W stronę językowego obrazu Europy. Analiza słownikowo-tekstowa
Towards the linguistic worldview of Europe: A lexicographic-textological analysis

Summary/Abstract: In a search of the method of reconstruction of the linguistic worldview of Europe, the author analyzes the usability of lexicographic definitions of the words Europa, Europejczyk ‘European-N’, europejski ‘European-ADJ’, europejskość ‘the quality of being European’ in dictionaries of Polish and in texts of contemporary Polish political discourse. He concludes that dictionary definitions are inadequate, tautological and metonymic, “perfectly uninformative”, because they do not answer the question of what content and values are associated with the words under consideration. An analysis of the verbal exponents of being European in centre and right-wing press has revealed, in turn, that the same words (Europa, Europejczyk, europejski, europejskość), used in radically opposing subdiscourses (pro- and anti-European), are also diametrically opposed to each other in these subdiscourses. The author postulates that “multiaspectual synthetic definitions” be used, linking elements of the classical, contextual and cognitive definition, thanks to which one may not only represent the fulness of the characteristics and values associated with these words, but also show that even contradictory characteristics and values belong to the same discourse.

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