On the use and usefulness of the word OK in Polish (in various communication situations)
Abstract
OK is a word commonly used by representatives of various age, social and professional groups. The article considers the popularity of this word understood as its use in various communication situations as well as different functions and meanings. These data were analyzed using the triangulation method, based on material collected in Polish corpora and obtained from online surveys conducted among 100 respondents. The data were examined based on definitions provided in selected dictionaries. Finally, conclusions were presented showing that the word OK occurs in various forms (OK, okay, okej, okey), and that it can function as an adverb, adjective, particle and exclamation mark with different
contextual meanings. Furthermore, the analyses revealed that, in addition to its uses
recorded in dictionaries and corpora, the word also serves as a confirmation of message
acceptance. The present study was compared to previously conducted linguistic analyses
which show that OK is a word useful also in other languages. At the end, conclusions
were presented, indicating also potential directions and methods for further research.
Keywords:
OK, linguistic pragmatics,, corpus analysis, survey research, internationalismsReferences
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