The ‘European Green Deal’ (EGD) is a set of communications from the European Commission that outlines EU roadmap to climate neutrality by 2050. The policy envisions that, with the facilitation of speedy and just ‘green transition’, the goals of environmental protection and economic development can be reconciled. This article offers a language-focused critical study of the EGD. After giving an overview of neoliberal ‘discourses of sustainability’ and explaining the notion of ‘interdiscursivity’ in CDS, it presents the results of a close (...) thematic analysis supported by keyword and concordance analysis of representations of ‘environment’ and ‘climate’ on the one hand, and ‘economy’ and ‘transition’ on the other. This study attends to salient language patterns and reveals how interdiscursive crossovers are established to normalise ‘sustainability’ as the contingency between environmental and economic orders of discourse. Also, it identifies the discursive strategies of nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivisation and mitigation or intensification and shows how tensions between discourses are smoothened. This analysis of EGD’s ideological hybridity also sheds light onto how EU institutions are (self)authorised to lead actions on environmental challenges on behalf of European citizens. (shrink)

This article sets out a framework for a language-oriented analysis of sensationalism in news media. Sensationalism is understood here as a discourse strategy of ‘packaging’ information in news headlines in such a way that news items are presented as more interesting, extraordinary and relevant than might be the case. Unlike previous content analyses of sensational coverage, this study demonstrates how sensationalism is instantiated through specific illocutions, semantic macrostructures, narrative formulas, evaluation parameters, and interpersonal and textual devices. Examples are drawn from (...) a corpus of headlines of the ‘most read’ articles in the online outlet of the British mid-market tabloid Daily Mail compiled in early 2012. Sensationalized instances are identified through surveys and focus group discussions and subsequently analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The study is located within the context of media scholarship on news values and current trends in journalism. (shrink)

Science communication in online media is a discursive domain where science-related content is often expressed through styles characteristic of popular journalism. This article aims to characterize some dominant stylistic patterns in magazine articles devoted to environmental issues by identifying the devices used to enhance newsworthiness, given the fact that for some readers environmental topics may no longer seem engaging. The analytic perspective is an adaptation of the newsworthiness framework that has been applied in news discourse studies. The material is a (...) sample of the 38 most-read environment-oriented articles in the online version of the international science magazine New Scientist collected between late 2013 and late 2014. The articles are analysed qualitatively to show the instantiations of such newsworthiness criteria as novelty and superlativeness, timeliness and impact, negativity and positivity as well as other strategies aimed at engaging the readers: rationalization and speculation, direct address and conversational style. The analysis reveals how, in this case study, science communication is turned into infotainment and considers the implications of this discursive shift for the public understanding of environmental science. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study explores dominant applications of graphic affordances in a sample of children-related charity appeals collected from the official websites of nine prominent Polish foundations in...

Between Multiculturalism and Nationalism - A Discursive Construction of Britishness in the Spectator in the Wake of the London Bombings In his interdisciplinary work Ideology, Teun A. van Dijk proposes to study ideology as a cognitive, social and linguistic enterprise. Such an integrative approach is assumed to model interfaces between social structure and cognition through discourse. The notion of ideology it presupposes may be described as shared social representations, which become a group's defining attributes, and govern its ideological expression in (...) discourse. It seems that this approach can be productively applied to a study of ideological relations in the discourses of multicultural societies, such as Britain.In the wake of the London bombings in July 2005, the British rightwing quality weekly the Spectator published a series of articles raising alarming questions about the misguided ideological priorities of modern Britain, and envisioning a deepening crisis of national identity. According to the magazine, the heritage and values of mainstream British society are being endangered by the political promotion of multiculturalism. This in turn has instigated terrorist threats from Islamic extremists, who have been nurtured by the British welfare state and emboldened by its permissive policies. Thus the increasing ideological split between the militancy of the non-integrated Muslim minority in Britain and the decadence of national culture has become the subject of a number of articles. As a result, one of the pervasive discursive mechanisms emerging in the publication has been an ideological confrontation between "us" and "them"The aim of the present study is to survey the pragmatic and rhetorical devices used to construct the image of British society tied in a discursive struggle to define its modern identity-oscillating between the ideals of multiculturalism and the ideology of nationalism. The material for the study is taken from over fifteen articles that come from three subsequent issues of the Spectator published on 16, 23, and 30 July 2005. The methodological framework of the study draws on the research procedures of Critical Discourse Analysis accommodated to the analysis of ideological discourse in the press. (shrink)

This book is about beliefs, language, communication and cognition. It deals with the fundamental issue of the interpretation of the speaker's utterance expressing a belief and reporting on beliefs of other people in the form of oratio obliqua. The main aim of the book is to present a new account of the problem of interpreting utterances expressing beliefs and belief reports in terms of an approach called Default Semantics.

In this book, Katarzyna Kremplewska offers a thorough analysis of Santayana's conception of human self, viewed as part of his larger philosophy of life. Santayana emerges as an author of a provocative philosophy of drama, in which human life is acted out. Kremplewska demonstrates how his thought addresses the dynamics of human self in this context and the possibility of sustaining self-integrity while coping with the limitations of finite life. Focusing on particular aspects of Santayana's thought such as his (...) conception of the tragic aspect of existence, and the role of the doctrine of spirit in his philosophical anthropology and critique of culture, this book also sets Santayana's thought in substantial dialogue with other thinkers such as Heidegger, Bergson, and Nietzsche. Like Santayana's philosophy, this book seeks to build passages between theoretical reflection and practical life with the possibility of a good life in view. (shrink)

Microbiota-gut-brain research is a fast-growing field of inquiry with important implications for how human brain function and behaviour are understood. Researchers manipulate gut microbes to reveal connections between intestinal microbiota and normal brain functions or pathological states. Many claims are made about causal relationships between gut microbiota and human behaviour. By uncovering these relationships, MGB research aims to offer new explanations of mental health and potential avenues of treatment. So far, limited evaluation has been made of MGB's methods and its (...) core experimental findings, many of which are extensively reiterated in copious reviews of the field. These factors, plus the self-help potential of MGB, have combined to encourage uncritical public uptake of MGB discoveries. Both social and professional media focus on the potential for dietary intervention in mental health, and causal relationships are assumed to be established. Our target article has two main aims. One is to examine critically the core practices and findings of experimental MGB research and to raise questions about them for brain and behavioural scientists who may not be familiar with the field. The other is to challenge the way in which MGB findings are presented. Our positive goal is to suggest how current problems and weaknesses may be addressed, in order for both scientific and public audiences to gain a clearer picture of MGB research and its strengths and limitations. (shrink)

Studies of the scale of unemployment in Poland and in Europe conducted in recent years lead to the conclusion that one of the largest and growing problems of the modern labour market is the unemployment rate among young people. An unfavourable phenomenon related to the problem that is increasingly appearing in public debate is the rising unemployment of graduates. Therefore, it is important to attempt to identify the phenomena in today's job market and one of them is the formation of (...) a new type of employee on the labour market, the member of the precarious class. The analysis aims to present the origins, nature and scale of the precariat phenomenon in Poland. The problem is described from the perspective of the labour market position of a selected social group, i.e. young people entering the labour market after finishing their education. The study attempted to identify factors that affect this phenomenon and the characteristics confirming the sense of its separation on the labour market. (shrink)

Focusing on the analysis of Athens' relations with both Greeks and non-Greeks as recorded in extant fourth-century decrees, this paper challenges the applicability of the notion of Greek/barbarian antithesis to the interpretation of formal diplomatic exchanges between Athens and the non-Greek states. A comparison of the types of decrees and honors reveals a remarkable uniformity in the forms of Athens' foreign relations irrespective of the ethnicity of honorands. The distribution of honors among individuals and groups of recipients within single decrees (...) further demonstrates that the Athenian honorific system typically elevated individuals over communities they represented, suggesting that political differences between Athens and non-Greek states did not adversely influence the methods of exchanges between them. Apart from the provisions contained in the decrees, this paper also considers their function within the city as monuments that attest to the important place of philobarbaric discourse and practice in fourth-century Athens. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that Frankfurt-style cases provide a reason for rejecting incompatibilism because they provide a reason for rejecting the requirement that the agent be able to do otherwise. One compatibilist strategy for dealing with the cases, pursued by Fischer and Ravizza, is to weaken the mentioned requirement. An analogous strategy on the part of the incompatibilist, which appears to be unexplored in the literature on moral responsibility, is exemplified in Belnap and Perloff ’s logic of agency. I show (...) how their stit theory can handle Frankfurt-style cases and defend it from Fischer’s criticism of “flicker-of-freedom” strategies. I also note some of the limitations of the stit rendition of the cases. (shrink)

We show that the variety of equivalential algebras with regularization gives the algebraic semantics for the -fragment of intuitionistic propositional logic. We also prove that this fragment is hereditarily structurally complete.

The dissertation develops a conception of action based on the concept of practical task-responsibility rather than on the concept of intention. It answers two problems. First, it grounds the distinction between an action and a mere happening, thus meeting Wittgenstein's challenge to explain what is the difference between an agent's raising her arm and her arm rising? Second, it grounds the distinction between acting for a reason and acting while merely having a reason, thus meeting Davidson's challenge to give an (...) account of the explanatory force of reasons. ;One source of resistance to an account of action in terms of normative expectations rather than in terms of intentions comes from explanatory individualism. The explanatory individualist argues that it is ultimately the intentional attitudes of the agent rather than normative expectations of other people that are relevant to the way in which we explain one another's actions, and that they ought to figure in the account of the nature of action. I defend explanatory nonindividualism, according to which we sometimes act on our own intentions and desires but sometimes on the normative expectations and desires of others . Explanatory nonindividualism is fortified by a selectional account of the explanatory force of reasons. I demonstrate that Davidson's challenge can be met by identifying reasons with selectional criteria rather than with causes. ;In response to Wittgenstein's challenge, I propose that we understand what it is to be an action not in terms of a performance being intentional under a description, but in terms of it being reasonable to expect a performance of the agent under some description. Only one concept of reasonableness is necessary to make the distinction between actions and mere happenings, and I explicate that concept. In addition to accounting for actions that are intentional under some description, the account also captures cases that are not so straightforwardly captured by that criterion . Moreover, cases of so-called basic wayward causal chains are excluded from qualifying as actions. (shrink)

As there are more and more bilingual couples who ran vlogs to share their bilingual and intercultural lives on the internet, this paper seeks to delineate the sources of motivation for these couples to disclose their privacy through vlogging. Based on the sample of selected vlogs, a qualitative analysis has been conducted to obtain the sociolinguistic picture of the bilingual couples’ motivations to attract wider audiences via the internet. The analysis of vlogs, informed by a multimodal theoretical framework, focused on (...) the audiovisual and textual content of vlogs with regard to the subjective representations of films and texts resulting from these couples’ individual stories. The conducted study spotlights vlogging activities of bilingual couples who feel the need to share their intercultural and bilingual experiences on the internet. Our data suggest that bilingual couples vlog to express their hybrid identities by sharing how they cope with challenges and overcome linguistic barriers, as well as find ways to enjoy cross-cultural understanding. The paper explores the linguistic and cultural diversity from a new perspective of private vlogs created and maintained by bilingual couples. It unfolds an account of the less studied online context in which partners of different ethnic backgrounds make their private lives public, and illustrates how bilingual couples generate ideas to filming and sharing online. (shrink)

We show that a finitely generated protoalgebraic strict universal Horn class that is filter-distributive is finitely based. Equivalently, every protoalgebraic and filter-distributive multidimensional deductive system determined by a finite set of finite matrices can be presented by finitely many axioms and rules.

The aim of this paper is to provide a model that allows the representation and analysis of circularity in ethotic structures, i.e. in communication structures related to the speaker’s character and in particular, his credibility. The paper studies three types of cycles: in self-referential sentences, embedded testimony and ethotic begging the question. It is shown that standard models allow the reconstruction of the circularities only if those circular utterances are interpreted as ethotic arguments. Their alternative, assertive interpretation requires enriching the (...) existing models with a purely ethotic component related to the credibility of the performer of any (not necessarily argumentative) speech act. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the issue of truth-telling in non-fictional narratives of (in)justice. Based on examples of rape narratives, domestic abuse narratives, human trafficking narratives and asylum seeker narratives, I examine the various difficulties in telling the truth in such stories, particularly those related to various culturally conditioned ideas of how the world works, which at the same time form the basis of, among other things, legal discourse and officials’ decision-making processes. I will also demonstrate that such culturally conditioned ideas, (...) which are the basis of official discourse, can be considered within the category of both the social imaginary of the just world in the Taylorian sense of the term, and the social master narrative, which in the case of stories of (in)justice is often based on the just world hypothesis. (shrink)

We effectively construct the finitely generated free equivalential algebras corresponding to the equivalential fragment of intuitionistic propositional logic.

This article uncovers the intellectual traditions behind Dio Chrysostom's Oration 20: On Anachôrêsis. The examination reveals a variety of subtexts and traditions with which Dio engages, and shows that at its core the text inspects three types of lives promoted by three philosophical schools: Epicurean, Stoic and Peripatetic. They are never referred to directly, however, which raises questions concerning Dio's strategy of not acknowledging the sources of the ideas with which he engages. The article also develops our understanding of anachôrêsis (...) and the controversies surrounding it in pagan antiquity. (shrink)

W eseju tym przyglądam się koncepcjom wojny i jej relacji do ludzkiej natury, kondycji, cywilizacji, tudzież immanentnej „struktury” władzy, autorstwa czterech dwudziestowiecznych filozofów – Arnolda Toynbee’go, René Girarda, Georgio Agambena i George’a Santayany. Zestawienie elementów tych teorii, a także krytyki kultury współczesnej, w którą wszyscy interlokutorzy się angażują, pozwala odkryć intrygujące punkty wspólne. Nawet jeśli niektóre analogie okazują się pozorne, to dyskusja rzuca nowe światło na zagadnienia takie jak związek między tożsamością a ofiarą, władzą a banitą, kłamstwem a systemem, czy (...) też każdą stabilną organizacją społeczną. (shrink)

The presented study raises the issue of contribution payers in the field of social insurance, in particular based on the Covid-19 pandemic. Searching for ways of supporting was determined by the deterioration of the financial condition of entrepreneurs as payers of contributions. In 2020, there were no instruments or mechanisms to support entrepreneurs in a lockdown situation, which implied the need to build such tools and the legal environment for SMEs practically from the beginning. The Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) was (...) entrusted with the role of a stabilizer, consisting in servicing entrepreneurs as part of subsequent editions of the Anti-Crisis Shield. During the announcement of the COVID-19 pandemic, ZUS used the following forms of support for contribution payers: exemption from the obligation to pay contributions, postponement of the payment of contributions and payment of contributions in installments. The research question concerned the enforcement of the law and respect for the basic rights of entrepreneurs in the scope of the support used. In order to solve the research task legal interpretation were used in the work. The author’s considerations lead to the conclusion that forms of support used in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic turned out to be effective and may be used in the future in emergency situations. An important science contribution of the article results from the combination of the selected legal and economic aspects. (shrink)

Liberal democracy is often considered to be unstable, consisting of two markedly different ideals that remain in tension. Yet the thesis regarding the alleged insta...

The first comprehensive study of Santayana’s political thought as connected to his cultural criticism. It ranges over topics such as Santayana’s political ontology, his criticism of democracy, liberalism, and communism, his views on freedom and forms of human servitude.

Na podstawie prześledzenia genezy Dzieci nędzy (1913) i historii komponowania tekstu dokonano ciekawych ustaleń z zakresu działań twórczych najgłośniejszego autora Młodej Polski – Stanisława Przybyszewskiego. Badania ujawniły m.in. niechęć pisarza do (czy może: nieumiejętność) radykalnej modyfikacji raz dokonanych zapisów tekstowych i wzrost literackiej efektywności z dala od wielkich miast. Kolacjonowanie przekazów powieści oraz lektura dokumentów osobistych pozwoliły stwierdzić, że znaczący wpływ na ostateczny kształt Dzieci nędzy miały powikłania osobiste i przykre okoliczności życiowe, które znacząco determinowały (czy raczej: destruowały) proces pisarski (...) Przybyszewskiego, oraz ingerencja domagającego się uzupełnień wydawcy, któremu pisarz skwapliwie przyznał rację, dopisując kilka rozdziałów. Te sumiennie dokonane poprawki świadczą o tym, jak ważne były dla pisarza uwagi redakcyjne w udoskonalaniu tekstu. Najważniejsze odkrycie, do jakiego prowadzą badania tekstologiczne, dotyczy jednak autorskiej rezygnacji z zamierzonego pierwotnie poematu prozą i przetransponowania jego idei w formę powieściową. Ta decyzja – będąca rodzajem kapitulacji w zmaganiach z tworzywem – świadczyła de facto o nowatorskim myśleniu Przybyszewskiego o powieści i sprawiła, że Dzieci nędzy to niezwykle ciekawy artystycznie, nowoczesny zapis stanów psychicznych. Od strony rozwiązań konstrukcyjno-narracyjnych to niewątpliwie jedna z najciekawszych powieści Przybyszewskiego. (shrink)

All the authors who have contributed to Looking Back to See the Future have taken up the challenge to inter-disciplinarily investigate the ambiguous concepts of sins, vices and virtues. Their illuminating chapters test the definitions and applications of these religio-cultural categories in the contexts of the distant past as well as our contemporary, globalised, consumerist present; but they all do it for the sake of catching a glimpse of their and our future. By looking into religious and philosophical treatises, paraliterary (...) and literary texts as well as everyday practices, the authors prove that the interpretations of what constitutes sin, vice and virtue are becoming more and more difficult in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

People differ in the extent to which they express a need for sense-making, and these individual differences are important to understand in light of meaning-making processes. To quantify this important variable, we originally proposed a need for sense-making scale. We now propose a refined, similarly reliable short version of the scale. The 7-item NSM-SF was validated across a series of four studies. NSM-SF showed psychometric properties and correlations consistent with its longer forerunner. Additionally, results indicated that the need for sense-making (...) was moderately positively related to the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and it related negatively to the frustration of these needs. The research offers a useful, brief tool for assessing the NSM construct and broadens our understanding of basic psychological motivations. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the machinery of multicultural societies and liberal democratic systems is dependent upon various forms of dialogue - dialogue between political parties, between different social groups, between the ruling and the ruled. But what are the conditions of a democratic dialogue and how does the philosophical dialogic approach apply to practice? Exploring the multifaceted nature of the concepts of dialogue and democracy, and critically examining materializations of dialogue in social life, this book offers a variety of (...) perspectives on the theoretical and empirical interface between democracy and dialogue. (shrink)

The beginning of the 21st century is the time of a new challenge for the Polish nation. Standing on the threshold of a new century, it has also stood on the ‘threshold’ of the united Europe. Culture is a binder thanks to which it is possible to discover and to maintain peoples’ identity and the bonds connecting individual members of the nation. The multitude of nations is a variety which makes Europe not a monolith in relation to culture; instead, it (...) constitutes a mosaic of different cultures and philosophies of life. The Church does not try to identify with any of the culture patterns, but it seeks its place among the diversity of their forms. However, one can talk about the development of a Christian culture model resulting from the faith and the presence of the evangelical message in the whole of the Christians’ life. In the survey concerning Poland’s accession to the European Union, Polish people have expressed their hopes and fears connected with the process of integration. As many as 11% of the people surveyed expressed their anxiety related to the adverse effect upon culture and customs. The Church in its social instruction continuously emphasizes the necessity of maintaining one’s own cultural identity by particular ethnic, national and regional groups. The united Europe is to become not exactly a federation of countries, but rather the home of homes. In the everyday life of the new united Europe the system of norms, values and patterns of religious and cultural behaviour are going to be verified. Both the sceptics and the enthusiasts of the integration process are looking for a place and a role for the Polish Christians in the secularized European society. (shrink)

Pragmatics and dialectics are two disciplines which have been amongst the first and most important partners for argument studies in the exploration of the complex realm of communication. Treating argumentation as a construct consisting of premises and conclusion allows for investigating some interesting properties of the phenomenon of reasoning, but does not capture a variety of aspects related to the usage of natural language and dialogical context in which real-life argumentation is typically embedded. This special issue explores some of the (...) fascinating research questions which emerge when we move beyond logic into the territory of the pragmatics and dialectics of argument. (shrink)

According to the title, it is a profile of one of the most outstanding authors in King’s Stanisław August times. This article has been based only on information from letters. Other biographical data about Stanisław Trembecki has knowingly been omitted by the author. It is worth pointing out, that due to the artist’s own negligence, most of the incoming mail has been lost. Thanks to King’s Stanisław August meticulousness almost all letters written to the monarch, during 30 years period, have (...) been preserved. Trembecki was a controversial person, quite often arousing conflicting emotions in researchers and readers. One see in him a talented writer and a participant in Thursday’s dinners, others believe he had no rules and think he was a traitor of his homeland. That is why, this correspondence is a document one of a kind and it allows us to understand better Trembecki’s motives. These are private letters. They have not been written “just for show”, or future readers. Their author does not create his own view. On the contrary, his personal’ thoughts are marginal in the correspondence, his own conclusions and observations are mentioned in passing. The author of the article, spots that the leitmotif of the letters are the poet’s financial Problems. Begging is alternated with bursts of dignity and bitter remarks, as the King does not approve Trembecki’s career plans. The reader may also find comments about the poet’s matrimonial plans, his political activity, people he felt affinity with, as well as his literary activity, impressive library or favorite books. In the correspondence, we can also find a picture оf the royal court. Many well-known historic figures appear, like Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Adam Naruszewicz or Michał Poniatowski. At the end of the article, the author pointed out linguistic virtues in Stanisław Trembecki’s letters. (shrink)

Zmiany dokonujące się w języku na przestrzeni dziejów są wynikiem zmian w rzeczywistości pozajęzykowej. Nowe elementy leksyki są m. in. efektem procesu zapożyczenia z innych języków. Słowa te w momencie przejmowania ich przez inny język tracą swe wszelkie pierwotne powiązania z innymi leksemami, które miały w języku, z jakiego zostały przejęte, i wchodzą w nowe relacje semantyczne z istniejącymi już w danym poiu wyrazowym słowami, stając się jego nieodłącznym elementem. W procesie asymilacji na płaszczyźnie semantycznej wchodzą one w nowe dla (...) siebie relacje paradygmatyczne i syntagmatyczne, wpływając znacząco na strukturę danego pola wyrazowego i przyczyniając się do zmian w jego obrębie. Zapożyczone z innego języka wyrazy mogą ze względu na swe znaczenie stać się w danych polach elementami dominującymi lub też pojawić się w nowym otoczeniu leksykalnym obok rodzimych synonimów. Jedynie użytkownik języka, przy uwzględnieniu kontekstu językowego i sytuacyjnego, decyduje o ich użyciu. (shrink)