The paper reflects on the development and the transformations which contemporary Polish glottodidactics faces and must somehow address in the coming years. The first part contains a discussion of W. Miodunka’s book on the creation, current status and developmental prospects of Polish glottodidactics, as well as a description of a collective work on teaching Polish as a foreign language in light of the prospects for development of education in the field of Polish studies. The second part discusses the need for glottodidactics to take a position on the turnabout taking place in the humanities as well as on the environmental crisis, migration and the pandemic.

The aim of the paper is to present the latest proposals within the framework of studies on receptive multilingualism. It contains a more detailed discussion of the concept of lingua receptiva, i.e. multilingual receptive communication based on (related) native languages of its participants, both in a representational aspect – in relation to actual multilingual practices, and in a configurational aspect – in relation to other categories in the conceptual grid of the research discipline. The conclusion points out that the co­ occurrence of lingua receptiva and lingua franca in international communication in Europe seems to be an existing yet insufficiently recognised linguistic reality.

As Internet applications and online communication become more and more popular, language teaching faces new challenges and needs. Using electronic forms of communication, our students are often able to deal with everyday problems in an efficient way, even though their language skills may not be up to the standards drawn in the CERF. Meanwhile, the lexical and grammar contents of teaching curricula and language textbooks do not always respond to the emerging needs of online communication. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the impact of the growing interest in Internet solutions on PFL teaching practice, with reference to language level standards, teaching curricula, exam standards and textbook content, as well as student motivation level. All of these issues seem particularly important in times of pandemic, when online communication has become a necessity rather than an option.

The paper analyses Polish phonetic system points which are difficult for Slovaks, and shows how shortcomings in phonological competence may also affect spelling correctness in texts written by students. The paper is of a comparative nature, so the problematic issues are presented separately in the Polish vowel, consonant and accent system compared to the Slovak one. In each of the three parts, typical pronunciation and spelling errors are present that occur in students’ spoken and written work. The aim of this contribution is to present the importance of phonological competence training during the foreign language course in such a way as to minimise negative language transfer.

The paper discusses the inclusion of speech therapy stages and methods used in speech therapy in the process of teaching phonetics of Polish as a foreign language. The case study shows that their application made it easier to determine the nature of the deviations from the standard occurring among the students and to design a comprehensive set of targeted measures to improve phonetic and phonological competences. The proposed solutions refer to a group of people whose first language was Chinese, but they can be applied in the teaching of phonetics of different foreign languages.

The paper presents aspects related to the use of an intercultural approach in teaching Polish as a foreign language in China. It focuses on cuisine and food in general. Effective communication requires not only grammatical rules and vocabulary to be mastered, but also knowledge of the rules that prevail in the interlocutor’s country, of the sociolinguistic and sociocultural determinants. The sample material comes from the author’s collections built during her work at Asian universities. An intercultural approach in teaching Polish linguistic and cultural behaviours in China requires different practices and solutions than those applied in the European cultural circle.

The author draws attention to the phenomenon of biliteracy, i.e. the ability to read and write in two languages. She presents the ways in which the phenomenon is understood in the context of research on bilingualism and literacy tuition. The high scientific and practical value of the concept is emphasised. A broad and integrated approach to biliteracy is proposed. The acquisition of biliteracy is presented as a multiannual, lifelong process. The author shows the potential of biliteracy in terms of improving bilingual functioning (strengthening the motivation to learn a minority language, supporting linguistic and cognitive development, improving emotional and social comfort of bilingual individuals).

The paper presents the results of research making it possible to reflect for instance on whether staying in a multicultural environment makes one break bonds with the living Polish language. The tool used to seek an answer to this question was a survey checking the understanding of the most popular youth words of the recent years. The youth word of the year, chosen every year, makes it possible to discover the features of the Polish language used by the young generation. The competition makes it possible to explore and follow the linguistic fashion. Words classified as youth words are not necessarily new or slang ones, but they are used much more often by the analysed group. The survey covered more than 200 students attending Polish community schools in the UK. The results were compared to those related to a group of young people from Poland.

The paper depicts the image of New York which emerges from the prose writings of Janusz Głowacki. The writer, meticulous in representing the topography of the metropolis, saw it as a city of stark contrasts, unlimited possibilities and complete unpredictability. The view of New York, always critical in Głowacki’s writing, revealed its sharpness and depth especially in his recent novels. The city appears as a parable of the global world, its chaos and confusion of values, as a reality, in which poverty and wealth exist next to each other, people devoid of authenticity treat others like objects, confrontation with otherness blurs identity, and values are created by money and the market.

The paper attempts to describe the literary figures of the home in Danuta Mostwin’s seven­ volume “Polish saga” (Dom starej lady, London 1958, Ameryko! Ameryko!, Warszawa 1981, Cień księdza Piotra, Warszawa 1985, Szmaragdowa zjawa, Warszawa 1988, Tajemnica zwyciężonych, London 1992, Nie ma domu, Lublin 1996, Słyszę, jak śpiewa Ameryka, London 1998). The biography of the author of Dom starej lady matches the biographies of multigenerational Polish families that had endured the partitions of Poland, wars, communism, and exile. This autobiographical feature become the substrate for most of Mostwin’s novels. The deliberations, set in the context of philosophical and axiological as well as literary theory findings show the transformations in the creation of the figure of the home in these prose writings. The evolution of the imagery of the home ranges from an Arcadian home to an “anti­ home”, “home as an ark”, and “home regained”. This corresponds to Danuta Mostwin’s philosophical position, as she considered this combination of values brought from her native country and the values acquired in the country where she settled as most optimal form of defending Polish identity in exile.

The paper discusses aspects related to the use of aquatic space in selected works by Polish poets living in Canada. The author discusses the ways of literary functioning of images of the ocean, sea, lakes and rivers in works by Zofia Bohdanowiczowa, Wacław Iwaniuk, Florian Śmieja, Bogdan Czaykowski and Andrzej Busza. For Polish émigré poets of the older generation, the water element was a frequent part of the represented world, as well as an important link in their creative imagination. Water spaces were connected, in fact, with the situation of lacking roots, of alienation faced with the vastness of the new continent, they overwhelmed with their size, and set insurmountable boundaries. According to the author, the symbolism of water was more often a metaphor of existence than a spiritual mirror of deliberations. Vertically juxtaposed against the sky/heaven and life, it became an icon of death, or even of nothingness. As a result, it revealed less often the traditional healing power or the metaphysical elevation function known from the past.

The aim of the paper is to show the social and cultural processes that perpetuate the patriarchal model of society using the example of Dominik Magnuszewski’s play Barbara jeszcze Gasztołdowa żona. Using research in the field of cultural anthropology, I consider the work in the context of the representation of gender roles in a manner inconsistent with the archetypal patterns. King Sigismund represents the type of effeminate masculinity, while Queen Bona is referred here to the virago femininity type, combining traits considered as masculine and feminine. The paper develops research into the problem of the domination of patriarchy in 19th century Poland, using terminology taken from cultural anthropology (androcentric ignorance).

The autobiographical works of Sławomir Mrożek, which include his extensive diaries from the years 1962–1989 and large volumes of correspondence, continue to be open to new readings. Since the key, and until now undescribed problem in the meta­ literary layer is the relation to Witold Gombrowicz as an artist and as a human being, the paper analyses and interprets, from a historical literary and comparative point of view, the multi­ annual polemics with the aesthetic and philosophical views of the author of Ferdydurke, which Mrożek conducted in his diaries from 1965 to 1987. The process­ based nature of the author’s references is emphasised: from respectful acceptance to the decisive overcoming of Gombrowicz’s influence, ending in the opening of Mrożek towards metaphysics, absent from his master’s worldview. The particular role of Gombrowicz’s work is pointed out as a mirror for Mrożek, where Mrożek’s reflection on himself as an artist and on his own art took shape and gained confidence.

The research so far has failed to notice that for 17th century memoirists, the state’s ability to defend its citizens against Tatar captivity was an important criterion for the assessment of the government’s effectiveness. In fact, in Poland at that time, Tatar raids were a serious problem. The Tatars would kidnap inhabitants of the south­ eastern borderlands on a mass scale. This is why Polish memoirists at that time reflected on how the government coped when it came to limiting this threat. The author focused precisely on the documentalists’ assessment of the government’s actions to protect its subjects against captivity. On the basis of a historical and literary analysis, it can be concluded from the memoirists’ statements selected in terms of their subject matter that these judgments were most often critical. The aspects outlined here are ones that failed to draw the attention of researchers studying Old Polish literature; they may also serve as a source for historical and cultural observations.

The paper discusses the issues of a particular type of economic exchange that emerged in the Soviet Kazakhstan of the 1940s, showing different aspects of this exchange, its bases and values, its units and circulations. These aspects are shown using the example of memories of Poles forcibly deported to Kazakhstan in the years 1939–1941. The introduction of a totalitarian system, in its unique, brutal, Stalinist form, in areas inhabited by Kazakhs nomads, now mixed with waves of forcibly displaced persons, caused an unprecedented dysfunction of social life, affecting all participants of the economic exchange, including the Polish exiles there. To describe this situation, I used two mutually complementary theoretical constructs: the deliberations of Janos Kornai (shortage economy) and of Pierre Bourdieu (cultural capital). The text reflects on other than pecuniary and non­ monetary means of payment in an “inhuman land”.

The paper is an attempt to highlight the importance of cultural texts created by authors from contemporary migration circles. There are several reasons for their relevance: without resorting to stereotypes, clichés and intermediations, using the original author’s language, they show traumatic experiences (Grenzsituationen) and testimonies; in the narratological sense, they combine the message of traditional oral culture with a contemporary author’s text of culture, making it possible to understand contents which are elusive for journalistic forms and the restrictions imposed on new media. It also describes the emergence of the refugee story sub­ genre at the beginning of the 21st century and the Polish culture in relation to this phenomenon.

The paper analyses and interprets J. Czerniawski’s artistic theatre posters. The aim of the research was to verify the assumption that multimodal metaphors are conceptual in their nature, to check how the detailed assumptions of G. Lakoff’s and M. Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory match the analyses of artistic multimodal messages, and to confront this theory with C. Forceville’s concept of multimodal metaphors. The specific goal was to attempt to define multimodal metaphors in an original way. The researcher puts forward a hypothesis, subsequently verified with analyses, that in the process of decoding the meanings of a poster, the images are read in conjunction with the words – titles of the performances, while the reception of the multi­ code message constitutes mental negotiation (taking place in the recipient’s mind) of the meanings of multi­ level metaphors, in which language and image analogies result not only from their defined meanings, but also from the connotative features of verbal and non­ verbal signs. The text fits within the framework of interdisciplinary cognitive research on artistic discourse.

The paper attempts to reflect on the evolution of the social norm and on linguistic and codification-related changes with regard to feminine personal nouns. The main aim is to posit and reflect on the problem of feminine forms in contemporary Polish on the basis of a critical comparison of opinions on their creation and use formulated by the Polish Language Council, a body issuing opinions and giving advice on the use of the Polish language. The significant differences in positions taken by scientists over the course of just a few years suggest that the issue of feminine forms was and continues to be to a large extent an element of the sociopolitical debate with an ideological, social and emotional tinge, rather than an issue resulting from the actual limitations of the language system.