IDIOMS FROM THE SAGA FILM “STAR WARS” IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH LANGUAGE Cover Image

FRAZEOLOGIZMY WYWODZĄCE SIĘ Z FILMOWEJ SAGI „GWIEZDNE WOJNY” WE WSPÓŁCZESNEJ POLSZCZYŹNIE
IDIOMS FROM THE SAGA FILM “STAR WARS” IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH LANGUAGE

Author(s): Dorota Połowniak-Wawrzonek
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Vilniaus Universiteto Leidykla
Keywords: media; idiom; metaphor;

Summary/Abstract: The contemporary Polish language is heavily influenced by the media, especially, songs (mostly entertaining songs), films and TV series, advertising, political speech, popular television and radio programs, also newspapers and Internet. The result of the impact of films making up the cycle of “Star Wars” and persisted in the Polish language today some verbal collocations: someone is on the bright or the dark side of the power, someone went through or returned to the dark side of the power, may the power be with someone, star wars. The latter word compounds originally were the title of the first movie, and then became the title of the whole G. Lucas’ saga; and the other compounds were pieces of speech of film heroes. The expression gwiezdne wojny is a calque copy of verbal phrases star wars (has also contributed to American political speech.) The research showed that compounds revealed some metaphorical ways of perceiving reality (e.g. recognition of some deliberate INTENTIONAL ACTIONS, COMPETITION FORMS as ARMED STRUGGLE); also certain stereotypical images, symbolic content; the importance of culturally motivated connotations: black, dark, white, bright; some formulas mapped there are also functioning in the language as the form of units. For example, may the power to be with someone is modeled on the forms of greetings and farewells known in different cultures and used by people who believe in extraterrestrial life and universal ruling of the universe. All the indicated connections are often metaphorical in the texts of contemporary Polish. The illustration of this process may be the recording of the analyzed component Power, also implemented in the form of power. Various modifications of described idioms have also been recorded in the studied messages. There are mostly lexical, inflectional, quantitative variants; modification or amendment may also occur in the semantics of compounds and their components. Innovations strengthen invariant. Some recorded compounds, which appeared as the impact of Lucas’s saga, function in the written texts and in a convention typical to “Star Wars”. This affinity shows the phenomenon of semantic irradiation.

  • Issue Year: 2011
  • Issue No: 19 (24)
  • Page Range: 144-157
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Polish