Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 23:4 (2024) ► pp.565–587

On the language of liberalism

Liberal language ideology in Polish discourse of linguistics (1970–1989) as a form of pro-democratic resistance

ORCID logo | University College London

In this article, I look at linguistic studies of communist propaganda produced by oppositional scholars in the last two decades of state socialism in Poland. I argue that Polish discourse of linguistics in 1970–1989 was a vehicle for the promotion of liberalism in the People’s Republic of Poland and an important area of political contestation. I demonstrate that Polish linguistic studies of communist propaganda should not be assumed to be “objective” or politically disengaged. Ideas about language detectable in these studies, especially “referentialism”, promote liberal democracy by consistently implying values characteristic of liberalism as a political ideology. In this way, Polish linguists engaged in a form of anti-communist resistance and formulated language policy proposals for the language of liberal democracy. I argue that language ideologies are sometimes systematically related to political ideologies by promoting specific political values or points of view.

Keywords: language ideology, language policy, Critical Discourse Analysis, liberalism, George Orwell, Newspeak, propaganda, communist authoritarianism, Poland, Eastern Europe
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language ideology: Definition
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Thematic analysis of the corpus
    • 4.1Depictions of language: Nowomowa “devastates language” and “corrupts thought”
    • 4.2Political legitimation: Nowomowa legitimises communism
    • 4.3Linguistic norms: Nowomowa is about “ideological correctness” and “manipulation”
  • 5.Contextual analysis
    • 5.1Co-text: Orwell’s Newspeak
    • 5.2Genre analysis: Academic studies and “dissident” polemics
    • 5.3The socio-political context: People’s Republic of Poland (1970–1980)
    • 5.4Ideological context: Liberalism
    • 5.5Retrospective linguistic context: Against “referentialism”
    • 5.6Contextual analysis: Summary
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 28 November 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.23014.sta
References
Abbott, Barbara
2006 “Definiteness and Indefiniteness”. In The Handbook of Pragmatics, edited by Laurence R. Horn and Gregory L. Ward, 122–49. Malden, MA; Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Antas, Jolanta
2000 O kłamstwie i kłamaniu: studium semantyczno-pragmatyczne [On Lies and Lying: a Semantic–Pragmatic Study]. Kraków: Universitas.Google Scholar
2013 Semantyczność Ciała: Gesty Jako Znaki Myślenia [Semanticity of the Body: Gestures as Signs of Thought]. Łódź: Primum Verbum.Google Scholar
Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar, Nicole Dehé, and Anne Wichmann
eds. 2009 Where Prosody Meets Pragmatics. Bingley: Emerald. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berger, Peter Ludwig, and Thomas Luckmann
1991 The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Bernhard, Michael H.
1993 The Origins of Democratization in Poland: Workers, Intellectuals, and Oppositional Politics, 1976–1980. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bokeriya, S. A., and A. A. Dieva
2015 “Information Propaganda in the USSR as an Instrument of ‘Soft Power’”. RUDN Journal of Russian History 31: 81–89.Google Scholar
Bralczyk, Jerzy
1985 “Ograniczony świat propagandy” [“The Limited World of Propaganda”]. In Nowo-mowa, edited by Adam Heinz and Jolanta Rokoszowa, 99–109. London: Polonia Book Fund.Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah
2006 “Ideology and Language”. Journal of Political Ideologies 11 (2): 141–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 Verbal Hygiene. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chambers, Jack K., and Natalie Schilling
2013 The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Curzan, Anne
2014 Fixing English: Prescriptivism and Language History. Cambridge: University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison
2007 Objectivity. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Davies, Norman
1984 Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Deterding, Nicole M., and Mary C. Waters
2021 “Flexible Coding of In-Depth Interviews: A Twenty-First-Century Approach”. Sociological Methods & Research 50 (2): 708–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ephratt, Michal
2011 “Linguistic, Paralinguistic and Extralinguistic Speech and Silence”. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (9): 2286–2307. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Errington, James Joseph
2008 Linguistics in a Colonial World a Story of Language, Meaning, and Power. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
1995 Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Fawcett, Edmund
2018 Liberalism: The Life of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel
1972 The Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Freeden, Michael
2005 Liberal Languages Ideological Imaginations and Twentieth-Century Progressive Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Friszke, Andrzej
2011 “Opozycja w Polsce 1956–1980” [“Opposition in Poland 1956–1980”]. In PRL od grudnia 70 do czerwca 89 [People’s Republic of Poland from December 1970 to June 1989], edited by Krzysztof Persak and Paweł Machcewicz, 123–45. Warszawa: Bellona.Google Scholar
Gal, Susan
2006 “Migration, Minorities and Multilingualism: Language Ideologies in Europe”. In Language Ideologies, Policies, and Practices: Language and the Future of Europe, edited by Clare Mar-Molinero and Patrick Stevenson, 13–27. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gamble, Andrew
2009 “The Western Ideology”. Government and Opposition 44 (1): 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gary, Brett
1999 The Nervous Liberals: Propaganda Anxieties from World War I to the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford
2000 Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. Basic Books. [URL]
1973 The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Głowiński, Michał
1990 Nowomowa po polsku [Newspeak in Polish]. Warszawa: PEN.Google Scholar
Grice, Herbert Paul
1991 Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gumperz, John J., and Stephen C. Levinson
eds. 1996 Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Roy
1981 The Language Myth. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
1990 “On Freedom of Speech”. In Ideologies of Language, edited by J. E. Joseph and T. J. Taylor, 153–61. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hazony, Yoram
2022 Conservatism: A Rediscovery. London: Forum.Google Scholar
Heinz, Adam, and Jolanta Rokoszowa
eds. 1985 Nowo-mowa [New-speak]. London: Polonia Book Fund.Google Scholar
Hill, Jane H.
1998 “ ‘Today There Is No Respect’: Nostalgia, ‘Respect’, and Oppositional Discourse in Mexicano (Nahuatl) Language Ideology”. In Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, edited by B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard, and P. V. Kroskrity, 68–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Irvine, Judith T., and Susan Gal
2000 “Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation”. In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities & Identities, edited by Paul V. Kroskrity, 35–83. Santa Fe: James Currey.Google Scholar
Joseph, John E.
1987 Eloquence and Power. The Rise of Language Standards and Standard Languages. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
2004 Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karpiński, Jakub
1984 Mowa do ludu: szkice o języku polityki [Talk to the People: Essays on the Language of Politics]. London: Puls.Google Scholar
Krastev, Ivan, and Stephen Holmes
2020 The Light That Failed: A Reckoning. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Kroskrity, Paul V.
2005 “Language Ideologies”. In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, 496–517. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kubik, Jan
1994 The Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
2020 “Against the Imitation Thesis: A Critical Reading of The Light That Failed by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes”. In Concilium Civitas Almanac 2020/2021. [URL]
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson
1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Laruelle, Marlene
2022 “Illiberalism: A Conceptual Introduction”. East European Politics 38 (2): 303–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lebow, Katherine
2013 Unfinished Utopia: Nowa Huta, Stalinism, and Polish Society, 1949–56. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lieb, Hans-Heinrich
1993 Linguistic Variables: Towards a Unified Theory of Linguistic Variation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ligarski, Sebastian, and Rafał Łatka
eds. 2020 Oficjalna prasa w PRL [Official Press in the People’s Republic of Poland] Szczecin-Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan J., and Alfred C. Stepan
1996 Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lippi-Green, Rosina
1997 English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart
2012 On Liberty. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Musolff, Andreas
2010 Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust: The Concept of the Body Politic. Routledge Critical Studies in Discourse. Florence: Taylor & Francis Group. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nowak, Leszek
1991 Power and Civil Society: Toward a Dynamic Theory of Real Socialism. New York: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Milroy, James, and Lesley Milroy
2012 Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English. Routledge Linguistics Classics. Florence: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pütz, Martin, and Marjolijn Verspoor
eds. 2000 Explorations in Linguistic Relativity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Puzynina, Jadwiga
1985 ‘O pojęciu “manipulacja” oraz sensie wyrażenia: “manipulacja językowa”’ [“On the Concept of ‘Manipulation’ and the Meaning of the Expression ‘Linguistic Manipulation’”]. In Nowo-mowa, edited by Adam Heinz and Jolanta Rokoszowa, 48–63. London: Polonia Book Fund.Google Scholar
Ricœur, Paul
1986 Lectures on Ideology and Utopia. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rokoszowa, Jolanta
1985 “Słowo wstępne” [“Introduction”]. In Nowo-mowa, edited by Adam Heinz and Jolanta Rokoszowa, 9–12. London: Polonia Book Fund.Google Scholar
Romek, Zbigniew
2015 “System cenzury PRL” [“The System of Censorship in the People’s Republic of Poland]. In Wielka księga cenzury PRL w dokumentach [The Big Book of Censorship in the People’s Republic of Poland in Documents], by Tomasz Strzyżewski, 9–27. Warszawa: Prohibita.Google Scholar
Rothschild, Joseph
2008 Return to Diversity: A Political History of East Central Europe since World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Izchak M.
1991 “The Wax and Wane of Whorfian Views“. In The Influence of Language on Culture and Thought, edited by Robert L. Cooper and Bernard J. Spolsky, 7–44. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sclafani, Jennifer
2017 Talking Donald Trump: A Sociolinguistic Study of Style, Metadiscourse, and Political Identity. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scott, James C.
1990 Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Semków, Piotr
ed. 2004 Propaganda PRL: wybrane problemy. Gdańsk: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
1976 “Shifters, Linguistic Categories and Cultural Description”. In Meaning in Anthropology, edited by K. H. Basso and H. A. Selby. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Spolsky, Bernard
2009 Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, Jason
2015 How Propaganda Works. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Takeuchi, Jae Dibello
2021 “Language Ideologies among Japanese Foreign Language Teachers: Keigo and L2 Speakers”. Foreign Language Annals 54 (3): 589–606. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Talbot J.
1990 “Which Is to Be Master? The Institutionalization of Authority in the Science of Language”. In Ideologies of Language, edited by J. E. Joseph and T. J. Taylor, 9–26. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Underhill, James W.
2011 Creating Worldviews: Metaphor, Ideology and Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun A.
1977 Text and Context: Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse. London: Longman.Google Scholar
2006 “Ideology and Discourse Analysis”. Journal of Political Ideologies 11 (2): 115–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vessey, Rachelle, and Elena Nicolai
2022 “The Language Ideologies of Multilingual Nannies in London”. Journal of Sociolinguistics. Early view: 1–24.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna
1990 “Antitotalitarian Language in Poland: Some Mechanisms of Linguistic Self-Defense”. Language in Society 19 (1): 1–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
2007 “Pragmatics and Critical Discourse Analysis: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry”. Pragmatics & Cognition 15 (1): 203–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A.
2020 “Language Ideology”. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, edited by James Stanlaw. Hoboken: Wiley. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A., and Bambi B. Schieffelin
1994 “Language Ideology”. Annual Review of Anthropology 231: 55–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zarycki, Tomasz
2022 Polish Elite and Language Sciences. A Perspective of Global Historical Sociology. Basingbroke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar