ishiguro uses in order to
construct an alternative reality and the possible allegorical interpretations that it
affords. Ishiguro himself has pointed out in an interview that as a writer he is not
interested in breaking with realism for the sake of experimentation but only when it
“allows for depiction of themes which are of broader significance than those which
would emerge from strict realism” (Holmes 13). Among the selected interpretations
that I wish to present here are the readings of The Unconsoled as a metaphor for the
mechanisms of memory, the Freudian notion of melancholia, as a site of displacement
and wish-fulfilment characterising dream logic, as a dramatisation of loss and
childhood trauma and, finally, as a subtle satire on the celebrity culture.
40
References:
Adelman, Gary. “Doubles on the Rocks: Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled.” Critique 42 (2001):
166-80.
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford: Penguin, 2008.
Holmes, Frederic. “Realism, Dreams and the Unconscious in the Novels of Kazuo
Ishiguro.”
Contemporary British Novel. Eds. James Acheson and Sarah C.E. Ross. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh UP, 2005. 11-22.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Unconsoled. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
Lewis, Barry. Contemporary World Writers: Kazuo Ishiguro. Manchester: Manchester
UP, 2000.
Sim, Wai-chew. Kazuo Ishiguro. London: Routledge, 2010.
Wong, Cynthia. F. Writers and Their Work: Kazuo Ishiguro. Horndon: Northcote, 2005.
Tożsamość językoznawstwa jako dyscypliny naukowej
AGNIESZKA DZIOB
Po „przełomie lingwistycznym” nie można, wykonując jakiekolwiek badania z zakresu
nauk humanistycznych, nie odwoływać się do języka jako narzędzia opisu
rzeczywistości. Wydawać by się mogło, że stan ten wpływa pozytywnie na status
językoznawstwa wśród innych dyscyplin naukowych. W rzeczywistości, obserwując
dyskurs humanistyczny, można odnieść wrażenie, że językoznawstwo bywa spychane
na margines, a językiem zaczęli się zajmować badacze wielu innych dyscyplin, m.in.
socjologii i psychologii. Problem tych powiązań interdyscyplinarnych polega na tym,
że często badacze ci niechętnie przyznają się do czerpania z dorobku lingwistyki,
a narzędzia do analizy tekstu traktują jako „własne”, nie zawsze jednak mając
odpowiednie kompetencje do ich wykorzystywania. Z drugiej strony jest to także
problem językoznawców, którzy wciąż bardzo często mają opory przed porzuceniem
strukturalistycznych metod badań oraz terminologii i otworzeniem się na inne
dyscypliny nauk humanistycznych, z obawy przed oskarżeniem o „eklektyzm”
i prowadzenie badań z innych zakresów zainteresowań pod sztandarem lingwistyki.
Zwłaszcza dotyczy to tych badań, których przedmiotem jest tekst i (lub) dyskurs.
Rozmywanie się tych pojęć i niezdolność do sformułowania na gruncie jedynie
lingwistyki metod analizy tych zjawisk sprawiają, że badania nad nimi są przejmowane
przez inne dyscypliny naukowe (zwłaszcza socjologię). Tym samym w zakresie badań
nad tekstem i dyskursem językoznawstwo zostało zepchnięte do roli nauki
pomocniczej socjologii. W naukach humanistycznych zapanował natomiast pewien
chaos terminologiczny i metodologiczny, spowodowany z jednej strony tendencjami
każdej z dyscyplin do uniezależnienia się od innych, z drugiej – dążeniem do
prowadzenia badań interdyscyplinarnych, które to wręcz programowo zostały
narzucone w epoce „postmodernizmu” (którego definicje oraz ramy czasowe
i teoretyczne również wprowadzają wiele nieścisłości). Pojawia się więc pytanie
41
o status lingwistyki wśród innych nauk humanistycznych oraz o to, czy można mówić
o jakichś metodach badań stricte językoznawczych, które jednocześnie są
wykorzystywane przez badaczy innych dyscyplin.
W swoim referacie chciałabym przedstawić, na przykładzie analizy definicji pojęć
„tożsamość” i „wizerunek” w różnych dyscyplinach naukowych (a zwłaszcza w obrębie
psychologii, socjologii i szeroko pojętych nauk o zarządzaniu), jak zakresy tych pojęć
różnią się od siebie i zbliżają do siebie w zależności od koncepcji teoretycznej, która
stanowi podstawę owej definicji. Po drugie chciałabym również wskazać na kilka
metod, wypracowanych na gruncie językoznawstwa, które są obecnie wykorzystywane
przez badaczy z owych dziedzin do analizy zjawisk tożsamości i wizerunku. Spróbuję
przy tym odpowiedzieć na pytanie o tożsamość językoznawstwa jako dyscypliny
naukowej, które zostało postawione w tytule referatu. Zgodnie bowiem z jedną
z koncepcji tożsamości, którą zaprezentuję, zjawisko to ma charakter dynamiczny,
zmieniający się w zależności od okoliczności. Dla językoznawstwa niewątpliwie jedną
z takich okoliczności jest poststrukturalizm i otwarcie się lingwistyki na inne dyscypliny
naukowe.
Metaphor-induced Construal Alternations
TOMASZ FOJT
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland
The paper concerns the relationship between metaphor-induced semantic extensions
and attendant alternations of the construal imposed by the expressions analysed.
The data used in the study has been extracted from the morphosyntactically
annotated Corpus of Polish with the use of the Poliqarp set of tools for searching
corpora. A number of nominal and verbal lexemes used in literal and metaphorical
senses have been tested to determine differences in their valence and
morphosyntactic properties. In the case of autonomous nominal predications, it has
been observed that a shift to a metaphorical semantic value often involves an
obligatory recategorisation of the expression to the class of (atemporal) relational
predications. This is often accompanied by an alternation of the profile determinant,
which affects the canonical modifier/head relationship within a construction. In the
case of relational predications that profile processual relationships, construal
operations attendant on the metaphorical shift may result in a syntactic repartition of
a construction and an emergence of a new, more specialised construction. At the level
of morphosyntactic structure, the effects of alternate construal are evident in the
alterations of the valency of the verb (either a reduction of the arguments or an
introduction of new, obligatory arguments). Also affected are the semantic roles of the
construction arguments, which is signalled by appropriate morphological exponents of
grammatical cases, often contrasting with the ones required by the same verb in its
literal sense. The morphosyntactic patterns characteristic of secondary, non-literal
meanings form local patterns of limited scope only (they are distributionally more
42
restricted and more specialised semantically). Because of the peculiarities involved in
their construal, it is argued that they are best captured within the construction
grammar approach to language analysis which easily accommodates the details of
actual patterns of usage.
Two Visions of the Year 2137 in Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time
CHRISTINE FRANK-SZARECKA
College of Foreign Languages in Częstochowa, Poland
Marge Piercy in her 1976 classic feminist and utopian science-fiction novel presents
not one but in fact two possible construals of the future world – one utopian which is
at first glance rather a regression back to former times of rural cooperative
communities, yet nearly idyllic in its ideology and organization; the second a total
contrast to the first – a dystopia worse than any Orwellian depiction of what may come
to be. In this paper I will compare these two “possible” futures to each other as well as
contrast them to the twenty-first century setting of the book. I will also explore
Piercy’s motivations for creating two such contradicting future visions, based on the
political and social issues first raised in the 1960’s and 70’s, namely racial and gender
equality, environmental protection, as well as capitalistic values, which are the
recurring themes in her work.
The future which the heroine Connie first encounters is that of the village of
Mattapoissett - a rural community where all its members are truly equal in the full
sense of the word – “he/she, ‘his/hers” are nonexistent terms in this era having been
replaced by “person” and “per”. What is more, parallel to the situation in Huxley’s
Brave New World, the traditional methods of reproduction have become obsolete;
children are now conceived in laboratories and develop in artificial wombs.
Nonetheless, in contrast to the inhuman breeding process, children are brought up in
loving families with three volunteer mothers of different gender (the term “father”
does not exist), even the men may breastfeed. In short, these futuristic people live
simple, nearly perfectly happy lives sharing everything and living close to and in
harmony with nature – gone are metropolises, fossil fuels, pollution, nevertheless,
illness, war and death have not been eradicated.
Further on in the novel, Consuela is suddenly transposed to an alternate 2137 than the
peaceful, humble one she had previously experienced; this version of the future is
fatalistic and apocalyptic, where the majority humankind inhabits such a contaminated
earth that one does not go outside, they have picture screens instead of windows and
citizens do not expect to live much past the age of forty, while the capitalist elite live
comfortably on space platforms, even well into their two hundreds. This world is one
ruled by human vices; drug addiction, prostitution and the trade of human organs are
the norm.
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Rewriting Oscar Wilde: Peter Ackroyd’s The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
ŁUKASZ GIEZEK
On the basis of Peter Ackroyd’s The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde the article presents
the notion of the subject as a discursive formation, i.e. the self emerging as a result of
telling a story. Since the main character of the novel is a real historical personage, the
article focuses on exploring the process of fictionalization resulting from constructing
the subject within narrative structures and also investigates signals suggesting that
imagination creates a truth “larger than that of biography or history” (1993: 121).
By focusing on the narrator’s understanding of bygone days at the moment of writing
the life story, the narrative underscores that the past and self are malleable; both are
endowed with new significance as they are being turned into a tale. Wilde’s life
becomes a self-consciously stylized apologia abounding in intertextual references.
Citationism brings to the foreground the novel’s metafictional concern with narrative
techniques used to create a story and with the role of art and imagination in
constructing the meaning of the actual world. Paired with the novel's metafictional
character, the strategy of turning historical figures into characters of the story and of
emplotting actual events within the larger narrative involves the second-level reader in
considering literary aspects of historical writings. As a result, the reader questions his
reliance on historical narratives to present the truth as it was.
The Last Testament posits the self’s confinement to discourse and dispersion of truths;
however, the narrator-protagonist discerns the possibility of attaining the ultimate
truth in contemplation and creation of art. Wilde dreams of entering artworks and
transcending his life and self. Indeed, I argue that an anagogical reading might prompt
the reader to believe that the playwright passes into the domain of imagination and
speaks through Ackroyd in the apologia.
Speaking Softly in Code: The Queer Perspective in the Works of Tennessee Williams
IZABELA GRADECKA
The objective of the proposed paper is to present an insight into selected works of
Tennessee Williams demonstrating the cultural and literary codes that the author
employed to covertly discuss the matter of homosexuality.
Since Tennessee Williams lived and created in the times of intense political oppression
of gay community, he could not write about homosexuality openly. Under the
assumption that anyone who was homosexual was a threat to American society and its
security, the social policies of the Cold War era infamously ruined professional and
44
private lives of many gay people. Consequently, as discussing homoeroticism in public
was incriminating, it posed a problem of artistic self-expression for many homosexual
writers. The desire to touch on as vital and intimate a sphere of life as sexuality,
however, especially when it was repressed, urged some writers to find ways to discuss
the issue indirectly or even cryptically. Tennessee Williams was one of such writers.
Owing to the recent intense growth in the discipline of gay studies and the
contribution of such vital queer theorists as Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick to
the gay literary criticism, there appeared a new scope of alternative interpretations of
Williams’s works. Basing on the studies of the mentioned scholars as well as literary
critics like Dean Shackelford and David Savran, inter alia, the presented paper will
discuss the mechanisms that Williams’s works operate through to suggest latent
homosexual content.
The works of Tennessee Williams that are to be the subject of the proposed study are
his full-length and one-act plays: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire,
Auto-Da-Fe, Something Unspoken, The Strangest Kind of Romance and Not About the
Nightingales. The selected dramas epitomize the codes Williams employed to
communicate the politically forbidden matter. Analyzing the rhetoric of the dramas, I
will point to the submerged homosexual plots, significant recurrent motifs, symbols
and intertextuality of the gay male subculture. The examination of the encoded
homosexual discourse in these works will involve looking closely at Williams’s playing
with the perspectives and gender stereotypes of his readers. I will demonstrate that
Tennessee Williams challenges socially established perceptions of sexual identity,
undermines the traditional erotics of the stage presentation and redirects the
audiences gaze towards the male body. In effect, as a conclusion to my study, I will
point to the creative achievements of the playwright, as the one who not only found a
method and means to communicate with the initiated readers but accounted for the
complexity of gay sensibility and subjectivity.
In the face of the still developing field of queer criticism and the on-going
reassessment of socio-historical contexts of literary works, the proposed analysis
offers an alternative, lesser discussed but potent literary perspective in Tennessee
Williams’ writings.
Jak gdyby Ameryka. Alternatywne wizje historii politycznej i ekonomicznej Stanów
Zjednoczonych w prozie Paula Austera
JAROSŁAW HETMAN
Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu
Podejmując dyskusję na temat historii alternatywnej, warto zwrócić uwagę na dwa
dzieła cenionego w Polsce, współczesnego amerykańskiego pisarza Paula Austera,
a mianowicie na Podróże po skryptorium (2006) i W kraju rzeczy ostatnich (1987).
45
W tych powieściach autor podejmuje rozważania na temat dwóch kluczowych
aspektów funkcjonowania Stanów Zjednoczonych w kulturze, bierze na warsztat
potęgę polityczną i ekonomiczną tego kraju. Analizę czynników, które przyczyniły się do
powstania mocarstwa politycznego odnajdziemy w Podróżach po skryptorium, gdzie za
pomocą opowieści w opowieści rekonstruuje wczesne etapy państwowości
amerykańskiej przedstawiając zupełnie nową strukturę wpływów Europejskich
(zarówno politycznych jak i kulturowych a także językowych), nowe wojny z ludnością
tubylczą, walki lokalnych przywódców o dominację i zagarnięcie możliwie dużych
obszarów ziemskich. Wydarzenia, które opisuje Auster mają miejsce na tle innej
sytuacji dziejowej i innego etapu technologicznego rozwoju ludzkości. Poprzez
obdarcie mechanizmów powstawania potęgi politycznej z ich historycznego kontekstu
i umieszczenie ich w obliczu zupełnie nowej rzeczywistości pozwala Austerowi na
ukazanie ich istoty, a co za tym idzie lepsze zrozumienie ich funkcjonowania
w rzeczywistości, i choć w żadnym momencie w tekście nie jest wspomniane wprost,
że chodzi o historię Stanów Zjednoczonych, ze względu na bardzo liczne aluzje nie
sposób mieć wątpliwości, że Auster ma na myśli swą ojczyznę. To samo można
powiedzieć o drugiej powieści będącej przedmiotem niniejszych rozważań. Miejscem
akcji Kraju rzeczy ostatnich jest państwo, w którym zupełnie ustała produkcja
przemysłowa, nie ma nowych dóbr materialnych, istnieją jedynie takie, które powstały
za czasów dobrobytu i poddawane były licznym naprawom. Ukazanie takiego kraju
staje się dla amerykańskiego pisarza doskonałą okazją do wyrażenia refleksji nad
materialistycznym aspektem kultury amerykańskiej, nad mechanizmami wytwarzania
fałszywego popytu, a także nad jednorazową naturą przedmiotów będących owocami
tej kultury. Analiza utworów Paula Austera za swą podstawę teoretyczną obiera
rozważania Jeana Baudrillarda, szczególnie te zawarte w tomach America
i The Consumer Society.
A Chair Is Still a Chair, Even When There's No One Sitting There. About the Semiotics
of the Trivial
PAUL VAN DEN HOVEN
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
In my opinion this is one of the weakest lines written by Burt Bacharach.
As a philosophical statement however it is brilliant. I want to illustrate that claim in this
paper. Crucial is the seemingly simple word ‘even’.
It is plausible that the utterance should come from someone who is lingering on
a specific chair. That chair he or she has never consciously observed when the other
was still there. The chair – trivial – was not a prop then, to use this theatrical
terminology, not an object that may develop and form a theme. But now it is.
It became an esthetic object one now that the other is gone.
46
While our sad singer is lingering on the chair, this chair is released from its trivial
function that makes it invisible, form its function to be seated on. Or better, that
function is not trivial anymore now that no one is actually sitting on it. Suddenly the
chair becomes an object just being there. The chair has become Pop-art. Our singer
can linger on the chair as an object that just is.
However again just as sudden - maybe because the sadness of the observer disturbs
the esthetic perception - the object falls back in its being a chair. The theoretical
conclusion is that a chair is still a chair, even when there is no one sitting there. This is
one of the endless series of statements that make a full theoretical description.
In this lecture I want to analyze the esthetic appearing and the theoretical appearance
and what I call the trivial appearance. I am fascinated by the trivial, by the deep
cultural nesting of so many objects and situations what we just seem to ignore, pass by
without observing.
This can be the map that we simply take as the world (Tim Ingold), the toilet bowl that
we sit on (Marcel Duchamp) or the chair that we do not notice (Burt Bacharach) and so
on. Their being there and being what they are is trivial. Actor networks are ignored
when trying to find the road to Wroclaw, when relieving oneself comfortably, when
resting and sitting the way western people do.
This results in an admiration for Duchamp, an irritation by Warhold, and so on.
But why? Why is the trivial so strongly associated with the esthetical? Can we account
for this in a theoretical semiotic way?
I attempt to do this from the perspective of Peircean semiotics. In Peircean semiotics
we may associate the trivial with firstness. When the interpretant confirms the mental
object that is initially activated by the sign and therefore this firstly activated object
seems to be all there is, secondness (the indexical) and thirdness (the symbolic)
disappear. The chair turns out to be just a chair, not to be a theme, no prop.
However, Peircean semiotics is based on the fundamental insight that every semiosis
applies a full semiotic cycle. The word ‘even’ in Bacharach’s line indicates exactly this.
The interpretations of the object as just a chair is not just the simile (the icon, firstness)
but also what is associated with it on the basis of our experience (the indexical,
secondness) and all that is conventionally learned about it (thirdness).
So the chair – that is just a chair – acts: it represents, indicates and symbolizes.
When in a specific semiosis just iconicity seems to remain, this is a very specific
outcome of a very specific actor relation chair – interpreter. The trivial is a highly
marked, empirically and culturally articulated semiotic position.
If no one is sitting in the chair, the chair is still a chair. But no one sitting in it becomes
an observable feature. Why? Because to make people sit in it is the way a chair is
supposed to act. That indicates (secondness) its functional relations. At least in our
culture that is its habit in the actor network (thirdness). So suddenly for the singer the
47
triviality disappears because the secondness and thirdness become manifest.
Now the chair appears again in its being a chair, in an aspect of its theoretical
appearance.
However – and here I will refer to Martin Seel and via him to Nietzsche – the lost of the
trivial may also trigger another process, the esthetic lingering on the appearing.
Here too the firstness is dominant. But now this is not because we overlook
secondness and thirdness. On the contrary, now the lingering on firstness can only
come into being because we are aware of secondness and thirdness. The esthetic
lingering on is there because we know the chair being a chair and (try to) loosen
ourselves from it. We revitalize the map, we place the toilet bowl in such a position
that it can start to be an object that - who knows - may become a toilet bowl.
Seen therefore form the theoretical appearance the esthetic appearing and the trivial
appearance have in common that both concern firstness. But they do that in a very
different way. In the paper I intend to elaborate these distinctions and speculate about
the importance.
Word’s Connotations and Semantic Construals
IVAN KASABOV
New Bulgarian University in Sofia, Bulgaria
A semantic approach to different aspects of language experience calls for discovering
language phenomena in their significance. It needs to clarify the common signstructures of things and words at three different levels: of theoretical form, of actual
existence and of socio-cultural values. Thus would be avoided the main referential
illusion of dealing with “existent objects” irrelevant to their significance, or the signvalued understanding. Respectively, one would be prevented of the illusionary
semantic study of word-meanings irrelevant to their anthropological, social and
psychological values-connotations.
The claim in this paper is that in human experience we have access to actual objects
via sensations of physical, material character but we experience or apprehend these
objects as signs. Without being a sign, an object is not recognizable, nor communicable
and understandable. That means every single object has to identify some other object
or any object like it, or to be understood as presented in its specific features in an
actual act of communication form i.e. it is a predicative sign of speech or thought. The
individual thing obtains its reality as object on the level of cultural values or social
functions as a sign-type with its own name, meaning and connotations. These
connotations as values of meanings (or of values) govern the dynamic of object and
word-transformations.
48
The general language peculiarity is rooted in above mentioned dynamic of object and
word-transformations from the forms of the sacral as: totem, fetish, idol to the forms
of the profane in everyday language vocabulary and vice-versa. For example, it is hard
to realize the semantic relevance of metaphors and other rhetorical tropes for
language understanding without having in mind prototypical magic and mystic
prejudicial forms like totem, idol, fetish and so-called nomina-omina as corresponding
language forms like taboo, euphemism etc. of still undistinguished syncretic wordobjects. Similarly, to understand common social connotations we have to investigate
emblematic social types like heroes, (stage)-divas and (movie)-stars with their
corresponding language forms like slang and argotic word or pseudonyms. For
understanding individual stylistic connotations, we need to deal with stereotypical
psychological symbolic forms and language forms like paronymous, exotic and poetic
word forms or acronyms, anagrams, calambours etc.
As a result of such a connotative analysis of words’ semantics, it would be possible to
clarify the general types of words’ meaning: iconic-metaphorical, object-symbolical and
symbolic-allegorical. Finally, it is necessary to extract the main semantic features (or
marks) as named substantiated qualities like soundness, lightness (darkness),
substantiality, formality, corpuscularity, animality, humanity, etc. in their construal
function as words’ iconic etymons. On this ground of sign-words meanings it is possible
to build lexico-semantic architectonic categorization and systematization and to
establish lexico-grammatical system-forming values or lexico-semantic valuesdevelopment, transformations of meanings and word-formation.
Writing London in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere
EWA KĘBŁOWSKA-ŁAWNICZAK
“The city topography is a palimpsest within which all the most magnificent or
monstrous cities of the world can be discerned ... [But] who can fathom the depths of
London?”, asks Peter Ackroyd in London: The Biography. The phenomenon of citiness
or urbanity can be investigated in terms of straightforwardly conceived representation
where the city appears as a carefully constructed collection of institutions/monuments
and a relevant system of power relations. In the early sociological and, later, literary
studies London is a place whose inhabitants are classifiable and stageable as types of
citizens, “city boys” and “city girls”, city professionals or the mob - amorphous but
homogeneous and manageable by a spatially and politically discernible authority.
The city can also function as space or set of places definable through intricate sets of
oppositions. Peter Ackroyd’s comment on the city indicates a difficulty which pervades
his own city writing (London: The Biography or Hawksmoor) and which renders the
earlier, above-mentioned writing, where a city “image” is provided, questionable.
49
This paper seeks to explore Neil Gaiman’s construction of London with its pervasive
difficulty to place the city either conceptually or visually. Seeing London becomes, first
of all, an encounter with the invisible, a gift of vision and a pursuit of a phantom
always on the move but, ultimately, unfathomable. Absence of the image, I will argue,
is a consequence of placelessness and, more significantly, of an underlying
impossibility of ontology. Focus is thus on the act of writing which consists in tracing
the “bits” of materiality, memory and spectrality, on relaying legacies, reconfiguring
constellations of “textual” events and regimes. The city emerges from the process
as a spectral machine apprehended through its revenant traces, present through
a disquieting anamnesis – a city of the mind even if not a utopia. It seems that
Gaiman’s London appeals to the mind’s eye by evoking the seemingly tangible grid
topography of the underground, the “red skeleton” in Julian Barnes’s Metroland, but
offers, ultimately, very little to the eye.
Alternate History of an American Family in Toni Morrison’s Novel The Bluest Eye
ELŻBIETA KLIMEK-DOMINIAK
The paper focuses on The Bluest Eye, the first novel of Toni Morrison and the ways in
which this alternate narrative account deconstructs the myth of an African American
family as providing a shelter from emotional and economic deprivation caused by
racial discrimination and domestic violence.
The Bluest Eye opens with an excerpt from a children’s primer describing what seems
to be an idealized version of a white middle class American family of Dick and Jane.
Pecola’s family troubled with poverty, self-hatred and violence doesn’t resemble Dick
and Jane’s model world. The degraded status of African American families is even
more noticeable because the chapter headings contain sentences from the primer
signaling a disparity between an ideal world and its alternate counterpart. The simple
sentences from a primer are recurring throughout the novel in different syntactical
variations representing paces and modes of a child’s reading. This mood of childlike
bliss established by the passages from a primer is contrasted with the brutal acts of
violence Pecola experiences both in the public sphere of the small town in Ohio and
within the confines of her own home. The repeated traumas Pecola is subjected to
result in her abrupt loss of childhood innocence and ultimate alienation from the world
of her peers and her family. The novel presents an African American representation of
a violent coming-of-age process. Significantly, pervasive domestic abuse in the novel
complicates the contention that racism is the single most destructive force in young
African American girls’ lives.
The motif of the bluest eye invoked in the title of the novel stands for the desired mark
of beauty which Pecola, who has been exposed to white middle class standards of
50
feminine perfection such as Shirley Temple, associates with white looks. This
internalized admiration for white middle class values makes Pecola’s shame and selfhatred even more intense. They also represent the subversive impact of the American
cultural constructs of model femininity as the reader realizes that Pecola gained the
desired blue eyes only through an act of self-destructive immersion in an alternate
reality. “The bluest” eye can assume other meanings such as the saddest to underline
Pecola’s traumatized adolescence or, when the eye is read as a pun on I, as the saddest
and most isolated individual. By examining racialized constructions of gender and
questioning the dominant cultural myths of nurturing family and supportive
community, Morrison retells the coming-of-age story from a different perspective.
Selected Bibliography:
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Baltimore:
John Hopkins University Press
Daly, B. (1998). Authoring a Life: A Woman’s Survival in and Through Literary Studies.
Albany: State University of New York Press
Henke, S.A.. (2000) Shattered Subjects: Trauma and Testimony in Women’s Life
Writing. New York: St.Martin’s Press
Gilmore, L. (2001) The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony
Smith, S. Watson, J.(1996) Getting a Life: Everyday Uses of Autobiography.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Vickroy, L. (2002) Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction. Charlottesville and
London: University of Virginia Press.
Coping with the Antisemitic Universe: The Construction of Alternate Realities in
Bellow’s The Victim and Roth’s The Plot Against America
JUSTYNA KOCIATKIEWICZ
The issue of anti-Semitic sentiments in pre-World War II America is a sensitive one in
the country whose official ideology proclaims general equality of its citizens and racial,
religious and cultural neutrality. Nevertheless, the impact of anti-Semitic prejudice was
particularly obvious in the first half of the twentieth century, resulting in attacks on
Jewish property and even lynches, and culminating in the war policy of the Roosevelt
administration.
The Jewish response to American anti-Semitism is recorded in the novels by Bellow
and Roth. The former, published in 1947, constitutes an immediate reaction to the
accelerating prejudice against Jews and thus may earn the name of Bellow’s only
commentary on the Holocaust. The latter, written sixty years later, offers a more
detached and therefore bolder rendition of the fears and anxieties plaguing the
American Jewish community during World War II.
51
The temporal distance separating the two texts may be responsible for the obvious
differences in the approach to the subject of anti-Semitism: where Roth imagines
a fictional version of the American history with Lindbergh winning the 1940 election
and turning America fascist, Bellow presents an individual plight of Asa Leventhal
trying to understand his position in the contemporary America. However, it is
important to note the similarities of the devices both authors use and of the narrative
strategies they employ to render the ambience of mid-twentieth century America:
both Bellow and Roth construct alternate realities in which their characters experience
a radical turn from the familiar; both Bellow and Roth create protagonists lost in the
oneiric universes which they try to make sense of; finally, both Bellow and Roth resort
to the notion of conspiracy or plot to mitigate the harshness of their vision and tone
down the potential bitterness of their assessment of the times.
Aspectual Anomalies: The Imperfective Paradox and the Atelic Interpretation
of Achievements
HALYNA KOLPAKOVA
Ivan Franko National University of L’viv, Ukraine
The paper focuses on the aspectual classification of predicates exemplifying the
observations by means of fixed verbo-nominal phrases: to have a desire (state)
to have a read (activity)
to make a report (accomplishment)
to take one’s departure (achievement)
and aims to elucidate such controversies as durative achievements and the atelic
reading of achievements.
In the literature on aktionsart the achievements like to discover and to make a
discovery, to switch and to make a switch, to find and to make a find are always
described as [–durative] and [+telic], it means that they are not used in progressive
forms and do not combine with for adverbials, however considering the sentences like
the ones given below (a, b) we observe the opposite.
a) Now she was discovering a wider world. (BNC H7E 410)
b) Tourists discovered that village for months during the summer. (Rothstein, 2008)
Sentence (b) illustrates the atelic reading of the achievement verb “to discover” which
is possible when either the subject or the object of an achievement verb is represented
by bare plurals. In this case the verb denotes plurality and the sentence is interpreted
distributively. The distributive character of the sentences of this type is made clearer
by the example (c) where the adverbial modifier “in succession” manifests the
distributive reading.
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c) Both awards were won for the second year in succession. (BNC K99 16)
The use of achievements (as well as accomplishments) in progressive forms gives rise
to the so-called “imperfective paradox” when the sentence (a) does not entail that
“she discovered the world”. It is also interesting to point out the example noted by E.
Traugott (1999) “She was making a joke when the lights went out” which in the same
way as the sentence (a) does not entail that she joked, though the sentence “ she was
making a joke when the lights went out” entails this interpretation. The explanation for
this comes from the aspectual analysis of the predicate “to make a joke” and the verb
“to joke”. The first one is a heterogeneous predicate whereas the second one is an
activity verb and denotes a homogeneous action, i.e. one and the same action on each
stage of its realization.
It is also necessary to state the difference between durative achievements and
durative accomplishments. Achievements in progressive forms have a slow-motion
reading (like in the sentence (a)) whereas accomplishments do not trigger this kind of
interpretation. Furthermore, a temporal modifier (in an hour, in five minutes) indicates
that the telic change of the state will occur in an hour or in five minutes from the time
of utterance, it temporally locates the telic point of the event. Accomplishments, in
this case, have absolutely different interpretation. They denote either when the action
will happen or how long it will last (as for example, the sentence “I’m making a report
in a few days” gives the information when the action will occur).
References:
Dowty, D. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Kearns, K. 2003. Durative Achievements and Individual-Level Predicates on Events.
Linguistics and Philosophy 26: 595-635.
Landman, F. 2000. Events and Plurality: The Jerusalem Lectures. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Rothstein, S. 2008. Telicity, Atomicity and the Vendler Classification of Verbs. In
Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect, S.
Rothstein (ed.), 43-77. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Rothstein, S. 2004. Structuring events: A Study in the Semantics of Lexical Aspect.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Traugott, E. A Historical Overview of Complex Predicate Types. In Collocational and
Idiomatic Aspects of Composite Predicates in the History of English,L. Brinton,
M. Akimoto (ed.), 239-258. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
53
Fikcja możliwości? O powieści kryminalnej z perspektywy czytelnika
MARIUSZ KRASKA
Uniwersytet Gdański
1. Artykuł jest krytyczną próbą konfrontacji literaturoznawczej teorii światów
możliwych (zwłaszcza w ujęciu U. Eco) z pragmatycznym nastawieniem na badanie
dzieła literackiego.
2. Z racji rządzącej w powieści kryminalnej logiki odkrycia chciałbym zastanowić się
nad dominującą w tym gatunku kategorią „możliwości” rozpatrywaną w planie fabuły,
narracji i organizacji świata przedstawionego.
3. Dwa zasadnicze gatunkowe modele – powieść detektywistyczna i czarny kryminał –
fundują dwie przeciwstawne strategie konstruowania rzeczywistości. W klasycznej
konwencji analitycznej czytelnicza uwaga koncentruje się na rekonstrukcji fabuły
ukierunkowanej od prawdopodobnych zdarzeń ku (nie)możliwym okolicznościom
popełnionego morderstwa. W czarnym kryminale fabularny wektor zmierza ku
przekonaniu, że niewiarygodna zbrodnia jest częścią realnego świata.
4. W obu tych przypadkach jednak suspens (i czytelnicza przyjemność) bazuje na
paradoksalnym doświadczeniu, polegającym na pragnieniu (ze strony czytelnika)
odkrycia fabularnego rozwiązania i sprzecznego z tym pragnieniem pożądania
niewiedzy. Oznaczałoby to, że lekturowa satysfakcja czytelnika nie wynika z jego
poznawczych ani moralnych kompetencji, lecz jej efektem jest zdolność generowania
wielu potencjalnych, alternatywnych scenariuszy, których nadrzędną funkcją jest
podtrzymywania emocjonalnego napięcia w procesie odbioru.
5. W zakończeniu chciałbym rozważyć kwestię, na ile taki sposób rozumienia
przebiegu odbioru powieści kryminalnej tłumaczy współczesny renesans tego gatunku.
Genetically Modified Future: Pre- and Post-Apocalyptic Visions of the World
in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake
SŁAWOMIR KUŹNICKI
Teachers’ Training College in Opole, Poland
Are people ethically obliged to make use of the genetic material? Is it morally
acceptable to experiment with the living creatures? Does not medical integration into
animals’ DNA lead to the same kind of procedures but directly connected with human
beings? Where is the border line between humanistic progress and violation of the
natural status quo? Finally, where is this world of biotechnology heading? These are
very common questions nowadays, and it seems that Oryx and Crake by Margaret
Atwood tries to propose at least some possible answers and solutions. However, doing
so, Atwood provides us with a dystopian vision that, despite solid roots in the history
of literature and especially this specific genre, seems highly original.
54
In Oryx and Crake Atwood shows two alternative visions of the future: one directly
before the apocalyptic end of the world, and the other one, just after the ultimate falldown of the civilization as we know it today. Both appear to derive from the genetic
experiments which characterize our world, the world at the beginning of the 21st
century. It is the very point where lies the originality of Atwood’s literary imagination,
since the pre-apocalyptic reality, although clearly described as a future one, differs
from the today's world only in details. The dyspotian reality Atwood faces us with is
actually what we already see and know, only with a few exaggerations. In this sense
the author somehow broadens, or maybe even violates, Samuel Delany’s description
of the SF genre as something that has not happened1. In her interpretation the future
is actually happening now, in the present. A more traditional vision of the future, in
Delany’s hypothetical opinion, would be the world after its end. However, also here
Atwood breaks the convention of dystopia, and instead of a vision of a total regress
she proposes a kind of heaven on earth, only with a small crack, being a universal
conscience of the dying world. It is only thanks to this small crack that Atwood's
powerful vision differs from the traditional utopia.
In other words, Atwood shows an unavoidable sequence of events and,
simultaneously, alternate construals that not only co-exist in her prose, but complete
each other creating a picture of the future that is impossible to disdain.
Transgresja w twórczości Marguerite Duras ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem
adaptacji filmowych jako przykład konstruktów alternatywnych
ANNA LEDWINA
Uniwersytet Opolski
Marguerite Duras (1914-1996), francuska pisarka, autorka scenariuszy filmowych
i sztuk teatralnych, mimo iż nie należała do przedstawicieli nouveau roman, jest
łącznikiem między twórcami eksperymentalnej nowej powieści (Alainem RobbeGrilletem, Michelem Butorem, Claudem Simonem, Nathalie Sarraute) a twórcami
autofikcji. Sylwetka intelektualna Duras, podobnie jak i jej twórczość przedstawiająca
specyficzne postrzeganie kondycji kobiety i pisarki, wymykają się estetycznym
kwalifikacjom.
Autorka w swoich powieściach oraz wyreżyserowanych przez siebie filmach (India
Song, 1974; Les enfants, 1984) opowiada o miłości, w ciągłej zmienności
i w najróżniejszych jej odmianach, stanowiącej leitmotiv twórczości autorki. Pisze
o samotności, przeciwstawia się stereotypom odnoszącym się do pozycji kobiet oraz
wykluczeniu kobiet ze sfery publicznej. W jej utworach, zwł. cyklu „indyjskim”, do
którego zaliczyć można powieści Zachwyt Loli Walerii Stein (Le Ravissement de Lola
Valérie Stein, 1964), Wicekonsul (Le Viceconsul, 1965) i scenariusze filmowe Kobieta
z Gangesu (La Femme du Gange, 1965), Jego imię weneckie z opustoszonej Kalkuty
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(Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert, 1975) charakterystyczna jest obecność uczuć
i pasji oraz pesymistyczny stosunek do życia, chęć wyrwania się z kręgu niemocy.
Transpozycja własnych wspomnień i osobistych doświadczeń za pomocą
niepowtarzalnego stylu pozwala mówić o transgresji nie tylko w warstwie tematyki, ale
i konwencji. Łącząc różne gatunki Duras tworzy nową rzeczywistość, stara się uchwycić
niedające się opisać wrażenia. Synergia literatury i filmu, eksponowanie wolności
i cielesności jako środka artystycznego wyrazu, świadczy o swoistym zderzeniu dwu
rzeczywistości – autorskiej, twórczej i istniejącej, realnej. Płeć i seksualność odczytana
jest przewrotnie, obrazoburczo, rewolucyjnie. Fragmentaryczność świata utworów
Duras realizowana jest jako zespół ujęć kamery filmowej, zwracając uwagę na przeżycia
wewnętrzne postaci. Takie ujęcie sprawia, że utwory Duras zawierają cechy sprzyjające
ich inscenizacji. Adaptacje filmowe powieści Hiroszima moja miłość (Hiroszima mon
amour, 1959; adaptacja Guy Cassiers 1996), Kochanek (L’Amant, 1984; adaptacja Jean
Jacques Annaud 1991) czy Moderato cantabile (1958, adaptacja Peter Brook 1960)
ukazują rekonfigurację relacji między płciami, przedstawiając historię w nowym
aspekcie, stanowiąc konstrukty alternatywne oryginału, sfabularyzowaną
reinterpretację rzeczywistości. Ze względu na nakładanie się obrazu, głosu i ciszy –
podstawowych elementów stosowanych w różnych dziedzinach sztuki, działalność
pisarki wydaje się stwarzać podstawy nowego odczytywania już napisanych dzieł,
których dominantę stanowi atmosfera tajemnicy, osiągana przez stosowanie
metaforycznego języka i anonimowość postaci. Fakt ten potwierdzają adaptacje
filmowe jej powieści, w których reżyserzy podjęli próbę zmiany perspektywy
narracyjnej w historii, koncentrując się na szaleństwie, obsesji lub nieokiełznanej
namiętności głównej bohaterki.
Dzieło Duras, z perspektywy feministycznej, poddaje indywidualnej analizie teorie
pojęciowe funkcjonujące tak w ramach XX-wiecznej sztuki, jak i estetyki. Bohaterka –
kobieta, stłumiona, a nawet niema, uzyskuje tu prawo głosu i daje wyraz swojej
samoświadomości, burząc dotychczasowy system prawd i pewników kultury.
Zagadnienia podmiotu, tożsamości i osoby stanowią interesującą perspektywę dla
refleksji nad najważniejszymi problemami pojawiającymi się na gruncie antropologii
filozoficznej, ale także epistemologii, filozofii wartości, etyki i estetyki. Co więcej, są to
kwestie, których znaczenie wydaje się istotne nie tylko w ramach akademickiego
dyskursu. Krytyka mieszczańskiego świata wartości, sposób manifestowania własnej
niezależności oraz demaskatorskie odkrycia ważnych obszarów problemowych
(szczególnie erotyki, sprawiedliwości społecznej i swobód obywatelskich) sprawiają, że
twórczość Duras pozostaje nadal aktualna.
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PODobna historia. Rzecz o historii alternatywnej i jej miejscu we współczesnej
historiografii i literaturoznawstwie
NATALIA LEMANN
Uniwersytet Łódzki
Wystąpienie będzie próbą odpowiedzi na pytanie o umiejscowienie coraz bardziej
popularnych form alternatywizacji historii w literaturoznawstwie i nauce historycznej.
Po raz kolejny nauka, nie potrafiąc zaproponować adekwatnego aparatu pojęciowego
i metodologii, nie nadąża za życiem literackim, choć nie jest to wcale zjawisko nowe.
Literackie historie alternatywne nie cieszą się w literaturoznawstwie, podobnie zresztą
jak w historiografii, szczególną estymą, a to chociażby dlatego, że sytuowane są
zazwyczaj w nurcie szeroko pojętej literatury fantastycznej i probablizimu, wrogiego
wg tradycyjnych historiografów nauce historycznej. Przede wszystkim wymagają one
jednak od badacza zwielokrotnionych kompetencji, zarówno literaturoznawczych, jak
i historycznych i antropologicznych, w tym zaś zakresie mogą być one uznane za
przypadek epickiej historiografii. W momencie coraz śmielszego krzyżowania się
paradygmatów nauk humanistycznych, rodzi się szansa na holistyczne ogarnięcie
zjawiska. Odwołam się m.in. do historiograficznego paradygmatu New Economic
History, koncepcji alternatywnych historii Ewy Domańskiej i Alexandra Demandta oraz
konstruktywizmu i Nowego Historycyzmu.
Przywołam nazwiska i utwory Teodora Parnickiego, Hanny Malewskiej, Jacka Dukaja,
Macieja Parowskiego, Dariusza Spychalskiego, Orsona Scotta Carda, Carlosa Fuentesa,
Philipa K. Dicka i innych.
The Hollywoodization of Hawthorne: Roland Joffé’s Cinematic Construal
of The Scarlet Letter
TADEUSZ LEWANDOWSKI
Director Roland Joffé’s cinematic adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet
Letter (1849) was one of the most controversial films of the 1990s. Starring Demi
Moore and Gary Oldman, the film recast the original tale for modern audiences, freely
altering plot elements and character motivations. The result was film that had little to
do with Hawthorne’s novel, and much to do with Hollywood clichés. At the heart of
the matter was Joffé’s somewhat uniformed alternate constural of The Scarlet Letter’s
standard interpretation. In an interview he remarked: “the book is set in a time when
the seeds were sown for the bigotry, sexism and lack of tolerance we still battle
today…yet it is often looked at merely as a tale of 19th century moralizing, a treatise
against adultery. [adding] Of course, it is also a marvelous romance.” Rather than
traditionally viewing the novel as a psychological study of Puritan guilt and exposition
against hypocrisy, or attempting to reflect these themes in his film, Joffé merely mined
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Hawthorne for material, integrating bizarre amendments such as Indian attacks, last
minute rescues, and even a happy ending in which the protagonists ride off into the
sunset. One notorious deviation from the original plot was a lengthy prelude in which
Hester and Dimmesdale begin their illicit liaison, presented in sex scene after sex
scene. Their relationship, meanwhile, is depicted as forbidden love between
a liberated woman and hopeless romantic, far from Hawthorne’s meditation on the
concept of sin. Joffé’s labors did not yield success, and The Scarlet Letter was,
unsurprisingly, a critical and financial catastrophe. This paper will explore this
Hollywoodization of Hawthorne with a comprehensive comparison of the film with the
original in regard to plot structure and themes.
Kto, komu i dlaczego grób kopie. O różnych sposobach analizy semantycznej
wyrażenia kopać sobie grób
AGNIESZKA LIBURA
Wielu językoznawców kognitywnych uznało związek frazeologiczny kopać sobie grób za
szczególnie interesujący materiał do analiz. Doczekał się on interpretacji jako
przypadek metafory rozdzielającej ludzką osobę na różne aspekty, zgodnie z koncepcją
Lakoffa i Johnsona [Lakoff 1996; Lakoff i Johnson 1999, 267 i n.]. Niektórzy badacze, jak
Krikmann [2007], twierdzili, że przykład ten może się odnosić do scenariusza
gwałtownej, nienaturalnej śmierci, np. w wyniku egzekucji lub śmiertelnej pułapki,
wskazując na związek między grobem z analizowanego frazeologizmu a biblijnym
obrazem dołu, który został wykopany przez podstępnego człowieka jako pułapka na
sprawiedliwego: „Oto począł nieprawość, brzemienny jest udręką i rodzi podstęp.
Wykopał dół i pogłębił go, lecz wpadł do jamy, którą przygotował” [Ps 7,15-16].
Wskazywano także na uniwersalną presupozycję i motywację przytaczania przysłów, to
jest założenie, że agens nie rozumie konsekwencji swoich czynów, co miałoby
przesądzać o metonimicznym rozumieniu figury i nieistotności zaburzenia relacji
przyczynowo-skutkowej, skoro metonimia może wykorzystywać dowolne elementy
z danego scenariusza. Natomiast dla twórców teorii integracji pojęciowej, Fauconniera
i Turnera [2002, 131-134], jest to przykład amalgamatu, w którym rekwizyty pochodzą
z przestrzeni wyjściowej śmierci i pogrzebu, ale najistotniejsza część właściwości
topologicznych – z przestrzeni mentalnej odnoszącej się do nierozsądnych działań.
Celem tej pracy jest zestawienie różnych podejść badawczych i próba oceny ich
wartości analitycznej w tym konkretnym przypadku. Autorka przyjmuje, że kluczem do
adekwatnej oceny każdego typu analizy jest sposób opisu i stopień wyjaśnienia
osobliwego połączenia konkretności działań i nieświadomości ich efektów oraz
nieintencjonalności aktu i jego negatywnego wartościowania, które wyróżnia tę figurę.
W konkluzji autorka stwierdza, że dla tego, a także dla innych frazeologizmów o funkcji
wartościującej i parenetycznej, mimo ich niewątpliwej obrazowości, trudno znaleźć
prostą interpretację metaforyczną. Interpretacja metonimiczna zaś wydaje się unikiem.
58
Kontrafaktyczność i hiperboliczność takiej konstrukcji pojęciowej można jednak
adekwatnie opisać narzędziami teorii amalgamatów, choć analiza Fauconniera
i Turnera także budzi pewne zastrzeżenia.
Bibliografia:
Coulson S., 2001, Semantics leaps: Frame-Shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning
Constructions, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fauconnier G., 1997, Mappings in Thought and Language, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Fauconnier G., Turner M., 2002, The Way We Think. Conceptual Blending and the
Mind’s Hidden Complexities, New York: Basic Books.
Krikmann A., 2007, Digging One’s Own Grave, „Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore”
35, 53-60.
Lakoff G., 1996, Sorry, I’m Not Myself Today: The Metaphor System for Conceptualizing
the Self, [w:] Spaces, Worlds, and Grammar, red. G. Fauconnier i E. Sweetser,
Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lakoff G., Johnson M., 1999, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its
Challenge to Western Thought, New York: Basic Books.
Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez F. J, 1998, On the nature of blending as cognitive
phenomenon, „Journal of Pragmatics” 30, 259-274.
Grammaticalisation and Generative Theory: The Case of Epistemic promise
MAJA LUBAŃSKA
The grammaticalisation theory and the generative theory have been commonly
perceived as rather incompatible in their background assumptions (cf. van Kemenade
1999, Fisher and Rosenbach 2000). Grammaticalisation theorists (Traugott and Heine
1991, Hopper and Traugott 1993, Heine and Kuteva 2005, Heine 2003, to name but a
few) see semantic/ cognitive / pragmatic factors as the driving force of
grammaticalisation. From the generative perspective, syntactic change is autonomous
(Lightfoot 1979, 1991), which means independent of semantic or pragmatic factors, as
it involves the interaction of morphology and syntax. However, the idea that
grammaticalisation is not applicable to generative accounts of language has been
recently challenged by Roberts and Roussou (1999, 2005), who successfully address
the question of syntactic change in the context of Chomsky’s (1995, 2000) minimalist
framework. It is obvious that diachronic generative studies investigate the
restructuring of the grammatical system that involves lexical to functional or functional
to functional reanalysis. Since reanalysis, next to extension, semantic bleaching and
phonetic reduction, is one of the main mechanisms of grammaticalisation, it seems
that generative researchers explore only one aspect of grammaticalisation. This,
however, should not be surprising at all. In grammaticalisation theory, reanalysis
occurs after pragmatic and semantic factors have activated the process of
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grammaticalisation and have brought it to the morphosyntactic stage of change. And it
is here that generative exploration starts.
It has been also pointed out that the evidence from grammaticalisation is not
compatible with the generative view on language change. The aim of this paper is to
show the reverse: that grammaticalisation is compatible with Chomskyan theory.
Following Roberts and Roussou (1999, 2005), I will analyse the development of
epistemic promise in English, a change which has not received much attention in the
generative literature.
Selected References:
Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (2000). Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In: R. Martin, D. Michaels,&
J. Uriagereka (Eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of
Howard Lasnik (pp. 98-155). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Fischer, O. & Rosenbach, A. (Eds.) (2000). Pathways of change. Grammaticalization in
English. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Heine, B. (2003). Grammaticalisation. In B. Joseph & R. Janda (Eds.), The handbook of
historical linguistics (pp.575-601). Oxford: Blackwell.
Heine, B. & Kuteva, T. (2005). Language contact and grammatical change. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP.
Hopper, P. & Traugott, E. (1993). Grammaticalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Kemenade, A van. (1999). Functional categories, morphosyntactic change,
grammaticalisation. Linguistics 37-6: 997-1010.
Lightfoot, D. (1979). Principles of diachronic syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Lightfoot, D. (1991). How to set parameters: Arguments from language change.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Roberts, I. & Roussou, A. (1999). A formal approach to ‘grammaticalisation’. Linguistics
37: 1011-1041.
Roberts, I. & Roussou, A. (2005). Syntactic change. A minimalist approach to
grammaticalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Traugott, E.C. & Heine, B. (Eds.). (1991). Approaches to grammaticalisation.
[Typological Studies in Language 19], 2 vols. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Alternatywne konstrukty w opowiadaniach uczniów w młodszym wieku szkolnym
JOLANTA MACHOWSKA
Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny w Krakowie
Przedmiotem referatu będzie ukazanie alternatywnych konstruktów parametrycznych
w pisanym dyskursie wczesnoszkolnym w domenie zaczarowana kropla (Kl. II i III).
W swoich rozważaniach skupię się przede wszystkim na niekonwencjonalnych
jednostkach miary w ujęciu Adama Bednarka. Owe jednostki mereologiczne biorą
udział w procesach kwantyfikacji w językowym obrazie zaczarowanej kropli. W opisie
60
materiału empirycznego korzystam z metodologii językoznawstwa kognitywnego
(R. W. Langacker, E. Tabakowska, M. Fleischer oraz z założeń współczesnej semantyki
(m.in. A. Wierzbicka, J. Linde-Usiekniewicz). Podstawę rekonstrukcji pojęć związanych
z procesami parametryzacji świata stanowią dwa składniki, wzajemnie się przenikające,
wykładniki systemowe (dopełniacz parametryczny-Jolanta Machowska) oraz
wykładniki tekstowe – domena tematyczna zaczarowana kropla (parametr topikalizacji,
inaczej tematu), a w tym zjawisko podłączania pojęć, które powoduje, iż pewne
konstrukcje parametryczne można zaklasyfikować do cech istotnych w procesach
mereologicznych, a inne będą stanowić jego cechy okazjonalne.
The World of Academe Construed by David Lodge
MARTINA MACÚCHOVÁ
Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia
In the 1950´s the thesis about "the death of the novel" appeared. Despite its
skepticism and the belief that everything what could be written has already been
written, the novel showed remarkable vitality and it kept on being the most alluring
form of self-expression for various writers. Apart from many embedded conventional
approaches to writing there have been plenty of experiments made with the novel on
different levels.
In Great Britain, one of the reasons for a new overall as well as literary perspective was
the post-war expansion of higher education. Moreover, changes in the British system
of education were not only the reason, they also became the subject of the new
perspective. A popular genre of novel called campus (academic) novel was introduced
in 1954 by Kingsley Amis´s Lucky Jim.
In general, academic novel can be briefly defined as a satirical novel whose central
theme and plot are associated with university and academic life. Formation and
expansion of the genre were conditioned not only by the development of higher
education but also by growing importance of universities, as well as movements within
the academe itself and the fact that more and more English writers acted at
universities as lecturers of literature courses or creative writing courses. In addition,
university has become an "appropriate" setting for a novel also because it represents a
relatively closed and isolated community and thus provides the opportunity to reflect
more universal themes in a rather small (enclosed) area.
Since 1965 David Lodge has contributed to the development of the genre of campus
novel a lot. His first novel dealing with the world of academe is entitled The British
Museum Is Falling Down and the satirical campus novel has become his „trademark“.
Lodge takes advantage of satire and humour but, unlike Amis, his laughter is not
hysterical, aroused by fear and disappointment from the uncertain circumstances in
Britain of the 50´s. Lodge shows himself more indulgent in his parody. Using literary
61
and linguistic theories (eg. structuralism) as a background he follows in his campus
novels (however, not only the campus novels) the two reappearing themes - the
Roman Catholic Church and sexuality. Amis´s confrontation with social relations and
morality of the 50´s is replaced by discourses close to Lodge´s time: Hippie revolution;
the loss of Britain´s strong pre-war position; status and perception of the Irish in
Britain; Roman Catholic ( vs. Anglican) Church and its perception of sexuality;
legalization of abortion and homosexuality in Britain; feminism and others. All the
above mentioned as well as the teaching process and the relationship between theory
and practice are particularly significant in Lodge´s campus trilogy Changing Places
(1975), Small World (1984) and Nice Work (1988).
The paper will deal with the way of how David Lodge projects the world of academe in
his trilogy and it will analyze the presence and use of humour and satire in more detail.
The Actual, the Possible and the Hypothetical: The Significance of the 2nd Conditional
for the Creation of Multidimensional Worlds in Bruce Boston’s Speculative Poems
MATEUSZ MARECKI
Speculative poetry, which has only recently gained critical recognition, deals with
presenting novel viewpoints that both speculate about alternative futures and reflect
on the present. One of its most acclaimed representatives is Bruce Boston, the author
of “what if?” poems (e.g. “Grey People,” “Chess People,” or “Parchment People”).
On the one hand, Boston’s poems are imbued with utopianism; but on the other, by
touching on such subjects as communal memory, inequality within society, ageing and
climate change, they serve as a social critique of the reality as we know it. What is less
obvious is the very function of the 2nd conditional clauses in creating poetic worlds,
which becomes clear when the poems are read in light of cognitive poetics and Text
World Theory: the use of 2nd conditional clauses generates three main and
interconnected mental spaces-- (1) spaces of the real world ( implied metaphorically),
(2) projected spaces and (3) hypothetical spaces (speculative extensions). Such a space
blending combines the actual, the possible, and the impossible in one. As a result, by
providing multidimensional alternate construals, speculative poetry enables the reader
to look at the actual world from at least three different cognitive perspectives.
What is also characteristic of the “what if?” poems is the absence of a base text-world;
thus, the deictic projection occurs directly from the discourse world to the
wish/epistemic world, preventing readers from finding the initial textual context to
which they could refer in the course of reading. Likewise, because of this lack of a base
text-world, it remains unclear whether Boston, when using the pronoun “we” in the
apodosis part of conditional clauses, addresses humanity in general or rather some
elitist group of people. Debatable is also whether the apodosis part results in
generating material processes (either intention or superintention processes) or mental
processes. In this presentation I discuss in detail the application of the above62
mentioned theoretical categories to Boston’s poems and compare the selected texts to
his other two poems: “Last Alchemist,” in which 1st conditional clauses appear, and
“Dystopian Dusk,” in which 3rd conditional clauses are present. I argue that although
from the grammatical point of view the 1st and 2nd conditionals enable the
expressions of either a more probable future or a past which cannot be changed,
it is the 2nd conditional that makes the “what if” poems epistemologically closest to
the discourse world.
A Worldview Constructed: The Ultimate Vision of Reality in Philip Pullman’s His Dark
Materials
MAGDALENA MĄCZYŃSKA
Philip Pullman in his trilogy creates multiple worlds, among those there seems to be
a world very much like our own, the small differences within its construction do not
veil the familiar traits, and as such Lyra’s Oxford is equally dynamic, ruthless and at the
verge of war. However, it needs to be emphasized that in charge of basically
everything, that is all the developments and discoveries, stands the Magisterium,
which has the power and authority to decide what knowledge is allowed to seep to the
masses and what information should be withheld because it borders (seemingly) on
heresy. Thus, very carefully the Magisterium constructs a worldview that is supposed
to serve as the only true and real one. Everything that poses a threat to the position
and power of the Magisterium is quickly and mercilessly destroyed (this concerns the
theories, various objects and equipment, as well as those who are affiliated with
them). The laws, information and even morality are created to sustain the unanimity of
the world; nevertheless, it needs to be highlighted that they vary according to whom
they pertain. The members of the Magisterium and its closest associates are allowed
to learn the facts, whereas all the remaining peoples are fed only the approved
versions of reality. Therefore, no one is allowed to rebel; actually, nobody even
decides to undertake such a step, since it results in being labeled a heretic and, in turn,
leads to persecution. Moreover, everything that the Magisterium so scrupulously
guards, turns out to be a lie as well; and yet certain basic truths cannot be hidden
forever; the Magisterium is able to control only the people but there exist forces which
cannot be contained. Hence Dust, a mystery, connected with the original sin both
mesmerises and inspires fear. It may either help to maintain the strength of the
Magisterium or be the tool used in its downfall. Perceiving its potential, Lord Asriel
decides to study it (being fearless and proud enough to do it without the Magisterial
consent). The results of his research change the world for evermore, as the laboriously
maintained false vision begins to crumble. This paper undertakes to show how on
various levels and to a varying degree the only “appropriate” version of reality is
constructed for the individual by the ruling power. In addition, it will aim to depict the
struggle of a rebelling individual (such as Lord Asriel) who fights against all the odds in
order to eradicate the imposed outlook on life and the universe.
63
European Union´s Terminology and its Impact on National Languages
LENKA MICHELČÍKOVÁ
The European Union is a point of contact for many different languages. Language also
becomes a daily working tool for politicians, translators, interpreters and journalists.
The European Union and its institutions undertake to preserve the diversity and
multilingualism and promote the freedom of its citizens to speak and write their own
language. But the EU is a community that is subject to constant change and we can
observe dynamic development in terms of language. New terms, used in connection
with the functioning of the EU itself; defining its powers; naming documents and
functions of EU institutions, are coined very frequently.
The EU legal terminology should be treated as a separate system with its own
terminology conceptual system that is independent of the national legislation of
individual Member States. However, many terms for EU´s law are taken from the
national legislation. But these should be viewed as recodified.
When creating a new term, we use the denotative meaning of a word, all the
connotations go behind. Exactness is one of the most importatnt faetures of a term.
Does this rule apply when translating terms into the official languages of Member
States?
Slovak teminology of the EU´s texts consists of a) words coming from the Slovak
national corpus that keep their original meanings; b) words appering in the national
corpus, but when used in context of the EU their meaning is modified and c) words
existing in the national corpus but assigned completely different meaning when talking
about the EU. The EU is though a place where familiar words with familiar meanings
become obscure.
Using the terminology of national legislation, but assigning new meanings to already
existing terms affects the language of Member States. Moreover, many terms are
taken directly from English and French and they sound very unnatural in the various
national languages.
A special category is Eurojargon that is a type of expression of so-called Euro-citizens
who have developed a specific variant of the national language to communicate about
phenomena and processes associated with the EU. Eurojargon gives rise to so-called
Euro-Slovak, Euro-English, or other national Euro-languages. Translation and
interpreting standards suppressing traditions and stressing functional aspect are
somewhat responsible for this phenomenon. Other factors undoubtedly contributing
are: interaction of cultures, nations and languages.
A need of unification of the EU´s language field is beyond dispute. European Union
is a unique legal system. The EU must respect the sovereignty of its Member States
64
and the authorities must communicate with citizens in their own language. However,
linguistic principles, which are mostly derived from English, German and French
tradition, do not always coincide with so-called small languages. The consequences can
be seen in their official languages, namely the emergence of new legal and
administrative terminology, inconsistency in writing, etc.
The Danger of Becoming Extinct: Estonian Novel The Man Who Knew Snake Words
MARI NIITRA
University of Tartu, Estonia
The paper analyzes the reversal and reworking of national identity and national myths
in a contemporary Estonian novel The Man Who Knew Snake Words (2007).
The past is always heroized for every nation. Estonian history could be briefly
described as 800 years of living under the dominance of more powerful neighbours.
The period of national awakening in 19th century created a viable national myth about
the Golden age of ancient freedom before the Christian cursaders’ invasion.
The fantasy novel by Andrus Kivirähk (b. 1970), one of the most popular Estonian
authors of younger generation, offers an alternative interpretation of this myth by
reversing the sacred national narrative of foreign oppression and national suffering.
According to the novel, Estonians lost their sovereignity mainly because of losing their
identity. For Kivirähk, identity does not mean following ancient customs and traditions,
on the contrary – the novel constantly mocks the blind obedience of empty traditions,
be it worshipping nature spirits or praising Christian God.
The true essence of one’s identity is the language, expressed by the motif of snake
words in this text, a secret code once taught Estonian people by snakes. Thus, when
Kivirähk is ironical to most of the things usually sacred for Estonians as a nation,
language is the only category to remain sacred in the novel. Knowing snake words
guarantees surviving both in mental and material sense.
There are plenty of intertextual allusions to canonical texts of Estonian literature,
especially the national epic Kalevipoeg and romantic fairy tale collections from 19th
century. Many folkloric motifs are also used – snake words, Northern Frog - a mythical
monster etc. Kivirähk shows ethnic customs and beliefs, exposing them from
a different and unexpected angle. The novel could be read allegorically as well, as
there are various parallels with modern life and recent processes in Estonian society
(globalization, becoming a member of multinational EU, the problem of low birth rates
of a nation of 1 million people etc).
65
It is an apocalyptic vision of the disappearance of a nation or a pessimistic story about
what happens when people try to be modern at any cost. The novel is parodic, solemn
and sad at the same time.
While offering so many possibilities for interpretation, the novel could be seen as
a modern version of national epic. Its extreme popularity (incredible selling numbers,
various literature prizes, a board game produced after the novel) probably indicates
that Kivirähk has defined some essential traits of ‘Estonianness’ for different social and
age groups.
Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishiguro and Alternate History
EMMA OKI
The Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland
Kazuo Ishiguro, the 1989 Man Booker Prize award winner and author of The Remains
of the Day (1989), has attracted the attention of alternate history scholars thanks to
his sixth novel Never Let Me Go (2005). Set in the second half of the twentieth century,
Never Let Me Go sweeps its readers into an alternate world, providing an account of an
alternate England, an England whose law system allows organ harvesting for
therapeutic purposes. Inevitably, the book touches upon the issues of human cloning,
fate, and duty as its protagonists live in a world that, by principle, is not meant for
them, and they will never experience life the way “normal” people do. Raised in
isolation and partial obliviousness, the clones have a clear purpose in life that is
revealed to, or rather, discovered by them as they reach their mid-teenage years: to
become carers, later donors, and, in the end, “complete”. Depending on the
perspective taken, Never Let Me Go may fall into the category of science fiction,
but there are certain “genre expectations” of sci-fi readers that according to Ishiguro
himself are missing in his novel. With the growing interest in Never Let Me Go, more
and more voices can be heard that support the stance that it might as well be a good
example of alternate history. What is also interesting about Never Let Me Go is that
the novel, although set in the past, has a direct link with the present and future as the
topic itself is both current and futuristic. It also, however, carries an important
universal message that specifically appeals to young readers, who are vulnerable and
inexperienced but have high expectations for the future. Enjoying international
acclaim, Never Let Me Go is also being turned into a film, which is due to be released in
2010. In this paper, I examine whether or not Ishiguro's most recent novel fits the
canons of the alternate history genre, and, in the process, I hope to explore what aims
he wishes to achieve by venturing in the direction of alternate fiction.
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Alternate History as a Way to Cope with the Trauma of National Betrayal: Konrad
T. Lewandowski’s “Noteka 2015” and Marcin Ciszewski’s WWW.1939.COM.PL trilogy
MAREK OZIEWICZ
Due to its geographical location between Russia and Germany, Poland has often been
the frontier zone for its more powerful, expansionist neighbors. In the 217 years
between 1772 and 1989 Poland was invaded, partitioned, occupied or controlled by
Germans and Russians for 199 years, enjoying only 18 years of peaceful, independent
existence. From the late 1930s Poland struggled to increase its chances for
independent survival against German or Russian aggression by entering alliances with
Western powers. None of these helped in World War II. In 1939, in contravention of
the treaty with France and Great Britain, Poland was left alone and unaided against the
Nazi and then Soviet aggression; in 1945, despite its substantial contribution to allied
victory, Poland was given away by the Big Three to the Soviets. Both events were felt
by the Poles like acts of supreme betrayal: 1939 betrayal resulting in six years of
murderous occupation; 1945 betrayal—in the creation of the puppet government and
communist regime for the next 45 years. The cost of those betrayals was immense:
Poland was the only member of the anti-Nazi coalition which was a territorial loser
(losing about one fifth of its territory) of the war and suffered the largest casualties
among all warring states (losing 17% of its population, compared to the USSR 11,6%,
Germany 9,5%, France 1,5%, Great Britain 0,8% and US 0,4%).
Ten years after it regained its independence in 1989 Poland entered NATO, seeing the
pact as the first ever chance of real military guarantees against the threat of foreign,
particularly Russian, invasion. Polish enthusiasm for NATO, however, has never been
free from the trauma of past betrayals. In this paper I propose to examine four works
of the alternate history genre which reflect and seek to compensate for this national
trauma. The first of those, Konrad T. Lenwandowski’s short story “Noteka 2015” (2001)
envisions a betrayal of Poland by NATO as a result of a tacit agreement of the US and
Russia to leave Poland in the Russian sphere of influence. Marcin Ciszewski’s
WWW.1939.COM.PL (2008) with sequels WWW.1944.WAW.PL (2009) and Major
(2010) create alternate histories of allied betrayals in, respectively, the 1939 Polish
defensive war against Germany, in the 1944 Warsaw uprising, and in 1943 Warsaw
Ghetto uprising. Each of those works, as I argue, attempts to heal the trauma of
national betrayal by projecting a victory of sorts in place of historical or most likely
defeat. Each also reflects Polish past-trauma dictated ambivalence toward its Western,
and particularly American allies.
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The Analogical Alien: Constructing and Construing Alternative Reality in Wells’
The War Of The Worlds
KÁROLY PINTÉR
Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest, Hungary
H. G. Wells was a pioneer of modern science fiction in several ways, including the bold
construction of alternative realities. Perhaps the most famous of these is the
spectacular destruction of late Victorian England by the invading Martians in The War
of the Worlds (1898). Wells’s method combines the audacious application of fantastic
invention with a meticulous attention to contemporary detail, in order to „domesticate
the impossible hypothesis.”
One narrative device of this familiarizing discourse is the recurring use of terrestrial
analogies. Describing the unknown and the uncanny by drawing on analogies from the
familiar world is an age-old device in literature, but Wells applies it in a particular way:
he does not only shed new light on an unfamiliar situation but provides new
perspectives for readers to regard their own reality. The familiarization thus functions
also as a way of estrangement – both satirizing the reader’s empirical reality and
undermining their smug sense of complacence. The analogical parallels combine to
provide a web of symbolic references, investing the Aliens with a complex and
ambiguous significance, which proved particularly fertile in the subsequent history
of SF.
The Discontinuity of Time: The World and History as a Reflection of Individual Mind
in the Works of Philip K. Dick (in The Light of Paul Ricoeur’s Theory of Time and
Narrative)
JAROSŁAW POLAK
Though Philip K. Dick did not experience much critical attention during his lifetime, the
critical reassessment of his prose has only intensified since his death in 1982, and Dick
has become the focus of what Darko Suvin calls “the most remarkable literary
reappraisals of modern times”. During his life Dick was regarded as a writer from
outside the mainstream, although what concerned him were fundamental
philosophical issues. In his writings, he probed the boundaries of reality and studied
the conditions of human existence. Influenced by ideas of philosophers ranging from
Plato and Heraclitus to Hume and Kant as well as by explorations of modern physicists
such as Wolfgang Pauli, Dick subjected their theories to close scrutiny and undertook
to implement them in his novels.
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Such broad intellectual background allowed Dick to explore alternate construals in
a variety of forms. The present article aims to present how this idea recurs and
develops in Dick’s writings within the genre of alternate history. In The Man in the High
Castle Dick employs a form of alternate history where the Nazis won World War II. The
Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch deals with alternative reality constructed by the
means of Perky Pat layout, which is a recreation of a lost life on Earth that colonists on
Mars repeatedly experience and enact in the form of a drug induced state. Moreover,
the work explores the idea of multiple private universes all contained within one
created by a god-like entity, Palmer Eldritch. The individual universe of Time out of
Joint is both physically constructed for and mentally imposed on the novel’s
protagonist, Ragle Gumm. He lives in a recreated America of the fifties, a Dickian
interpretation and reconfiguration of the time period that resulted in an uchronic myth
that has come to be widely known and appreciated mainly due to Frederic Jameson’s
Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
Regardless of the specific literary convention employed or the nature of the alternate
world constructed, the writer produces a rupture in the fabric of time and speculates
about the nature of rules by means of which historical reality operates. Following
Karen Hellkson’s developments in The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time,
this article examines Dick’s works in the light of Paul Ricoeur’s theory of time and
narrative, and undertakes to show how his texts undermine the notion of memory and
repetition as reliable sources of mediating time. Dick achieves this effect by placing an
emphasis on the world as conceived and constructed by individual mind which, as
Hellekson observes, “reinforces subjectivity of time over [its] ‘mechanical and
uniform’” understanding and “throws the notion of reality and history into flux.”
Jak się pisze i rozumie historię w powieściach Mariusza Wolnego
MAGDALENA ROSZCZYNIALSKA
Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny w Krakowie
Referat rozważa sposoby prezentacji i rozumienia historii w powieściach Mariusza
Wollnego, których bohaterem jest Kacper Ryx. Autorka skupia się na kategoriach
dochodzenia i śledztwa jako metaforach poznawczych. Zestawia powieści historyczne
Wolnego z poetyką oraz ideologią powieści kryminalnej.
69
Blessings and Curses of the Silver Screen. Film Adaptations of Coraline and Stardust
by Neil Gaiman
MARCIN RUSNAK
With the ground-breaking success, both critical and commercial, of film adaptations
of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series, Hollywood came to understand the
potential behind fantasy stories. What once had seemed an unfilmable material, could
finally be done due to digital programming, special effects and larger budgets.
Numerous adaptations of other works followed: two parts of C.S. Lewis's
The Chronicles of Narnia, Christopher Paolini's Eragon, Philip Pullman's The Golden
Compass and others. However, even such widely acclaimed adaptations as Peter
Jackson's version of The Lord of the Rings provoked controversies. Some critics
bemoaned scenes being skipped or added, others disagreed with visual
representations or the choice of actors; yet others considered the film
a misinterpretation of the original story.
The last three years saw the release of two Young Adult fantasy stories by Neil Gaiman,
the author of Hugo and Nebula-winning works: American Gods and Coraline.
This paper will examine Coraline and Stardust, assessing their strengths and
weaknesses as movie adaptations. It will reflect on the elements which have been left
out or added in the process of screen-writing – for example, additional characters
(Wybie in Coraline) or characters whose role was significantly expanded (Captain
Shakespeare in Stardust) – in the light of different media requirements for the telling
of the story in a narrative and filmic modes. Finally, it will investigate the influence
such changes might have on the symbolism involved in the stories as well as study to
what extent the same interpretation can be put on both the screenplays and the
novels of Coraline and Stardust.
Na granicy realności i fantastyki – przestrzeń podzielona w Poczwarce Doroty
Terakowskiej
MONIKA SADOWSKA
Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach
Krytycy są zgodni, że książka Doroty Terakowskiej jest „pierwszą próbą pisania na
temat niewdzięczny, próbą prezentacji dziecka, o którym chętnie się nie mówi (…)
A jest to próba ze wszech miar udana, o dużej wartości artystycznej”1. Umieszczenie
akcji powieści na granicy realności i fantastyki nasyciło ją wieloma interpretacyjnymi
kontekstami, zachowując baśniowy klimat opowieści.
1
G. Skotnicka, Dziecko Boga czy poczwarka? „Guliwer” 2001, nr 3, s. 42/43.
70
Z jednej strony mamy przestrzeń domu, reprezentującą relację między ojcem
a niepełnosprawną Myszką. Mężczyzna pozostaje w domu, zapewnia żonie i dziecko
dach nad głową i środki utrzymania, nie angażuje się jednak w wychowanie
i pielęgnowanie córki. Dziewczynka nie przystaje do rodzicielskiego planu, który został
przez niego ustalony wraz z momentem poznania jej płci: „-Prestiżowa uczelnia dobry
mąż – nakreślił w czterech słowach przyszłość małej istotki, zanim jeszcze przyszła na
świat”2. Ojciec zamyka się w czterech ścianach swojego gabinetu, wytłumiając od
środka wszelkie zewnętrzne odgłosy.
Z drugiej strony mamy przestrzeń baśni, obrazującej związek matki i córki. Obie kobiety
poszukują ratunku w baśni o Kopciuszku, której dwuletnie czytanie pełni rolę
terapeutyczną i pozwala przejść im najgorszy okres i odnaleźć cel lub przynajmniej
tęsknotę za marzeniem, które mogłoby nadać ich życiu sens. Myszka widoczny sposób
utożsamia się z Kopciuszkiem, co umożliwia jej wydobycie z siebie pragnień dotąd
niemożliwych do wyrażenia.
I wreszcie przestrzeń rajskiego ogrodu, będącego intymną alternatywą Myszki dla nie
potrafiącego jej zrozumieć i zaakceptować świata i jednocześnie swoistą
komplikacją/odbiciem zasłyszanych w domu historii i opowieści (Biblia, baśń
o Kopciuszku) i przeżytych wydarzeń. Oba światy, zarówno ten realny, jak
i wyobrażeniowy często przenikają się, czasami także w sposób widoczny także dla
innych bohaterów powieści.
Marysię otacza w końcu upragniona miłość obojga rodziców, ale otrzymuje ją dopiero
w agonii. Pełne zatracenie w uczuciu możliwe jest jedynie w ramionach
patriarchalnego „Jego” (wyobrażeniowej postaci Boga, który wydaje się być projekcją
jej własnego ojca): „Myszka rzuciła mu się w objęcia. Zatonęła w nich i zawirowała na
paluszkach w niekończącym się tańcu. Wirowała tak szybko, że zaczęła przemieniać się
w rozmazaną, połyskliwą, coraz słabiej widoczną kolorową plamę. I tańcząc w Jego
potężnych, bezkresnych ramionach, była coraz lżejsza i lżejsza, aż wreszcie stała się tak
lekka, że jej nigdy nie było”3.
2
3
D. Terakowska, Poczwarka, Kraków 2001, s. 9.
Tamże, s. 320.
71
Alternatywna historia Europy w powieściach fantasy na przykładzie utworów
J. Vance’a, M. Zimmer Bradley i G.G. Kaya
PIOTR STASIEWICZ
Uniwersytet w Białymstoku
W moim wystąpieniu pragnę skupić się na zabiegu przetwarzania historii, w tym przede
wszystkim historii Europy, we współczesnej powieści fantasy. Jako przykłady posłużą
mi przede wszystkim następujące utwory:
- cykl Lyonesse Jacka Vance’a – alternatywny moment w historii Europy przełomu
starożytności i średniowiecza z jego ironicznymi i intertekstualnymi odniesieniami,
- Mgły Avalonu M. Zimmer Bradley – podwójnie alternatywny retelling legendy
arturiańskiej (starcie kultury celtyckiej i chrześcijańskiej, świata kobiet i mężczyzn)
w zestawieniu z Once And Future King T. H. White’a,
- Powieści Guya Gavriela Kaya z jego alternatywnymi Włochami, Brytanią, Prowansją,
Hiszpanią i Bizancjum.
Materiał ten posłuży mi do omówienia, w jaki sposób zarówno historia, jak i tradycja
literacka, stają się obiektem różnego rodzaju zabiegów re-konstruujących we
współczesnej literaturze fantasy, która tym samym staje się wciąż jeszcze
niedocenianym – szczególnie na gruncie polskim – środkiem do dyskusji o kulturze
i historii.
Towards a Corpus-assisted Interactive Conceptual Model of the Language of
Emotions: The Case of fear in English
ARIADNA STRUGIELSKA
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland
The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that a corpus-assisted interactive conceptual
approach to the notion of fear in English could be a viable alternative to the
methodology proposed within Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Consequently, in
the first part of the presentation we are going to critically evaluate conceptual
metaphors, paying particular attention to the problematic status of linguistic evidence
quoted in support of CMT (cf. Deignan 2005). Adopting an inductive approach
(cf. Steen 2007), we are going to postulate that a data-driven methodology not only
fails to support the essential dichotomies within CMT (e.g. source/target,
literal/figurative, conventional/novel) but also leads a non-biased researcher to
reconsider the linguistic evidence for most, if not all, conceptual metaphors postulated
for understanding emotions in English (Lakoff and Johnson 2003 [1980]; Kövecses
2000, 2008). Thus, Conceptual Metaphor Theory will be classified as an isolating and
minimalist conceptual approach, indeed very much in line with neogenerativist
proposals.
72
In the second part of the presentation, we demonstrate that the categorizing, or in fact
explanatory function of conceptual metaphors can be challenged if introspection is
replaced with a corpus-assisted dynamic approach. Having looked at a number of
constructions involving the lexeme fear at both phrasal and clausal levels, we have
come to the conclusion that a dynamic usage-based model (cf. Langacker 2005, 2008)
is superior to the metaphor model (Stefanowitsch 2006) in highlighting the structure of
concepts. Defining meaning as a meaning potential affected by a multifarious
contextual aggregate and prone to competitive interpretations allows us not only to
reformulate the role of metaphor in understanding the language of emotions but also
to propose an alternate construal of the concept of fear in English, as stipulated by
linguistic evidence. For instance, while deep fear is readily associated with the
CONTAINER schema within CMT, research results do not validate this static
interpretation. Instead, we propose that the aspect of INTENSITY, routinely attributed
to deep in the context of emotions (Kövecses 2000), can felicitously be challenged by
a systematic study of language data against integrated and maximalist perspectives.
An Alternate Construal of Humans and Nature in Deep Ecology
LAURA SUCHOSTAWSKA
Deep ecology is a variety of ecological philosophy, created by the Norwegian
philosopher Arne Næss in the 1970s and later developed by others too. It has also
been adopted by some environmental movements and green activists. Deep ecologists
believe that more or less isolated and often superficial efforts to protect the
environment, undertaken by authorities or organizations in different places, are not
enough to save the earth. According to them, in order to overcome the current global
ecological crisis, it is necessary to look for its deeper causes in the Western culture and
civilization and to attempt to change people’s ingrained ways of thinking about the
relationship between humans and nature. Consequently, apart from practical actions
aimed at protecting particular areas and species, deep ecologists try to provide
ecological education to the society at large, both specialists and lay people, adults and
children, in an effort to replace the common anthropocentric views with alternative,
biocentric ones. Such education can take the form of exhibitions, workshops, classes at
school, or the publication of magazines and books. The paper will concentrate on the
latter form of eco-education. A selection of such texts, intended for the general
audience, not just experts, will be examined to demonstrate how the alternative view
of humans and nature is presented through the medium of language. The analysis will
be based on the assumptions and methods of cognitive semantics (including
categorization, trajector/landmark distinction, image schemas, conceptual metaphors,
axiology). Cognitive linguists argue that language is an inseparable part of cognition
and that it reflects human ways of thinking. Some maintain that language is a powerful
tool that can also influence and possibly modify those modes of thought. It will be
73
demonstrated how an alternate construal of humans and nature is achieved through
modifications of the typical construal on various levels. The alterations affect
categorization of humans and nature as well as the figure / ground distinction. Most
significantly, traditional Western metaphors are replaced by alternative metaphors,
alien to the Western mainstream culture, although present in other traditions. Those
two sets of metaphors are based on different, often opposite image schemas, serving
as sources for the metaphors. The crucial schemas in this respect seem to be: PARTWHOLE, LINK, SPLIT, and CONTAINER. The changes also include questioning the
traditional Great Chain of Being metaphor and its axiological implications and offering
the metaphor of a network instead. Those modifications are reflected on the level
of language.
Superpower Corruption: The Blended Universe of Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave
Gibbons, and John Higgins
MICHAŁ SZAWERNA
Watchmen, a celebrated comic book miniseries by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and
John Higgins, tells a crime story set in an imaginary America where superheroes are
part and parcel of the fabric of society. Even a cursory reading of Watchmen shows
that the miniseries bears the hallmarks of alternate history, a genre of fiction often
characterized in terms of three essential attributes: (1) a point of divergence from the
history of our world prior to the time at which the author is writing, (2) a change that
would alter history as it is known, and (3) an examination of the ramifications of that
change. In the imaginary universe of Watchmen, the emergence of real-life
superheroes, inspired by the publication of the first Superman story in 1938,
constitutes the required point of divergence, their activities dramatically affect and
alter the outcome of such historical events as the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam
War, and Richard Nixon’s presidency, and the main theme of the series concerns the
dangers of leaving too much power in the hands of too few. While these power
wielders can be identified with political leaders, which makes Watchmen a reflection
on the late twentieth century anxieties of its authors, they are at the same time
identifiable as comic-book superheroes, whereby Watchmen becomes a critique of the
superhero concept.
This paper argues that the alternate history of Watchmen effectively explores the
highlighted aspects of its main theme—the abuse of power by real-world leaders and
comic-book superheroes—for the reason that the imaginary universe of the series
merges, or blends, a representation of real-world America in the period between 1938
and 1985 with that of the imaginary superhero universe, giving rise to a qualitatively
novel representation: a blended universe, at once familiar and alien, where real-world
political figures interact with superheroes on a daily basis. Consequently, the paper’s
74
objective is to provide a comprehensive characterization of the Watchmen universe
with a view to demonstrating the unique suitability of its structure to the expression of
the main theme of the series. Arguably, a characterization of this kind can be
accomplished with the use of the theoretical and descriptive apparatus provided by
Fauconnier and Turner’s conceptual blending theory. As for the paper’s composition,
it is structured along three parts: (1) an overview of the essential components of
conceptual blending theory, (2) a description of the mental spaces functioning as the
inputs to the Watchmen blend, and (3) a characterization of the universe of Watchmen
in terms of a double-scope blending network.
Cognitive Perspective through Naomi Klein’s Fences and Windows
ALEKSANDRA SZUDY-SOJAK
Toruń School of Banking, Poland
The aim of the paper is to implement the most significant cognitive linguistics
constructs into discourse analysis of Naomi Klein’s Fences and Windows: Dispatches
from the Lines of the Globalization Debate.
A brief presentation of the main tenets, along with the acknowledgement of the
embodied, imaginative, ecological and gestalt dimensions of cognitive processes will
buttress the dominant argument of cognitive linguistics that language is not an
independent cognitive faculty, but it is governed by the same processes as other
cognitive abilities; and meaning, which is speaker/recipient involved, emerges from
conceptualization and interpretation, thus being construed rather than objectively
given. Subsequently, a concise presentation of Naomi Klein’s background and profile
will appear to facilitate the means and codes she uses to comprehend and describe the
world, which will be followed by the author’s of the paper selection of the tools to be
employed in the cognitive analysis of the proposed fragments of Klein’s collection of
articles and essays. Because social and political reality is predominantly understood via
metaphors, cognitive linguistics seems to offer appropriate apparatus to explore
Klein’s declaration of the consequences of globalization. Due to a limited scope of the
paper, a detailed study through the cognitive perspective will focus on selected
semantic phenomena (emphasis will be placed, in particular, on dominant metaphors,
prevailing metonymies, frames and blends) in order to clarify her approach by
revealing hidden aspects of the content and describe the pattern that dominates her
narratives.
Cognitive perspective offers the great potential to analyze strategies of meaning
construction. By exploring the interface between personal and cultural experience, and
linguistic coding, it facilitates the description of meaning construction and mechanisms
of subjectification. In the case of Klein’s texts, the occurrence and categories of lexical
items dominating her idiolect illustrate the frames within which she grasps the anticorporate movement she reports on. Metaphors the objects under scrutiny live by
75
highlight certain aspects and, at the same time, hide other features of reality they refer
to.
Retracing Racial Memory in Andrea Hairston’s “Griots of the Galaxy”
MONTY VIERRA
Karkonosze College in Jelenia Góra, Poland
History is a form of literature that construes the past in various ways. Official histories
condense a vast amount of data, but they often achieve concision by ignoring
unwanted accounts. They thus ensure that certain views predominate: the views of
the “winners.” One way that a literature of the fantastic can reconfigure official history
is to listen to silenced voices, especially those of the poor, women, people of color,
speakers of other languages, practitioners of other religions, and so on, who have long
been the “losers” in most historical accounts.
Andrea Hairston’s science fiction is part of a writing tradition that places the
marginalized center stage, building on the oral and written stories that the
marginalized have passed down. Writing in a multicultural, feminist tradition, she reconstrues the past by letting us see stories through time from the perspective of the
traditional outsiders. In “Griots of the Galaxy” (2004), Hairston illustrates one such
alternate construal, bringing to the fore the experience of a galactic storyteller, a spirit
who takes the long view of our planet’s history by dealing with one “just-dead” body at
a time. Like an actor preparing for a performance on the stage, this storyteller must
reconcile multiple pasts through the various consciousnesses that s/he acquires over
time in order to get a clear picture of the present s/he occupies. In “Griots,” that
“present” is a near-future earth in which the environment has largely collapsed.
“Griots” shows how a re-awakening galactic consciousness must construct identity
from interaction with and experience in this world. By bringing a fuller knowledge of
the past to understand the present that the storyteller occupies, the s/he is able to
show how to build a positive future.
“Griots” serves as a bridge between Hairston’s science fiction for the theatre and her
first novel, Mindscape (2006). Unlike her sf plays, which are not yet in print, “Griots” is
readily available in So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy
(2004) edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan. My presentation draws on Lisa
Anderson’s 2006 formulation of a “black feminist aesthetic” for its theoretical basis for
the discussion. Anderson looked at plays written by African American feminists and
found a number of common threads connecting their works, including a deep sense of
history grounded on shared experience. Anderson’s study complements earlier work
done on the use of the fantastic by African American novelists (Missy Dehn Kubitschek
[1991]) and a more recent monograph on “black Atlantic” speculative fiction by Ingrid
Thaler (2010). All of these connections demonstrate a consistent need to resurrect
personal and social history, to re-envision the past so that it is not lost.
76
In short, “Griots” challenges official history as a genre. “Griots” deals with the wider
implications of historical memory by considering the ways in which all living beings are
related in communities of interaction. The galactic inhabitants of the recently dead
allow us, through them, to “hear beyond our time and understand the future” (23).
Speaking the Inhuman in the Human: The Testimonial Structure of Language
'After' Auschwitz
ERIK VOGT
Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, USA; University of Vienna, Austria
No one
bears witness for the
witness.
Paul Celan
It has become common doxa that the question as to the representation "proper" to
the events at Auschwitz continues to haunt contemporary historiographical,
philosophical, and artistic discourses. With Auschwitz the project of representation has
encountered a limit; that is, the possibility of representation has been put into
question. Since it can no longer be taken for granted in an unproblematic and naive
sense, the determination of the mode of representation that still can maintain
a certain authority regarding the representation of Auschwitz has become the central
task. While narrative and/or figurative representations of Auschwitz are seen to be
exposed to the danger of idolatry, the discourse of traditional historiography seems to
harbor a different kind of danger in that continuist historiography's inheritance of the
Nazi genocide bleaches the memory of past suffering, silences its (already silent)
victims again and potentially turns this new victimization into a profane form of
theodicy. Against both the facile linear narration of progressive history and the
enrapturing cadences of poetic discourse, testimony has recently been mobilized as a
mode of Darstellung that, according to Levinas, often employs a "prose of rupture and
commencement," a saying that is marked by the "breaking of rhythm" and that
"preserves the discontinuity of a relationship, resists fusion and where response does
not evade the question." Examples of this new discourse focusing on and enacting the
question of testimony and the witness in the face of and "after" Auschwitz can be
found in the writings of Robert Antelme, Maurice Blanchot, Shoshana Felman, Dori
Laub, Geoffrey Hartman, Lawrence Langer, Dominick LaCapra, Jean-François Lyotard,
and Jacques Derrida.
However, it is the work of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben that attempts to
pursue the question of witnessing, of (survivor) testimony, in light of the experience of
some fundamental and constitutive aporia of language as such. Bearing witness, giving
testimony, is to be conceptualized not only as engaging in experimental discourse in
77
face of a historical situation where the traditional semantic and syntactic rules for
connecting life and death, for narrating their connection, has been destroyed, but also
as revelation of and reflection on the event of language. That is to say, Agamben's
interrogation of (the impossibility of) bearing witness at Auschwitz extends beyond this
specific context to a transcendental postulate concerning the structure of linguistic
signification itself.
Constructivism as an Investigative Perspective: From Dichotomous Personal
Constructs to the Social Construction of Intersubjectively Shared Experiences
ZDZISŁAW WĄSIK
Karkonosze College in Jelenia Góra, Poland
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
In this lecture, constructivism will be regarded as an epistemological attitude of
a scientific subject who analyzes his object of study form a construct-oriented
perspective. Its main point of departure will constitute the psychological concept of
construct seen as a subjective way of looking at something or some event in the
person’s environment. The psychology of personal constructs used to adhere to the
belief that the person's perception of the world depends on his mental construction of
the reality. Accordingly, constructs were not seen as abstracted from existing realities;
rather, they were considered as frames imposed upon real events. It was assumed that
a construct comes from a person who uses it and not from the event it is being used to
construe. In accordance with such a view, one could say that all constructs that the
persons have at their disposal in the mind are bipolar and dichotomous, and when a
construct is used to construe an event, then only one pole is being activated. Dealing
with the world, persons have always some alternative constructions available to
choose among; as measurements, they may vary depending on which inertial frame
it is taken from the two existing options. Thus, in the light of alternative
constructivism, a person was seen as capable of applying alternative constructs to any
events in the past, present or future.
In current theories, highly developed under the influence of cognitive sciences,
constructivism is founded upon a generalized assumption that people create their own
view of the world they live in on the basis of reflections of their individual experiences.
That’s why contemporary constructivists expose the role of the individual self as
a cognizing subject and maker of meanings. From the perspective of solipsistic
constructivism, each individual is regarded as generating his or her own mental model
which allows him or her to understand (or to make sense of) the world by selecting
and transforming information, formulating hypotheses, and coming to decisions that
rely on his or her personal cognitive structures. Cognitive structures provide the basis
for meaning creation and deciphering through mental schemata or models organizing
the experience of an individual, which allow going beyond the information provided to
78
him or her by sent and received meaning bearers. The mere notion of personal
construct, understood as a frame of reference or a scheme for the interpretation of
reality, suggests that every individual, as a cognizing subject, subsumes certain
observable objects to certain inferred classes with regard to their meaning. It is
supposed that interpersonal communication can lead to creating intersubjectively
similar personal constructs in the minds of people interacting within the same culture.
In the view of social constructivists, personal constructs are considered as forming the
basis not only for a similar perception of the world but also for unified behaviors
against the objects evaluated with respect to their utility. Personal constructs,
expressing the subjectively defined referential meanings, constitute the most
important factors which determine all forms of social behavior in language and culture
for the sake of achieving the state of intersubjectivity in human understanding
processes.
Czym jest Kyś? Alternatywne konstrukty językowe, literackie i kulturowe w Kysiu
Tatiany Tołstoj
KAROLINA WIEREL
Uniwersytet w Białymstoku
W nawiązaniu do tematu konferencji w swoim referacie podejmę próbę odpowiedzi na
pytanie czym jest tytułowy Kyś? W konstrukcji literackiej tej powieści Tatiana Tołstoj
prezentuje różnorodność językową, literacką i kulturową świata fikcyjnego. Język
bohaterów Kysia jest skonstruowany jako język istot, które przeżyły Wybuch, i istnieją
w nowym, innym świecie, gdzie nie istnieją już tylko ludzie, jako gatunek dominujący.
W owej fikcyjnej przestrzeni współistnieją ze sobą Dawni, czyli Ci, którzy przeżyli
Wybuch; ludek, urodzony po Wybuchu oraz inne istoty nie-ludzkie. Pytanie o język
bohaterów tej antyutopijnej powieści otwiera możliwość pytania o konstrukcję
literacką. W szerszej perspektywie jest to wizja świata alternatywnego i pewnej,
już nie- ludzkiej, kultury.
Być może odpowiedź na pytanie czym jest tajemniczy Kyś, który pojawia się w tytule
powieści, pomoże odnaleźć przestrzeń interpretacji, która jest ciekawym połączeniem
owych trzech przestrzeni alternatywnych konstrukcji. Pojawia się pytanie dlaczego
autorka tej powieści zmieniła język bohaterów? Jeżeli mówimy o alternatywie, to
wobec czego jest ona konstruowana? Co jest podstawą tworzenia tego świata
literackiego? Świat czytelnika? Zapewne tak, ale z czego czerpie autorka, tworząc tę
przestrzeń literacką? Wizja jakiej kultury i języka wyłania się z tego tekstu? Czemu służy
zróżnicowanie gatunkowe istot zamieszkujących świat stworzony przez Tatianę
Tołstoj? Owa wizja kultury i języka prezentowana w Kysiu może być głosem
alternatywnym
wobec
pytania
współczesnej
myśli
humanistycznej
i posthumanistycznej o istotę człowieczeństwa.
79
Swoje rozważania sytuuję w przestrzeni interpretacji
w perspektywie posthumanistycznej wizji kultury.
dzieła
literackiego
O pożytku z historii alternatywnych
MARCIN WOLSKI
Author and poet
Referat „O pożytku z historii alternatywnych” jest próbą odpowiedzi na pytanie
dlaczego powstają historie alternatywne oraz o to, jak beletrystyka z tego gatunku
sytuuje się w stosunku do tradycyjnej powieści historycznej. Wystąpienie oparte jest na
przemyśleniach i doświadczeniu prelegenta jako autora takich historii alternatywnych
jak Antybaśnie (1991), Alterland (2003), Wallenrod (2010) i mającej się wkrótce ukazać
powieści Cud nad Wisłą.
Definiteness, Specificity and Partitivity in the Acquisition of the English
Article System by Polish Learners
LECH ZABOR
The English article system is one of the most difficult structural elements for second
language (L2) learners. In particular, learners misuse the definite article the with an
indefinite determiner phrase (DP), or they misuse the indefinite article a with
a definite DP. They also omit both definite and indefinite articles in obligatory contexts
(see e.g. Thomas Huebner 1983). Previous studies have shown that article misuse in
the acquisition of English as a second language is not random, but it is connected to
semantic universals which determine interpretation of the target determiner phrase.
The present research investigates patterns of article choice by Polish learners of
English as a second language (L2) in terms of the following semantic universals:
definiteness, specificity and partitivity.
The paper is organized as follows. The first section discusses the early studies of L2
learners’ use of articles in English based the framework of Derek Bickerton (1981).
He proposed two universals of noun phrase reference [+definite] and [+specific],
defined as ‘known/unknown to the hearer’ [+HK], and ‘specific/nonspecific referent’
[+SR]. The second section presents more recent work by such researcher as Ionin,
Ko and Wexler (2004), with reference to the redefined constructs of: (1) definiteness,
(2) specificity, (3) partitivity and (4) presumptionality of existence. They define
definiteness as a semantic feature which makes reference to the knowledge state of
80
both the speaker and the hearer concerning a unique discourse referent. Specificity
refers to the knowledge state of the speaker concerning a uniquely salient discourse
referent, and the speaker considers this referent to possess some noteworthy
property. Finally, partitivity refers to the presupposition of the speaker and the hearer
concerning the existence of a unique individual in the set denoted by a noun phrase,
e.g. (2) and (4).
Section 3 describes the present study which examines the patterns of article use in two
groups of intermediate and advanced Polish learners of English, in four types of
context presented below (see the appendix). Ionin, Ko and Wexler (2004), in their
Fluctuation Hypothesis, claim that L2 learners will fluctuate between the two setting of
the Article Choice Parameter (definite-indefinite) until this parameter is set to the
appropriate value through input exposure. It is hypothesized that Polish learners will
also overuse the definite article the in the [-definite, +specific] and [-definite,
+partitive], and the fluctuation will be greater at lower level of L2 proficiency.
The analysis of the learners’ accuracy across the contexts partly confirms the predicted
pattern of article commission, which is the evidence supporting the Fluctuation
Hypothesis. However, the available data also suggest that L2 English article choice
involves the optional use of the definite/indefinite forms, omission as well as the
overuse of articles, and it is characterized by a considerable amount of variability.
APPENDIX: (Four types of DP, forced-choice elicitation task, expected answers – a)
(1) [-definite, -specific, -partitive]
Woman: Where is Mary? I haven’t seen her all evening.
Man: She’s on the phone, she’s talking to (a, the, --) girl – I don’t know who, but
it’s an important conversation to her.
(2) [-definite, -specific, +partitive]
Man: Mark and Tim were able to see Arsenal while they were practicing. They
even got a signature from (a, the, -) player – I have no idea which one, but they
were very happy.
(3) [-definite, +specific, -partitive]
Woman: Hello, David? This is Jennifer. I’d like to talk to your sister now if possible.
Man: I’m very sorry, but she doesn’t time to talk right now. She’s meeting with (a,
the, -) very important client from Seattle. She’ll call you back later.
(4) [-definite, +specific, +partitive]
Man: Mark and Tim went to see our local football team play. They had a god
time and afterwards, they met (a, the, -) player. He was very friendly, and he
played really well.
Selected References:
Bickerton, Derek. 1981. Roots of Language. Arbor, MI: Karoma Press.
Ionin, Tania, H. Ko, and K. Wexler. 2004. Article Semantics in L2 Acquisition: The Role
of Specificity. In: Language Acquisition 12: 3-69.
Huebner, Tom. 1983. A Longitudinal Analysis of the Acquisition of English. Ann Arbor,
MI: Karoma Press.
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LIST OF CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS /
INDEKS UCZESTNIKÓW KONFERENCJI
LAST NAME /
NAZWISKO
FIRST NAME /
IMIĘ
Bakuła
Benczik
Będkowski
Biały
Kordian
Vera
Leszek
Adam
Bień
Binczyk
Bruś
Bubíková
Buckland
Budziak
Cichoń
Radosław
Olga
Teresa
Šárka
Corinne
Anna
Anna Izabela
Cisło
Anna
Cisowska
Czajka
Beata
Piotr
Deszcz-Tryhubczak
Dewsbury
Drąg
Dziob
Fojt
Frank-Szarecka
Geerts
Giezek
Gradecka
Hetman
van den Hoven
Kalaga
Kasabov
KębłowskaŁawniczak
Klimek-Dominiak
Justyna
Stephen
Wojciech
Agnieszka
Tomasz
Christine
Sylvie
Łukasz
Izabela
Jarosław
Paul
Aleksandra
Ivan
Ewa
Kociatkiewicz
Justyna
Kolpakova
Kraska
Kuźnicki
Ledwina
Halyna
Mariusz
Sławomir
Anna
Lemann
Lewandowski
Libura
Natalia
Tadeusz
Agnieszka
Elżbieta
AFFILIATION / INSTYTUCJA
University of Wrocław
Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary
Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa
University of Wrocław, Philological School of Higher Education
in Wrocław
University of Rzeszów
College of Foreign Languages in Częstochowa
University of Pardubice, Czech Republic
University of New England in Armidale, Australia
in Wrocław
in Wrocław
Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa
in Wrocław
Opole University
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Ghent University, Belgium
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
New Bulgarian University in Sofia, Bulgaria
in Wrocław
in Wrocław
in Wrocław
Ivan Franko National University of L’viv
University of Gdańsk
Teachers’ Training College in Opole
Opole University, Philological School of Higher Education
in Wrocław
University of Łódź
Opole University
82
Lubańska
Machowska
Macúchová
Marecki
Mączyńska
Michelčíková
Niitra
Oki
Oziewicz
Maja
Jolanta
Martina
Mateusz
Magdalena
Lenka
Mari
Emma
Marek
Pintér
Polak
Rosa
Roszczynialska
Rusnak
Sadowska
Sierakowska
Stasiewicz
Strugielska
Suchostawska
Szawerna
Károly
Jarek
Marta
Magdalena
Marcin
Monika
Justyna
Piotr
Ariadna
Laura
Michał
Szudy-Sojak
Vierra
Vogt
Wąsik
Aleksandra
Monty
Erik
Zdzisław
Wierel
Wolski
Wysocka
Zabor
Karolina
Marcin
Marzena
Lech
Zarzycka
Agata
Pedagogical University of Cracow
Opole University
University of Tartu, Estonia
Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities
in Wrocław
Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest
Pedagogical University of Cracow
University of Silesia in Katowice
University of Białystok
in Wrocław
Toruń School of Banking
Karkonosze College in Jelenia Góra
Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut; University of Vienna
Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław,
Karkonosze College in Jelenia Góra,
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Author and poet
in Wrocław
83

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