Język a tożsamość. Społeczność katolicka wobec zmian językowych w Kościele
Tongue and Identity. The Catholic Community vis a vis Linguistic Changes in the Church

Summary/Abstract: This study was conducted as part of the Religious Culture and Social Transformations. A Study of a Local Community laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Dr hab. Magdalena Zowczak. The text tries to understand transformations affecting the awareness of identity among the oldest generation of Roman Catholics in Murafa, faced with the replacement in the local church of the Polish language with Ukrainian. The first part of the article outlines the linguistic situation in Murafa together with its historical context. Next, the author delved into the specificity of the linguistic competence of the older generation of local Roman Catholics, comparing it with the skills of the younger generation and, simultaneously, drawing attention to the reasons for this difference, i.e. changes in everyday reality and needs. The text also closely follows the use of Polish and Ukrainian during liturgy. The altered proportions in this particular domain, dating back to the regaining of independence by Ukraine, encounter different reactions among the parishioners, presented upon the basis of the narrations of the author’s interlocutors (both a commentary and a depiction of their personal attitude to the changes) as well as their religious practices at home, with the latter becoming another sphere of choosing a given language. An essential role is played in this respect by the media, supplying a number of assorted possibilities for individually moulding a cohesive project of own identity in accordance with religious needs. The author also considered the local choir as an institution celebrating traditional cultural ideals, while discussing its activity as rituals expressing a meta-social commentary (in accordance with the term introduced by Geertz) and demonstrating high value as practices supporting identity. Finally, the article recalls the specificity of ”local” identity, essential for the duration of the community.

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