A Description of Joachim Lelewel’s Familial Language Concerning the Family Social Space (on the Basis of Letters to His Loved Ones) Cover Image

Charakterystyka języka familijnego Joachima Lelewela dotyczącego społecznej przestrzeni rodziny (na podstawie listów do najbliższych)
A Description of Joachim Lelewel’s Familial Language Concerning the Family Social Space (on the Basis of Letters to His Loved Ones)

Author(s): Violetta Jaros
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Philology
Published by: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: familial language; idiolect; family names; forms of address; letter;

Summary/Abstract: This article is a contribution to research on Joachim Lelewel’s familial language. The study is limited to a range of linguistic phenomena concerning the family social space, and considers the two-volume collection of his letters from many different places written in various periods of his life. The epistolary prose under examination reflects the language of nobility and intelligentsia circles of the first half of the nineteenth century, with its distinctly marked hierarchical structure of the family social space. Its exponents include family names (e.g. the names for kinship and family relations, maritonymics and patronymics, names used with reference to married couples), familial forms of address (with the conventional forms Pan/Pani ‘Sir/Madam’, Dobrodziej/Dobrodziejka/Dobrodziejstwo ‘Sir/ Madam/Sir and Madam’, lit. ‘benefactor/benefactress/benefactors’ in relation to the elderly), emotional colloquial vocabulary and unofficial anthroponyms. This use of familial language, characterised by infrequent use of personalised forms, belongs to marked informal register.

  • Issue Year: 2019
  • Issue No: 54
  • Page Range: 1-21
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Polish