„Krzyknij mi przez radio jak będziesz gotowy!” O emocjach w profesjolekcie kolejarzy
“Shout Over the Radio, when You Are Ready!” Of Emotions in Railwayman’s Sociolect

Summary/Abstract: “Shout Over the Radio, when You Are Ready!” Of Emotions in Railwayman’s Sociolect Polish studies related to the Railwayman’s language date back to the 1970s. The most frequently analysed material included proper names of railway connections (i.e. railway chrematonyms), which were excerpted from official railway timetables. However, the research concerning the Railwayman’s sociolect has only been undertaken very recently and is primarily based on the paper by Piotr Żmigrodzki entitled „Uwagi o języku internetowej grupy miłośników kolei” (2006). Thus, the scope of studies on the Railwayman’s sociolect in Polish should be expanded to cover new aspects. I verified the status and role of the Railwayman’s language on the basis of the functional typology of sociolects proposed by Stanisław Grabias. I discussed the relevant background literature and indicated the sources published in the 20th and 21st century by Polish linguistics who focused on the Railwayman’s vocabulary. Also, I distinguished the sources of information which may be used to study the Railwayman’s sociolect (official ones – e.g. dictionaries or journal articles, and unofficial ones – e.g. online fora transcripts). Apart from this, I briefly characterised each of these sources. The article focuses on the analysis of the spoken language – the material was gathered during research conducted between 2017 and 2020 which was interrupted by COVID-19 pandemic. The aim was to verify whether the Railwayman’s sociolect performs an emotive function, and to discuss the ways of conveying emotions in this sociolect. The research material included 150 samples and was divided into 6 categories. The results suggest that the Railwayman’s language cannot be characterised as expressive, and that emotions, though present in some of the collected samples, were evoked only in extraordinary circumstances. As stated in the theoretical section of this article, the Railwayman’s sociolect can be identified as professiolect (i.e., professional slang) used for professional communication. Hence, it is oriented at an effective and concise exchange of thoughts in an explicit way. We exclude the preliminary assumption that the Railwayman’s language is a professional jargon.

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