“I look with deep gratitude and admiration ...” – praising and complimenting in papal speeches

Abstract Recently, communicating admiration and appreciation in public discourse has become a subject of study since these acts play a very important role in shaping positive social relations not only on a micro scale, but also on a macro one. My goal in this study is to understand how public officials implement their intention to please addressees in an international arena, in contacts between different religious and national communities. In order to do this, 120 papal speeches delivered to representatives of different churches, religions and societies were analysed, identifying individual topics, functions and patterns of these speech acts, as well as their dependence on such parameters a…

RECENZJA: Maria Wojtak, "Do Boga…, o Bogu…, przed Bogiem… Gatunki przekazu religijnego w analizie filologicznej", „Teolingwistyka” 15, Tarnów: Wydawnictwo Biblos, 2019, ss. 379

Żydzi w dyskursie Kościoła katolickiego

Jews in the discourse of the Catholic Church The article describes the most important changes which appeared after the Second Vatican Council in the discourse of the Catholic Church in reference to its attitude to confessors of Judaism. The change is the difference between the state of texts in two different moments, which is why the first part of the article is dedicated to the characteristics of pre-Council (and mostly pre-war) discourse about Jews, and the second part to main directions of the changes caused by the realization of the Council postulates. The third part shows indications of the continuation of old, deep-rooted schemes. The analysis partly concerns texts of the Church world…

On the relation between language and gender in Catholic religious discourse

The article falls within the current of linguistic research on religious language, specifically on the language of Polish Catholicism. The paper is divided into two parts. The first discusses the specificity of the problem of gender resulting from the fact that the objects of religious faith are supernatural Beings, but in human beliefs, in culture, they are also attributed gender. The figures from the world of the Sacred – God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Mary, the angel, Satan – although they may be conceptualized as androgynous (in philosophy, in feminist theology), in „ordinary”, everyday cult and pastoral language (prayers, songs, sermons, etc.) they are linguistically represented as perso…

Remembrance of Jews in contemporary catholic homilies

The paper discusses the problem of transferring the memory of Jews through Polish contemporary Catholic homilies. In the biblical pericopies read throughout the liturgical year during Catholic mass, generally Jews play a negative role – as persecutors and killers of Jesus. According to the provisions of the Second Vatican Council, anti-Jewish content cannot be proclaimed in the Catholic Church, and the Bible, which according to the doctrine must remain unchanged, should be adequately commented on in homilies. The paper – on the example of about 40 homilies – shows, however, that priests who preach homilies do not use modern exegetic knowledge, but replicate stereotypes deeply rooted in cult…