Infantylizm semantyczny w dyskursach publicznych
Semantic Infantilism in the Public Discourses

Summary/Abstract: The author considers the processes of public communication, in particular of media communication, in the light of categories of semiotics and social psychology. The center of attention is the phenomenon of pragmatics without semantics, i.e. dependence of the communication activities on the purpose of the persuasive influence and devaluation of the semantic information. Semantic infantilism is treated as a marginalization (both by the sender and the recipient) of the semantic information under the influence of the pragmatic factors, especially under the influence of the persuasive purpose. Among symptoms of semantic infantilism are: greater or lesser undecidability of the meaning of expression, lack of proper control over the semantic information, deconstruction of the expression, i.e. distortion of its forms and structure. The author focuses in this article on the different types of semantic infantilism in the public discourses, namely, such as: 1) the semantic undecidability; 2) tunnel vision (particularly naive realism); 3) ontological/epistemic unrepresentativeness; 4) lack of semantic consistency; 5) redundancy and semantic satiation.

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