We are pleased to recommend our next meeting in the cycle HUMANISTS’ SZCZECIN, presented by the Lentz Villa in cooperation with the University of Szczecin. On 23rd March at 5 p.m., one of Poland’s most popular language experts, Professor Jan Miodek (PhD, Habil.), will give a lecture titled THE EXPECTED AND THE UNEXPECTED IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE.
Polish is considered as one of the world’s most difficult tongues. Professor Miodek, however, has for many years tirelessly demonstrated that everyone can use Polish correctly. He points out good communication habits and warns us of the traps of everyday language use (of which many of us may certainly be quite unaware). During the meeting, he will guide us through the intricacies of the Polish language with his typical humour-spiced erudition, and answer questions, both those we have asked ourselves for many years and new ones that are constantly emerging.
The lecture is, at the same time, an event promoting the Professor’s book THE POLISH TONGUE: 200 ESSAYS, published (in Polish) last year. In the collected texts, Miodek shares his linguistic expertise and observations concerning Poles’ linguistic habits, giving, so to speak, a diagnosis of the current state of the language. Language culture may seem of little relevance in the context of other problems of the contemporary world. Still, nothing could be further from the truth, since it is that very culture that constitutes our identity. As the Professor’s faithful audience knows well from his numerous written and spoken statements, he believes that language is a fundamental tool of social competence, and its boundaries are at the same time the boundaries of our world. This is what makes its correct use extremely important, as by working on our language we also develop our intellects. One could hardly disagree with such a claim.
Introduction and chair of the meeting: Urszula Chęcińska (PhD, Habil.), professor at the University of Szczecin
Professor Jan Miodek (PhD, Habil.) is an unquestionable authority on the correct use of Polish, known, among others, from such television broadcast cycles as Polish Language, Our Homeland, Poland with Miodek, and The Polish-Polish Dictionary. Apart from being a media personality, Miodek has for many years been active in Wrocław’s academic environment, educating Polish philologists as a professor of linguistics at the University of Wrocław, where for more than 25 years he held the post of director of the Institute of Polish Philology. He has also been a member of the Council for the Polish Language (RJP) since 1996.
