REVIEWS

RECENZJE

Author(s): Marta Piasecka,Milena Wojtyńska-Nowotka / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 10/2011

Keywords: MAŁE OJCZYZNY; STUDIA I SZKICE;

MARTA PIASECKA: ALDONA SKUDRZYK, KRYSTYNA URBAN, MAŁE OJCZYZNY. ŚWIADOMOŚĆ JĘZYKOWO-KULTUROWA SPOŁECZNOŚCI LOKALNYCH, Ofi cyna Wydawnicza, Katowice 2010, ss. 324; MILENA WOJTYŃSKA-NOWOTKA: URSZULA SOKÓLSKA, STUDIA I SZKICE O JĘZYKU PISARZY. ZAGADNIENIA WYBRANE, „Białostockie Studia Językoznawcze”, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku, Białystok 2010, ss. 376

THE DISCUSSION ON THE 'IN VITRO' METHOD AS AN IMPROPERLY HANDLED DISPUTE

DYSKUSJA O METODZIE 'IN VITRO' JAKO SPÓR NIEWŁAŚCIWIE PROWADZONY

Author(s): Anna Cegieła / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 10/2011

Keywords: DYSKUSJA; IN VITRO; SPÓR

The public debate on the admissibility of the in vitro method is a dispute handled in an inappropriate manner. This is due to the methods of defining problems, of argumentation, the language used by the participants in the dispute, the changes of the discourse planes and the simplification of the image of the discussion in the press. The objectors to the method (mainly the Catholic Church) belittle the sufferings of the infertile people, undermine the right to have children, consider the issues of the post- -implantation embryo death and embryo selection as well as the fact that fertilisation takes place outside the mother’s body crucial. The supporters of the method regard the capability to give birth to a child as the most important. The objectors to the method use the argument of fear. They use epithets that negatively evaluate the parents who decide on the in vitro method and by stigmatising children born thanks to it, they create false alternatives, redefine terms, apply descriptions that regulate meanings, pernicious conjunctions and hyperbolic generalisations. The supporters of the method’s legalisation make attempts at depriving the objectors of the right to dialogue and create the image of the Church which conducts a crusade against the weaker, which is benighted and eager for power over the consciences of all people. No common ground is sought in this discussion, although it is possible: the fate of surplus embryos is an important ethical and medical problem for both parties to the dispute and a number of drafters of the Act on in vitro. The utterances occurring in the media transform the discussion on in vitro into a dispute between the Church and the State, which makes the moral debate a substitute political dispute. Trans. M. Czarnecka

GRAPHIC, TEXTUAL AND DATABASE DIGITALISATION OF 'SŁOWNIK WILEŃSKI'

DIGITALIZACJA GRAFICZNA, TEKSTOWA I BAZODANOWA 'SŁOWNIKA WILEŃSKIEGO'

Author(s): Małgorzata B. Majewska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 10/2011

Keywords: DIGITALIZACJA; SŁOWNIK WILEŃSKI

The article discusses the subsequent stage of carrying out the research project „Edycja elektroniczna Słownika wileńskiego” [„The electronic edition of Słownik wileński”]. This time it is a presentation of the commenced third stage of digitalisation. The changes on the website of the project are discussed. Diverse methods of sorting out sets of entries possible due to the commenced database digitalisation are presented.

PHRASEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE GAMES IN THE CONTEMPORARY POLISH CABARET TEXTS

FRAZEOLOGICZNE GRY JĘZYKOWE WE WSPÓŁCZESNYCH POLSKICH TEKSTACH KABARETOWYCH

Author(s): Joanna Sojka / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 10/2011

Keywords: GRY JĘZYKOWE; KABARET

The object of the analysis in the present article is phraseological language games used in contemporary Polish cabaret texts for achieving a comical effect. The spectrum of such games is extremely broad: from games which do not interfere with the formal and semantic structure of phraseologisms directly but which update their literal meaning apart from their code meaning, to various types of games which interfere with this structure: additions, omissions or replacements of one or more components of collocations, contaminations of collocations with other bound and free combinations, analogies and phraseological allusions. The exemplification material was excerpted from a large corpus of skits performed by contemporary Polish cabaret groups. The skits were recorded, transcribed and then analysed and interpreted from the semantic and pragmatic perspectives.

PRAGMALINGUISTIC MARKETING STRATEGIES OF "WIADOMOŚCI LITERACKIE"

PRAGMALINGWISTYCZNE STRATEGIE MARKETINGOWE "WIADOMOŚCI LITERACKICH"

Author(s): Patrycja Pelc / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 10/2011

Keywords: pragmalingwistyczne; marketing; wiadomości literackie

The article titled Pragmalinguistic marketing strategies of „Wiadomości Literackie” presents marketing actions as a communication process oriented on achieving satisfying effects. It describes the persuasive communication relation between the editorial staff of the literary weekly published in the interwar period, composed of the members of the Skamander group, and its readers. In order to encourage the recipient to buy and read the magazine, the sender employs appropriate marketing strategies, that is a range of linguistic exponents of persuasion. The intentional position of the editorial staff of „Wiadomości Literackie” is reflected in journalistic texts: interviews are characterised by familiarity and a distinct presence of the journalist, reviews represent numerous components which make the statement subjective: informality, figurativeness, suggestiveness, uncompromisingness, and in editorial texts: the leading article displays the weekly as a product in a valorising manner. Trans. M. Czarnecka

EXPLANATIONS OF WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

OBJAŚNIENIA WYRAZÓW I ZWROTÓW

Author(s): Ewa Katarzyna Rudnicka / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 10/2011

Keywords: QUI PRO QUO; WYRAZY

"QUI PRO QUO", CZYLI O ZASTĘPOWANIU CZEGOŚ CZYMŚ

Local government debt in Poland: a survey.

Zadłużenie miast na prawach powiatu i województw w świetle badania ankietowego.

Author(s): Monika Korolewska,Kamilla Marchewka-Bartkowiak / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 13/2011

Keywords: Poland; local government debt; survey; provinces; county rights; municipal;

This paper addresses some current issues related to local government debt management in Poland. Using a representative sample of 15 provinces and 54 cities with county rights, the study examines the municipal debt levels under the 2009 government regulations. After presenting the results of the survey the authors briefly analyze the validity and effectiveness of the local debt limits, contributing to the recent discussion regarding central regulation of local government borrowing in Poland. The survey was conducted by the Bureau of Research (BAS) in March 2011.

The Main Elements of Hungary’s Balkan Strategy

A magyar Balkán-stratégia fő elemei

Author(s): Oszkár Füzes / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 04/2007

The history of the Balkans is an organic and permanent part of Hungarian history – and vice versa – even though Hungary is not a part of the region, either in the geographical or political sense, but rather its neighbour and shaper. Starting with the beginning of Hungarian statehood up until 1948, for roughly a thousand years, Balkan developments have always determined Hungary’s geopolitical situation in three respects: • as a factor in the Balkan policy of all the great powers past and present; • as a pre-eminent area of Hungarian foreign policy; • as one of the principal elements of Hungarian domestic policy, including demographic and administrative changes. There is a strong cultural mutual feedback effect between the Balkans and Hungary since population exchanges, border modifications, linguistic exchanges and nation-building have often occurred inside the territory of the Hungarian state and its immediate vicinity, with the participation of the Balkan peoples. (Important events of Serbian, Croatian, Romanian, Bosnian and partially even Bulgarian “national awakening” took place in Budapest, and all the aforementioned peoples lived under Hungarian rule for more or less prolonged periods.)

Croatia and European Integration: Between Disillusionment and a New Vision

Horvátország és az EU-integráció: illúzióvesztés és új szemlélet között

Author(s): Velimir Šonje / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 04/2007

Croatians strongly supported accession to NATO and the EU in the 1990s, and as the negotiation process began in 2005, the year 2010 seems a likely date for Croatia’s EU entry. However, the public perception has changed. Scepticism towards integration prevails despite the economic recovery witnessed in this decade, which has been obvious and widely shared by different groups of the population. And although the political elite show a strong pro-European stance, doubts remain among the general population about the costs and benefits of integration. As economic issues recently gained more importance in public debates, a shift in the mood can be partly explained by confusion about the diagnoses and potential cures for six major economic problems. These are: (i) Sluggish export performance and lack of greenfield FDI; (ii) A persistent balance of payments current account deficit and relatively high external debt; (iii) Low competitiveness, and high costs and barriers to doing business; (iv) The distorted view of the role of foreign banks; (v) The lack of fiscal flexibility required for effective anticyclical fiscal policies; (vi) Relatively high unemployment and the perception of high income inequalities.[…]

Corruption Trends in Central Europe

Korrupciós trendek Kelet-Közép-Európában

Author(s): Noémi Alexa / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 04/2007

Hungary is a moderately corrupt country – according to the 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International (TI). This finding of the annual report accords with the results of other surveys of corruption by ranking Hungary among countries with a relatively high level of corruption in comparison with Western Europe. It also tallies with other surveys by placing Hungary among those states that joined the European Union at the same time that have relatively clean public dealings, and by putting it among the least corrupt countries in the Visegrád group. However, on publication of the 2007 Index, Transparency International Hungary observed that the rank assigned to Hungary has remained within the methodological margin of error for several years, meaning that no significant progress has been made in the fight against corruption. An analysis of corruption trends observed between 2001 and 2007 among EU member states of the Central European region may shed light on the mechanisms that helped other countries achieve significant results in curbing corruption. Currently no methodology exists that could measure the level of corruption by covering the entire spectrum of the phenomenon. Corruption indicators based on crime statistics cover only a fraction of cases since the most characteristic feature of incidences of corruption is that they tend to favour both sides of the agreement, seriously reducing the chances of their discovery. The disadvantage of indicators measuring the perception of corruption, as an alternative source of data, is that they do not measure the level of corruption itself but the degree to which a given country, institution or sector is perceived as corrupt by various population groups. Given the methodological limits of quantitative studies, it is always worth comparing their results to the conclusions of qualitative analyses; in this way, we can get a (more) comprehensive picture of corruption in a given country or region.[...]

An Imaginary Land : Central Europe

Egy imaginárius terület: Közép-Európa

Author(s): László Hovanyecz / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 04/2007

Following regime transition a wide variety of hopes were expressed that amidst new, democratic conditions some kind of unity might emerge in Central Europe. Over a decade and a half later, however, there does not appear to be the slightest chance of this happening. Oddly, this is exactly why Mária Ormos’s book entitled “Central Europe” is timely, while its subtitle – “Has it existed? Does it exist? Will it exist?” – adroitly captures the dilemmas regarding the book’s subject.[…] Mária Ormos: Közép-Európa. Volt? Van? Lesz? (Central Europe. Has it existed? Does it exist? Will it exist?) Napvilág Kiadó, Budapest, 2007.

Issues of European Integration for the Western Balkans

A Nyugat-Balkán európai integrációjának kérdései

Author(s): Péter Balázs / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 04/2007

The accession of Romania and Bulgaria on 1 January 2007 had relatively little impact on the structure of the European Union: the number of its member states increased by all of 8% and its total population by some 6%, while its combined economic output grew by scarcely 1%. The change was thus far less significant than a mere three years earlier, on 1 May 2004, when the then 15-member European Union expanded to 25 members, thereby seeing its total population increase by 18% and its combined economic performance by some 5%. Prior to the “big” enlargement of 2004, the developed countries of the European Union primarily feared the harmful effects of price and wage differences between the old and new member states. They believed that a huge migration of labour from the cheaper eastern reaches of the expanding zone of integration would be triggered in a westerly direction, while productive capital might be relocated within the union from the older member states to the new investment markets, lured by their comparatively low wages and other costs. These expectations turned out to be unfounded, however, partly because the EU-15 countries were able to employ temporary restrictions to arrest or prevent undesirable market developments.1 In addition, a seismic change was also avoided because the movement of both capital and labour is determined by a set of conditions that takes many factors into account. […]

Slovenia’s First Year in the EMU

Szlovénia: az euró első éve

Author(s): Bostjan Vasle,Marijana Bednas / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 04/2007

The well-coordinated economic policies that Slovenia has applied since joining the EU and the ERM II exchange rate mechanism have paved the way for the country to fulfil the conditions for timely adoption of the euro, which has also been the main short-term objective of macroeconomic policies. As explained below, such an approach has enabled a smooth changeover and preserved the main macroeconomic balances of the Slovenian economy in the first year of EMU membership.[...]

South Eastern Europe: On the Way to Political and Economic Integration within the EU

Délkelet-Európa: úton az uniós politikai és gazdasági integráció felé

Author(s): Erhard Busek / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 04/2007

Much progress has been made in South Eastern Europe since 1999 and the NATO intervention in Kosovo. Even so, it has not always been visible because politicians and the media always tend to reflect on what is missing in this region. Also, concerning the situation in Kosovo, while there are many deficiencies, nobody is really looking at the achievements. Although political and economic challenges remain, South Eastern Europe has been – and still remains – an increasingly favourable destination for investments. The progress that has been made becomes visible if we compare the situation now with that following the wars thatcame with the break-up of Yugoslavia, and only few questions remain open for the future. […]

Politics, Sex, History

Politika, szex, történelem

Author(s): Rudolf Chmel / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 04/2007

We could even have a good laugh if only the whole thing wasn’t so sad. It was a little bit entertaining when our parliamentary history writers reached the peak of their potential and announced in one big leap, as they say, that history was not at all as complicated as we naïve professionals would imagine because everything was as straightforward as a picnic. Especially if the issue on the menu is not class struggle but merely the enemies of the nation, who are as easy to identify without fail as is the said picnic. Max Frisch, the excellent Swiss author, notes in his autobiographical sketches that, simply put, politics is usually taken up by those (and he has men in mind, of course) who have given up on sex. That is, Frisch probably means that for them, politics is a substitute for sex. Let us not dwell on the fact that Frisch did not consider banalities such as the role of money in politics, and conclude that while no one has ever provided any practical or statistical proof of the assumption, it does not appear to be entirely irrelevant in the assessment of political activity. A case in point is when the very cornerstones of society are at stake. It is not very surprising if under tense circumstances of that kind some people are hit by a cerebrovascular accident before their time and eventually become unfit to practice our profession – although not in the manner the erudite Swiss describes.[…]

The souvenir of otherness

Suvenir drugosti

Author(s): Georgi Gospodinov / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 05/2004

European forms of belonging

Evropski oblici pripadanja

Author(s): Aleš Debeljak / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 05/2004

From the craftsman workshop of Dragan Velkić: the margin notes of the novel Bremen Case - essay

Iz majstorske radionice Dragana Velikića: beleške na marginama romana Slučaj Bremen - esej

Author(s): Milica Nikolić / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 05/2004

Rethorical strategies and seductivness of textuality: Nirman Moranjak-Bamburać, ‘Rethorics of textuality’

Retoričke strategije i zavodljivost tekstualnosti: Nirman Moranjak-Bamburać, ‘Retorika tekstualnosti’

Author(s): Marina Katnić-Bakaršić / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 05/2004

Keywords: Nirman Moranjak-Bamburać

Od prvog zapisa do “povratka u normalu”

Od prvog zapisa do “povratka u normalu”

Author(s): Julijana Matanović / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 05/2004