NOWOMOWA PSEUDOMETANAUKOWA? O JĘZYKU POLSKIEJ POLITYKI NAUKOWEJ
Pseudo-metascientific newspeak? On the language of the Polish science policy

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is a critical analysis of selected means of the language used in the contemporary (2016–2018) Polish science policy. The analysis attempts to apply the categories developed by Polish researchers in the description of newspeak as the language of power and media at the time of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL). The overall discussion is based on W. Pisarek’s view that what is called newspeak and referred to the PRL period in the Polish literature is in fact one of many possible forms of using language as an instrument of political persuasion. The object of the description is mainly language behaviours of the Polish scientists who are powerful and influential in the world of Polish science and who co-decide on the governmental science policy. The focus is on the language of the debate on a reform of the system of science and higher education (the so-called Ustawa 2.0 (Act 2.0), Konstytucja dla Nauki (Constitution for Science), ustawa Gowina (Gowin’s Act)). The principal conclusion is that the apparatus developed in the description of the newspeak of the PRL period could be employed in the description of a large number of language behaviours of representatives of the Polish science policy of the end of the 2nd decade of the 21st c. The flag words of the Polish science policy are characterised by monovalent connotation combined with a vague (or no) denotation.

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