Polskie autostereotypy w debacie o transformacji ustrojowej albo: dlaczego komuniści są Krzyżakami
POLISH AUTO-STEREOTYPES IN THE DEBATE ON THE POLISH POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION OR WHY ARE COMMUNISTS TEUTONIC KNIGHTS?

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes the metaphorical structure of the Polish discourse on the closing stage of the communist system in the country. 1,008 metaphors found in journalistic texts from the year 1999 have been analyzed. The texts deal with various significant events of 1989. It appears that the metaphorical structures of various types of discourse express and strengthen ideologically biased interpretations of history. Two phenomena have been analyzed in particular detail: the behavior of the authorities and of the opposition during the Round Table talks and questions of the continuity of history. Both phenomena, whose conceptualization plays an important role in the shaping of the auto-stereotype of a Pole in the Third Republic, are interpreted via various metaphors. The metaphorical understanding of the continuity of history can be analyzed within Lakoff and Johnson's so called 'conceptual theory of metaphor'. The behavior of the communists and oppositionists, in turn, is interpreted via intertextual metaphors, based not on bodily experience but on the experience characteristic of a given culture. It appears, therefore, that the shaping of different concepts in discourse activates different spheres of one's experiential basis.

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