Marcin Lewandowski | Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (original) (raw)

Papers by Marcin Lewandowski

The paper is a sociolinguistic analysis of music-related vocabulary used by the punk subculture i... more The paper is a sociolinguistic analysis of music-related vocabulary used by the punk subculture in Poland. The linguistic material, which comes from punk fanzines and websites, has been subdivided into nine semantic categories such as names of the band, names of instruments, names of band members, styles of singing, styles of playing (sound of music), names of albums and cassettes, names of the hit, names of concerts, and others. The lexical repertoire in question includes words with provocative as well as humorous and ironic undertones. This corroborates the hypothesis that the linguistic material reflects some of the indicators of the punk style. Abstrakt. Niniejszy artykuł stanowi socjolingwistyczną analizę terminologii muzycznej stosowanej przez członków subkultury punków. Materiał językowy pochodzący z fanzinów oraz stron internetowych redagowanych przez punków został podzielony na dziewięć podgrup semantycznych: nazwy zespołu, nazwy instrumentów, nazwy członków zespołu, sposoby śpiewania, sposoby grania (brzmienie muzyki), nazwy płyt i kaset, nazwy przeboju, imprezy koncertowe oraz inne. W analizowanym repertuarze leksykalnym występują określenia, w których unaocznia się duch prowokacji językowej, jak również leksemy o zabarwieniu ironiczno-humorystycznym. Stanowi to potwierdzenie hipotezy, że zgromadzony materiał językowy odzwierciedla niektóre wyznaczniki stylu subkulturowego punków. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest prezentacja i analiza terminologii muzycznej stosowanej przez przedstawicieli subkultury punkowej. W opisie słownictwa przyjęta została perspektywa socjolingwistyczna, zakładająca związek pomiędzy faktami językowymi i społecznymi. Innymi słowy, interesować nas będzie, w jakim stopniu słownictwo muzyczne odzwierciedla wartości, preferencje, uprzedzenia i mentalność członków subkultury punków. Na wstępie scharakteryzujmy gatunek muzyczny będący konstytutywnym elementem interesującej nas subkultury. Punk rock stanowi odmianę muzyki rockowej, nawiązującą w swojej stylistyce do jej źródeł. Początków tego nurtu poszukiwać należy w drugiej połowie lat siedemdziesiątych XX w. na Wyspach Brytyjskich (do prekursorów gatunku zalicza się takie zespoły, jak:

Investigationes Linguisticae

Od kilkunastu lat obserwujemy zjawisko przenikania terminów informatycznych do slangu młodzieżowe... more Od kilkunastu lat obserwujemy zjawisko przenikania terminów informatycznych do slangu młodzieżowego jak również do polszczyzny ogólnej.Owe zapożyczenia funkcjonują w nowych, metaforycznych sensach. Celem artykułu jest przegląd i analiza metafor informatycznych, których znaczącą część można uznać za językowe poświadczenia proponowanej przez autora metafory konceptualnej CZŁOWIEK TO KOMPUTER. Podjęta zostanie również próba zrekonstruowania językowego obrazu człowieka, wyłaniającego się z tej metafory.

Research in Language, 2020

This paper focuses on the ways of maintaining cohesive links in the translation process in the Po... more This paper focuses on the ways of maintaining cohesive links in the translation process in the Polish-English language pair. Of primary interest is how the thematic/rhematic structure of Polish sentences can be successfully rendered in English to produce cohesive, natural-sounding and communicative target texts with a proper information flow. These aspects have implications for translation teaching. It has been observed that, in view of the differences between Polish and English word order, university students at the start of their translator training experience two general problems as they attempt to translate longer stretches of text into English: (1) they produce cohesive passages, which contain errors in word order (due to syntactic interference from Polish) or (2) they produce grammatically correct sentences, which, however, form incohesive passages (i.e. ones in which the thematic/rhematic progression is not retained) with an inappropriate information structure. For this reaso...

Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 2017

The paper investigated learner attitudes to two major pronunciation models in EFL instruction at ... more The paper investigated learner attitudes to two major pronunciation models in EFL instruction at the university level: GB (General British) and GA (General American). It focused on four dimensions that are central to developing language attitudes: affective, linguistic, pragmatic and socio-cultural. Based on a survey conducted among 100 Polish students majoring in English (half of them trained in GB, the other half in GA), the study aimed to establish a hierarchy of these dimensions to determine which of them is/are key to shaping positive attitudes to the target variety. Of additional interest was how the students viewed the alternative pronunciation model. The study also sought to determine the degree of correlation between the aforementioned dimensions. The survey found that both varieties were assessed most favorably on the affective dimension. Overall, as the target variety, GB was rated more positively than GA; however, stronger correlations between the dimensions were observed among the GA learners.

In recent years, football language has been the subject of several studies conducted from cogniti... more In recent years, football language has been the subject of several studies conducted from cognitive linguistics perspectives (cf., e.g., Nordin 2008; Vierkant 2008; Levin 2008; Bergh 2011; Lewandowski 2013). Most of these studies centered on conceptual metaphors in football discourses on the Internet, radio or TV.
The present chapter aims to demonstrate how cognitive linguistics methods (frame semantics and Conceptual Metaphor Theory) can be applied in the investigation of football match reports published in American and British dailies. More specifically, its findings come from a contrastive corpus-driven analysis of American and British football match reports extracted from four dailies: USA Today, The New York Times, The Independent and The Daily Express. The chapter focuses on the similarities and differences at the lexico-grammatical, pragmatic and discourse levels.
The study has found that major differences occur at the level of pragmatics and discourse. Given the enormous popularity of football in the United Kingdom, British football writers rely on less standard means of expression to reach out to their target audience. Their reports exhibit a greater degree of implicitness, which is reflected by a relatively high proportion of puns (especially in headlines), metonymies and discourse-framing conceptual metaphors. By contrast, as football is not a widely acclaimed sport in the United States, American match reports contain more markers of explicitness, such as conventional and generic vocabulary in headlines and appositive noun phrases to provide necessary elaboration.

The present paper is a study of techniques utilized in the rendering of complex grammatical struc... more The present paper is a study of techniques utilized in the rendering of complex grammatical structures in Polish-English non-literary translation. Given that nominal style is more pervasive in Polish than in English non-fiction registers (cf. Lewandowski 2015), this contribution aims to identify translation procedures that are most commonly applied in re-expressing elaborate Polish noun phrases in English. To this aim, three domain-specific translation corpora have been created. Their analysis has found that regardless of text type, the translators typically employ three procedures: 1) reduction of NP constituents, such as nouns, participles, and relativizers, 2) recategorization (primarily denominalization), and 3) recasting, i.e. changing the order of NP constituents. While these procedures are sometimes combined, it is the first one that is most frequently applied in the translation process.

Lingua Posnaniensis. Volume 56, Issue 2, Pages 61–72, Dec 2014

It seems that there are very few research themes in sociolinguistics that have been as thoroughly... more It seems that there are very few research themes in sociolinguistics that have been as thoroughly explored as gender representation in educational materials (notably in EFL textbooks). However, relatively little attention has been paid to how learners themselves perceive the images of men and women in teaching resources. T he present contribution has been written in an attempt to fill this gap. Drawing on the findings of two small-scale survey studies conducted among Polish university students, it addresses two major issues. T he first one concerns the extent to which the choice of male or female-gendered sentence subjects in EFL grammar course books matches the learners’ associations and expectations. The other one, focusing specifically on attitudes to gender representation, seeks to demonstrate how the students view the ways male and female characters are portrayed in constructed examples of usage and practice sentences from English grammar textbooks. Both studies provide some indications of how EFL learners’ needs and expectations can be better addressed in teaching materials

The present paper addresses the problem of syntactic transfer in Polish-English non-literary tran... more The present paper addresses the problem of syntactic transfer in Polish-English non-literary translations performed by inexperienced translators. It is argued that many grammatical errors and stylistic inadequacies result from the translator’s failure to recognize that the two languages exhibit different stylistic preferences. Polish syntax is more reliant on nominal style, which is marked by a high proportion of nouns (notably nominalizations) that sometimes form elaborate noun phrases. English (except for very formal registers) to a larger extent than Polish tends to favor verbal style, in which actions are more frequently depicted by verbs and verbal modifiers. This hypothesis is supported by quantitative and qualitative data from both languages. The latter part of the paper shows that syntactic and stylistic problems in Polish-English translation can be overcome by denominalization – a translation procedure which consists in transforming noun phrases containing abstract nouns into clauses. Its application enhances target text clarity, contributing thus to the production of plain and natural-sounding prose.

Linguistik Online Vol. 68, No 6, Dec 2014

Gender stereotyping in educational materials (especially in EFL textbooks) has been a common them... more Gender stereotyping in educational materials (especially in EFL textbooks) has been a common theme in linguistic research (cf., e. g., Hellinger 1980; Porreca 1984; Freebody/Baker 1987; Sunderland 1994; Lee/Collins 2010). However, very little attention has been paid to the representation of men and women in EFL/ESL grammar textbooks; i. e. the way both genders are portrayed in constructed examples of usage and practice sentences. The present contribution is intended to fill this gap. The paper investigates the scope of gender stereotyping from a diachronic perspective: it seeks to demonstrate whether and how the images of men and women have changed following the dissemination of guidelines for non-sexist language and equal treatment of the two genders in English language educational materials. To this aim, two corpora have been compiled. The first one includes sentences derived from three EFL textbooks published in the 1970s and 1980s, while the other one contains analogous data from three 21st century titles. The contrastive analysis of the sentences in the two corpora across 11 semantic domains has found that the recently published grammar textbooks portray the two genders in a much less stereotyped way than the 20th century course books.

G. Budin & V. Lušicky (eds.), Languages for Special Purposes in a Multilingual, Transcultural World, Proceedings of the 19th European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes, 8-10 July 2013, Vienna, Austria. Vienna: University of Vienna, 29-35, Jul 2014

This paper aims to propose a methodological approach to studying lexico-grammatical variation wit... more This paper aims to propose a methodological approach to studying lexico-grammatical variation within special languages. Drawing on evidence from football language, the author argues that a special language has a two-level structure, i.e. it is composed of several subdomains (areas of communicative activity), within which it is possible to distinguish registers (varieties linked with particular situations of use ), which are marked by distinctive features of grammar and vocabulary. The register perspective is viewed as a useful tool for accounting for patterns of variation.

The theoretical framework of this paper is based upon the views of Polish and Anglo-Saxon socioli... more The theoretical framework of this paper is based upon the views of Polish and Anglo-Saxon sociolinguists on the concepts of sociolect and register. In the main section
the author gives a brief overview of the language of soccer and distinguishes 10 subvarieties of this language, which differ from each other mainly in lexico-grammatical as well
as stylistic features. Finally, the author attempts to categorize each of these subvarieties as either a sociolect or a register.

Lingua Posnaniensis XXXIX, pp. 39-49, 1997

J. Taborek, A. Tworek and L. Zieliński (eds.): Sprache und Fußball im Blickpunkt linguistischer Forschung, Verlag Dr. Kovač, Hamburg, pp. 79-95. , 2012

It is almost common knowledge that the language of sport abounds in war or conflict metaphors. Fa... more It is almost common knowledge that the language of sport abounds in war or conflict metaphors. Far from disputing this well-known fact, the present paper aims to demonstrate that football can be conceptualized in terms of other semantic domains as well. Drawing on the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by Lakoff/Johnson (1980), which was developed by Kövecses (2002; 2005), Charteris-Black (2004), Semino (2008) and others, the author proposes and discusses several conceptual metaphors that structure the discourses of English and Polish soccer reporting. The metaphorical expressions underlying these metaphors have been derived from English and Polish text corpora (ca. 100,000 words each) compiled by the author. The texts come from a wide range of written sources, such as broadsheet and tabloid newspapers, soccer news websites, and the official websites of two major footballing institutions (FIFA and UEFA). The study also tries to investigate whether English and Polish football-related conceptual metaphors display any significant quantitative and qualitative differences.

Investigationes Linguisticae, vol. XX, pp. 60-79, 2010

The paper, which is a theoretical contribution to investigations of social varieties of language,... more The paper, which is a theoretical contribution to investigations of social varieties of language, deals with two major dimensions of sociolinguistic variation: sociolectal and registerial. Drawing upon the views of Polish and Anglo-Saxon linguists, the author explores the concepts of sociolect (social dialect) and register, focusing mainly on their definitions, controlling variables, methodological frameworks, and typologies. In the final section, he attempts to shed some new light on the two kinds of variation and suggests new methodological solutions that could be applied in studies of sociolinguistic variation.

Abstrakt (Retoryka przemocy w polsko-i anglojęzycznych relacjach z meczów piłki nożnej). Przedmio... more Abstrakt (Retoryka przemocy w polsko-i anglojęzycznych relacjach z meczów piłki nożnej). Przedmiotem niniejszego artykułu, napisanego w ujęciu kontrastywnym, jest zastosowanie metafor związanych z konfliktem w języku piłki nożnej. Analiza przeprowadzona została w oparciu o teorię metafory pojęciowej autorstwa Lakoffa i Johnsona (1980) i wykorzystuje metodologię badań ilościowych oraz jakościowych. Jej celem jest wykazanie, iż PIŁKA NOŻNA jako dyscyplina sportu nie jest pojmowana wyłącznie w kategoriach WOJNY, lecz również w kategoriach innych domen źródłowych. Dlatego też oprócz metafory MECZ PIŁKI NOŻNEJ TO WOJNA autor proponuje i omawia trzy inne metafory pojęciowe: PORAŻKA TO ŚMIERĆ, MECZ PIŁKI NOŻNEJ TO WALKA BOKSERSKA oraz PRÓBA STRZELENIA BRAMKI TO POLOWANIE. Wszystkie one w dużym stopniu wpływają na kształt dyskursu relacji z meczów piłki nożnej.

Marcin lewandowski. The Language of Online Sports Commentary in a Comparative Perspective. lingua... more Marcin lewandowski. The Language of Online Sports Commentary in a Comparative Perspective. lingua posnaniensis, vol. lIV (1)/2012. the poznań Society for the advancement of the arts and Sciences. pl ISSn 0079 this paper attempts to describe a relatively new media genre (or as the author prefers to see it, an electronic register), i.e., online sports commentary (oSC). the analysis concerns english-language online live soccer match reports, and is based on a methodological framework proposed by D. BiBer and S. conrAd (2009), who in register studies emphasize the correlation between the situational characteristics and lexico-grammatical features of a particular language variety. the paper also aims to compare the register in question with other related varieties, i.e., written sports commentary (wSC) and sports announcer talk (Sat) in order to corroborate the hypothesis that the register of online commentary is a hybrid of spoken and written language.

Abstrakt (Metafory z innych dyscyplin sportowych w języku piłki nożnej na przykładzie języka angi... more Abstrakt (Metafory z innych dyscyplin sportowych w języku piłki nożnej na przykładzie języka angielskiego i polskiego). Przedmiotem artykułu jest analiza metafor futbolowych wywodzących się z leksyki innych dyscyplin sportowych, takich jak m.in.: boks, lekkoatletyka czy żeglarstwo. Materiał językowy, zaczerpnięty z anglo-i polskojęzycznych stron internetowych, został pogrupowany i omówiony z uwzględnieniem domen źródłowych (tj. konkretnych dyscyplin sportowych). korzystając z teorii metafory Lakoffa i Johnsona, autor poddaje analizie cztery nowe metafory pojęciowe: MECZ PIłkarSkI tO POJEDyNEk BOkSErSkI, ryWaLIZaCJa FutBOLOWa tO WyŚCIG, DruŻyNa PIłkarSka tO StatEk oraz MECZ PIłkarSkI tO PartIa SZaCHÓW .

Books by Marcin Lewandowski

The present work is a sociolinguistic study of English and Polish football language, investigated... more The present work is a sociolinguistic study of English and Polish football language, investigated as a special language with broad public appeal, which consists of several situationally-motivated varieties, employed in a number of communicative settings. The book, which draws on the theory of register, as developed by Halliday, Biber, Conrad and other researchers, aims to demonstrate the range of cross-language and cross-register variation. Its major empirical findings come from corpus-based investigations of footballers' communication on the field of play, the lexico-grammatical and discourse features of football reporting in the media (match reports, television and online written commentary) as well as football metaphors, which are approached from a cognitive perspective.

Teaching Documents by Marcin Lewandowski

This is a resource that may come in handy in Practical English phonetics class, notably in transc... more This is a resource that may come in handy in Practical English phonetics class, notably in transcription exercises.

Conference Presentations by Marcin Lewandowski

The paper is a sociolinguistic analysis of music-related vocabulary used by the punk subculture i... more The paper is a sociolinguistic analysis of music-related vocabulary used by the punk subculture in Poland. The linguistic material, which comes from punk fanzines and websites, has been subdivided into nine semantic categories such as names of the band, names of instruments, names of band members, styles of singing, styles of playing (sound of music), names of albums and cassettes, names of the hit, names of concerts, and others. The lexical repertoire in question includes words with provocative as well as humorous and ironic undertones. This corroborates the hypothesis that the linguistic material reflects some of the indicators of the punk style. Abstrakt. Niniejszy artykuł stanowi socjolingwistyczną analizę terminologii muzycznej stosowanej przez członków subkultury punków. Materiał językowy pochodzący z fanzinów oraz stron internetowych redagowanych przez punków został podzielony na dziewięć podgrup semantycznych: nazwy zespołu, nazwy instrumentów, nazwy członków zespołu, sposoby śpiewania, sposoby grania (brzmienie muzyki), nazwy płyt i kaset, nazwy przeboju, imprezy koncertowe oraz inne. W analizowanym repertuarze leksykalnym występują określenia, w których unaocznia się duch prowokacji językowej, jak również leksemy o zabarwieniu ironiczno-humorystycznym. Stanowi to potwierdzenie hipotezy, że zgromadzony materiał językowy odzwierciedla niektóre wyznaczniki stylu subkulturowego punków. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest prezentacja i analiza terminologii muzycznej stosowanej przez przedstawicieli subkultury punkowej. W opisie słownictwa przyjęta została perspektywa socjolingwistyczna, zakładająca związek pomiędzy faktami językowymi i społecznymi. Innymi słowy, interesować nas będzie, w jakim stopniu słownictwo muzyczne odzwierciedla wartości, preferencje, uprzedzenia i mentalność członków subkultury punków. Na wstępie scharakteryzujmy gatunek muzyczny będący konstytutywnym elementem interesującej nas subkultury. Punk rock stanowi odmianę muzyki rockowej, nawiązującą w swojej stylistyce do jej źródeł. Początków tego nurtu poszukiwać należy w drugiej połowie lat siedemdziesiątych XX w. na Wyspach Brytyjskich (do prekursorów gatunku zalicza się takie zespoły, jak:

Investigationes Linguisticae

Od kilkunastu lat obserwujemy zjawisko przenikania terminów informatycznych do slangu młodzieżowe... more Od kilkunastu lat obserwujemy zjawisko przenikania terminów informatycznych do slangu młodzieżowego jak również do polszczyzny ogólnej.Owe zapożyczenia funkcjonują w nowych, metaforycznych sensach. Celem artykułu jest przegląd i analiza metafor informatycznych, których znaczącą część można uznać za językowe poświadczenia proponowanej przez autora metafory konceptualnej CZŁOWIEK TO KOMPUTER. Podjęta zostanie również próba zrekonstruowania językowego obrazu człowieka, wyłaniającego się z tej metafory.

Research in Language, 2020

This paper focuses on the ways of maintaining cohesive links in the translation process in the Po... more This paper focuses on the ways of maintaining cohesive links in the translation process in the Polish-English language pair. Of primary interest is how the thematic/rhematic structure of Polish sentences can be successfully rendered in English to produce cohesive, natural-sounding and communicative target texts with a proper information flow. These aspects have implications for translation teaching. It has been observed that, in view of the differences between Polish and English word order, university students at the start of their translator training experience two general problems as they attempt to translate longer stretches of text into English: (1) they produce cohesive passages, which contain errors in word order (due to syntactic interference from Polish) or (2) they produce grammatically correct sentences, which, however, form incohesive passages (i.e. ones in which the thematic/rhematic progression is not retained) with an inappropriate information structure. For this reaso...

Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 2017

The paper investigated learner attitudes to two major pronunciation models in EFL instruction at ... more The paper investigated learner attitudes to two major pronunciation models in EFL instruction at the university level: GB (General British) and GA (General American). It focused on four dimensions that are central to developing language attitudes: affective, linguistic, pragmatic and socio-cultural. Based on a survey conducted among 100 Polish students majoring in English (half of them trained in GB, the other half in GA), the study aimed to establish a hierarchy of these dimensions to determine which of them is/are key to shaping positive attitudes to the target variety. Of additional interest was how the students viewed the alternative pronunciation model. The study also sought to determine the degree of correlation between the aforementioned dimensions. The survey found that both varieties were assessed most favorably on the affective dimension. Overall, as the target variety, GB was rated more positively than GA; however, stronger correlations between the dimensions were observed among the GA learners.

In recent years, football language has been the subject of several studies conducted from cogniti... more In recent years, football language has been the subject of several studies conducted from cognitive linguistics perspectives (cf., e.g., Nordin 2008; Vierkant 2008; Levin 2008; Bergh 2011; Lewandowski 2013). Most of these studies centered on conceptual metaphors in football discourses on the Internet, radio or TV.
The present chapter aims to demonstrate how cognitive linguistics methods (frame semantics and Conceptual Metaphor Theory) can be applied in the investigation of football match reports published in American and British dailies. More specifically, its findings come from a contrastive corpus-driven analysis of American and British football match reports extracted from four dailies: USA Today, The New York Times, The Independent and The Daily Express. The chapter focuses on the similarities and differences at the lexico-grammatical, pragmatic and discourse levels.
The study has found that major differences occur at the level of pragmatics and discourse. Given the enormous popularity of football in the United Kingdom, British football writers rely on less standard means of expression to reach out to their target audience. Their reports exhibit a greater degree of implicitness, which is reflected by a relatively high proportion of puns (especially in headlines), metonymies and discourse-framing conceptual metaphors. By contrast, as football is not a widely acclaimed sport in the United States, American match reports contain more markers of explicitness, such as conventional and generic vocabulary in headlines and appositive noun phrases to provide necessary elaboration.

The present paper is a study of techniques utilized in the rendering of complex grammatical struc... more The present paper is a study of techniques utilized in the rendering of complex grammatical structures in Polish-English non-literary translation. Given that nominal style is more pervasive in Polish than in English non-fiction registers (cf. Lewandowski 2015), this contribution aims to identify translation procedures that are most commonly applied in re-expressing elaborate Polish noun phrases in English. To this aim, three domain-specific translation corpora have been created. Their analysis has found that regardless of text type, the translators typically employ three procedures: 1) reduction of NP constituents, such as nouns, participles, and relativizers, 2) recategorization (primarily denominalization), and 3) recasting, i.e. changing the order of NP constituents. While these procedures are sometimes combined, it is the first one that is most frequently applied in the translation process.

Lingua Posnaniensis. Volume 56, Issue 2, Pages 61–72, Dec 2014

It seems that there are very few research themes in sociolinguistics that have been as thoroughly... more It seems that there are very few research themes in sociolinguistics that have been as thoroughly explored as gender representation in educational materials (notably in EFL textbooks). However, relatively little attention has been paid to how learners themselves perceive the images of men and women in teaching resources. T he present contribution has been written in an attempt to fill this gap. Drawing on the findings of two small-scale survey studies conducted among Polish university students, it addresses two major issues. T he first one concerns the extent to which the choice of male or female-gendered sentence subjects in EFL grammar course books matches the learners’ associations and expectations. The other one, focusing specifically on attitudes to gender representation, seeks to demonstrate how the students view the ways male and female characters are portrayed in constructed examples of usage and practice sentences from English grammar textbooks. Both studies provide some indications of how EFL learners’ needs and expectations can be better addressed in teaching materials

The present paper addresses the problem of syntactic transfer in Polish-English non-literary tran... more The present paper addresses the problem of syntactic transfer in Polish-English non-literary translations performed by inexperienced translators. It is argued that many grammatical errors and stylistic inadequacies result from the translator’s failure to recognize that the two languages exhibit different stylistic preferences. Polish syntax is more reliant on nominal style, which is marked by a high proportion of nouns (notably nominalizations) that sometimes form elaborate noun phrases. English (except for very formal registers) to a larger extent than Polish tends to favor verbal style, in which actions are more frequently depicted by verbs and verbal modifiers. This hypothesis is supported by quantitative and qualitative data from both languages. The latter part of the paper shows that syntactic and stylistic problems in Polish-English translation can be overcome by denominalization – a translation procedure which consists in transforming noun phrases containing abstract nouns into clauses. Its application enhances target text clarity, contributing thus to the production of plain and natural-sounding prose.

Linguistik Online Vol. 68, No 6, Dec 2014

Gender stereotyping in educational materials (especially in EFL textbooks) has been a common them... more Gender stereotyping in educational materials (especially in EFL textbooks) has been a common theme in linguistic research (cf., e. g., Hellinger 1980; Porreca 1984; Freebody/Baker 1987; Sunderland 1994; Lee/Collins 2010). However, very little attention has been paid to the representation of men and women in EFL/ESL grammar textbooks; i. e. the way both genders are portrayed in constructed examples of usage and practice sentences. The present contribution is intended to fill this gap. The paper investigates the scope of gender stereotyping from a diachronic perspective: it seeks to demonstrate whether and how the images of men and women have changed following the dissemination of guidelines for non-sexist language and equal treatment of the two genders in English language educational materials. To this aim, two corpora have been compiled. The first one includes sentences derived from three EFL textbooks published in the 1970s and 1980s, while the other one contains analogous data from three 21st century titles. The contrastive analysis of the sentences in the two corpora across 11 semantic domains has found that the recently published grammar textbooks portray the two genders in a much less stereotyped way than the 20th century course books.

G. Budin & V. Lušicky (eds.), Languages for Special Purposes in a Multilingual, Transcultural World, Proceedings of the 19th European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes, 8-10 July 2013, Vienna, Austria. Vienna: University of Vienna, 29-35, Jul 2014

This paper aims to propose a methodological approach to studying lexico-grammatical variation wit... more This paper aims to propose a methodological approach to studying lexico-grammatical variation within special languages. Drawing on evidence from football language, the author argues that a special language has a two-level structure, i.e. it is composed of several subdomains (areas of communicative activity), within which it is possible to distinguish registers (varieties linked with particular situations of use ), which are marked by distinctive features of grammar and vocabulary. The register perspective is viewed as a useful tool for accounting for patterns of variation.

The theoretical framework of this paper is based upon the views of Polish and Anglo-Saxon socioli... more The theoretical framework of this paper is based upon the views of Polish and Anglo-Saxon sociolinguists on the concepts of sociolect and register. In the main section
the author gives a brief overview of the language of soccer and distinguishes 10 subvarieties of this language, which differ from each other mainly in lexico-grammatical as well
as stylistic features. Finally, the author attempts to categorize each of these subvarieties as either a sociolect or a register.

Lingua Posnaniensis XXXIX, pp. 39-49, 1997

J. Taborek, A. Tworek and L. Zieliński (eds.): Sprache und Fußball im Blickpunkt linguistischer Forschung, Verlag Dr. Kovač, Hamburg, pp. 79-95. , 2012

It is almost common knowledge that the language of sport abounds in war or conflict metaphors. Fa... more It is almost common knowledge that the language of sport abounds in war or conflict metaphors. Far from disputing this well-known fact, the present paper aims to demonstrate that football can be conceptualized in terms of other semantic domains as well. Drawing on the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by Lakoff/Johnson (1980), which was developed by Kövecses (2002; 2005), Charteris-Black (2004), Semino (2008) and others, the author proposes and discusses several conceptual metaphors that structure the discourses of English and Polish soccer reporting. The metaphorical expressions underlying these metaphors have been derived from English and Polish text corpora (ca. 100,000 words each) compiled by the author. The texts come from a wide range of written sources, such as broadsheet and tabloid newspapers, soccer news websites, and the official websites of two major footballing institutions (FIFA and UEFA). The study also tries to investigate whether English and Polish football-related conceptual metaphors display any significant quantitative and qualitative differences.

Investigationes Linguisticae, vol. XX, pp. 60-79, 2010

The paper, which is a theoretical contribution to investigations of social varieties of language,... more The paper, which is a theoretical contribution to investigations of social varieties of language, deals with two major dimensions of sociolinguistic variation: sociolectal and registerial. Drawing upon the views of Polish and Anglo-Saxon linguists, the author explores the concepts of sociolect (social dialect) and register, focusing mainly on their definitions, controlling variables, methodological frameworks, and typologies. In the final section, he attempts to shed some new light on the two kinds of variation and suggests new methodological solutions that could be applied in studies of sociolinguistic variation.

Abstrakt (Retoryka przemocy w polsko-i anglojęzycznych relacjach z meczów piłki nożnej). Przedmio... more Abstrakt (Retoryka przemocy w polsko-i anglojęzycznych relacjach z meczów piłki nożnej). Przedmiotem niniejszego artykułu, napisanego w ujęciu kontrastywnym, jest zastosowanie metafor związanych z konfliktem w języku piłki nożnej. Analiza przeprowadzona została w oparciu o teorię metafory pojęciowej autorstwa Lakoffa i Johnsona (1980) i wykorzystuje metodologię badań ilościowych oraz jakościowych. Jej celem jest wykazanie, iż PIŁKA NOŻNA jako dyscyplina sportu nie jest pojmowana wyłącznie w kategoriach WOJNY, lecz również w kategoriach innych domen źródłowych. Dlatego też oprócz metafory MECZ PIŁKI NOŻNEJ TO WOJNA autor proponuje i omawia trzy inne metafory pojęciowe: PORAŻKA TO ŚMIERĆ, MECZ PIŁKI NOŻNEJ TO WALKA BOKSERSKA oraz PRÓBA STRZELENIA BRAMKI TO POLOWANIE. Wszystkie one w dużym stopniu wpływają na kształt dyskursu relacji z meczów piłki nożnej.

Marcin lewandowski. The Language of Online Sports Commentary in a Comparative Perspective. lingua... more Marcin lewandowski. The Language of Online Sports Commentary in a Comparative Perspective. lingua posnaniensis, vol. lIV (1)/2012. the poznań Society for the advancement of the arts and Sciences. pl ISSn 0079 this paper attempts to describe a relatively new media genre (or as the author prefers to see it, an electronic register), i.e., online sports commentary (oSC). the analysis concerns english-language online live soccer match reports, and is based on a methodological framework proposed by D. BiBer and S. conrAd (2009), who in register studies emphasize the correlation between the situational characteristics and lexico-grammatical features of a particular language variety. the paper also aims to compare the register in question with other related varieties, i.e., written sports commentary (wSC) and sports announcer talk (Sat) in order to corroborate the hypothesis that the register of online commentary is a hybrid of spoken and written language.

Abstrakt (Metafory z innych dyscyplin sportowych w języku piłki nożnej na przykładzie języka angi... more Abstrakt (Metafory z innych dyscyplin sportowych w języku piłki nożnej na przykładzie języka angielskiego i polskiego). Przedmiotem artykułu jest analiza metafor futbolowych wywodzących się z leksyki innych dyscyplin sportowych, takich jak m.in.: boks, lekkoatletyka czy żeglarstwo. Materiał językowy, zaczerpnięty z anglo-i polskojęzycznych stron internetowych, został pogrupowany i omówiony z uwzględnieniem domen źródłowych (tj. konkretnych dyscyplin sportowych). korzystając z teorii metafory Lakoffa i Johnsona, autor poddaje analizie cztery nowe metafory pojęciowe: MECZ PIłkarSkI tO POJEDyNEk BOkSErSkI, ryWaLIZaCJa FutBOLOWa tO WyŚCIG, DruŻyNa PIłkarSka tO StatEk oraz MECZ PIłkarSkI tO PartIa SZaCHÓW .

The present work is a sociolinguistic study of English and Polish football language, investigated... more The present work is a sociolinguistic study of English and Polish football language, investigated as a special language with broad public appeal, which consists of several situationally-motivated varieties, employed in a number of communicative settings. The book, which draws on the theory of register, as developed by Halliday, Biber, Conrad and other researchers, aims to demonstrate the range of cross-language and cross-register variation. Its major empirical findings come from corpus-based investigations of footballers' communication on the field of play, the lexico-grammatical and discourse features of football reporting in the media (match reports, television and online written commentary) as well as football metaphors, which are approached from a cognitive perspective.

This is a resource that may come in handy in Practical English phonetics class, notably in transc... more This is a resource that may come in handy in Practical English phonetics class, notably in transcription exercises.

The present paper addresses the problem of syntactic transfer in Polish-English non-literary tran... more The present paper addresses the problem of syntactic transfer in Polish-English non-literary translations performed by inexperienced translators. It is argued that many grammatical errors and stylistic inadequacies result from the translator’s failure to recognize that the two languages exhibit different stylistic preferences. Polish syntax is more reliant on nominal style, which is marked by a high proportion of nouns (notably nominalizations) that sometimes form elaborate noun phrases. English (except for very formal registers) to a larger extent than Polish tends to favor verbal style, in which actions are more frequently depicted by verbs and verbal modifiers. This finding is supported by quantitative and qualitative data from both languages. The latter part of the paper shows that syntactic and stylistic problems in Polish-English translation can be overcome by denominalization - a translation procedure which consists in transforming noun phrases containing abstract nouns into clauses. Its application enhances target text clarity, contributing thus to the production of plain and natural-sounding prose.