Współczesne dylematy moralne przez pryzmat dwóch języków — angielskiego i polskiego
CONTEMPORARY MORAL DILEMMAS THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH AND POLISH

Summary/Abstract: The linguistic communities of Poles and English-speaking Australians live in their respective linguistic worlds and coherent 'moral languages'. The two languages, however, differ from each other in their key words and concepts. As a result, the moral dilemmas of these communities also differ. The authoress, a speaker of English and Polish belonging to two 'moral worlds', analyzes a few key English concepts with no adequate Polish equivalents. Examples are taken from a discussion in the newspaper 'The Australian' in 2006. Questions sent to the editor were answered by eminent figures (a writer, historian, editor, judge, archbishop), who used moral concepts expressed with English words and expressions privacy, invasion of privacy, entitled, to commit oneself, to move on, unreasonable, committed, evidence, fair, unfair and experience. The questions and answers are supplemented in the article with the authoress' comments and precise explications in the form of 'cultural scripts'. The latter are constructed from the elements of the 'Natural Semantic Metalanguage', developed and used by the author for many years. It is concluded that 'the way we think depends to some extent on the language we speak'. In order to liberate oneself from the grips of language, one must, while explicating the meanings of words, use universal primes.

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