Linguistic politeness in villagers’ interpretation (a study based on spoken texts from the Lublin region)

Halina Pelcowa

Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej w Lublinie


Abstract

The article discusses the language picture of rural politeness as seen through the prism
of sociolinguistic and cultural-dialectological research. At present, the model of politeness
which has functioned in the rural context and which is based on traditional values, such as kindness, modesty, honesty, readiness to help, gratitude and respect for human dignity,
appears to be a matter of the past rather than the present. The model is reflected in the
use of expressions such as: bądźcie z Bogiem ‘Go with God, God bless’, Boże dopomóc, Boże
dopomóż do roboty, Boże dopomóż, Boże pomóc, Bóg wam pomóż ‘Lord help me’, niech
będzie pochwalony Jezus Chrystus, niech będzie pochwalony ‘Praise be to God, Praise
the Lord’, szczęść Boże ‘God bless’, z Bogiem, zostańcie z Bogiem, ‘May God be with you’
(lit. ‘Stay with God’), do widzenia ‘good bye’, dzień dobry ‘good morning’, in the majestic
plural wy ‘you’ form with a polite -cie suffix employed when addressing older villagers,
in the pronouns on ‘he’, ona ‘she’ used with reference to strangers, and in the imperative
forms expressing permission and invitation. When young people are addressed, villagers
use their names or the polite ty ‘you’-sg. form; however, when strangers are addressed,
then the words pan ‘sir’, pani ‘madam’ are used. Yet more recently forms “alien” to the
traditional rural culture are heard more often as well. This change has an autonomous
character; it is a result of the customs-, civilization- and globalization-related processes
as well as the generational change.





Published
2021-06-30

Cited by

Pelcowa, H. (2021). Linguistic politeness in villagers’ interpretation (a study based on spoken texts from the Lublin region). Prace Językoznawcze, 23(2), 289–301. https://doi.org/10.31648/pj.6595

Halina Pelcowa 
Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej w Lublinie



License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Access to the electronic edition of the journal is open (open access). It does not require any fees, logging in or providing personal data. Every person, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, nationality, faith or political opinion, may read articles published in "Prace Językoznawcze", download versions of texts in PDF file format, identical to the printed version, and submit for publication texts of their authorship, concerning linguistic issues and meeting editorial substantive and editorial requirements and academic ethical standards binding in science.

Authors of texts may place PDF files with their texts or the entire issue of a journal on scientific Internet portals, indicating the source of the text. The number of PDF files to be used is unlimited. It is forbidden to use the texts commercially or to derive material benefits from them. The Editorial Board has the right to publish the received texts in printed and electronic editions and to disseminate their entirety as well as abstracts and keywords on the website of the journal, the publishing platform of the University of Warmia and Mazury, in printed editions and in Internet scientific databases.