Structure – IKSI

Department of Interdisciplinary Research in Language and Communication

Members:

Scope of research

The multifaceted and complex nature of language(s) and communication process, as well as their interrelations and determinants, has impelled the department’s members to go beyond linguistics field and move towards interdisciplinary research in order to develop deeper and more integrated understanding and knowledge of the subject in question. Those studies are conducted at the crossroads of language theory, applied linguistics, philosophy (metaphysical and epistemological theories), cultural studies, Byzantine hymnography, linguistic paleography, psychology, management and media studies. They have both theoretical and applied dimensions, with the overarching goal of understanding the essence of communication acts and their determinants, notably the internal (communication participants and their characteristics) and external (communication environment) contexts.
Individual members of the department research different perspectives and research problems. Their research interests focus on:

relationships between the intercultural communication participants, cultural adaptation, cultural learning and cultural identity construction in various environments (in international business, among migrants, business expats, foreign students, missionaries)
functions of speech acts within specific communicative tasks, implying the (meta)cognitive, communicative and discursive properties of the subject, which are, in turn, conditioned by genetic, cultural and axiological properties
terminology (including, inter alia, terminology of Byzantine music and hymnography), relations within the specialist-specialist and specialist-layman systems or models of (specialist) knowledge transfer
contemporary communication supported by the use of various technologies and digital media, including e-learning platforms and chatbots (voicebots)
communication practices, interactions and speech genres in social media
text, writing and image in contemporary culture.

Department of International Legal Communication

Head: prof. ucz. dr hab. Joanna Osiejewicz

Members:

Department of International Legal Communication: http://legal-communication.iksi.uw.edu.pl/

Department of Culturology

Head: prof. ucz. dr hab. Magdalena Latkowska

Members:

Department of Intercultural Pragmalinguistics and Multimodal Communication

Head: prof. ucz. dr hab. Silvia Bonacchi

Members:

Department of Lexicology and Specialised Lexicography

Head: prof. ucz. dr hab. Elżbieta Jamrozik

Acting Head of the Department: prof. ucz. dr hab. Agnieszka Andrychowicz-Trojanowska

Members:

Scope of research

The studies carried out by the Department of Lexicology and Specialised Lexicography are focused on the fields of (i) lexical research, (ii) lexicographical research. Lexical research (diachronic, synchronic and contrastive) is conducted on:

word-formation mechanisms in specific languages and their productivity, lexical changes in a synchronic and diachronic perspective;
neologisms, their frequency and degree of their rootedness;
linguistic borrowings together with their integration into the recipient language; distinguishing the domains in which the borrowings occur and the language from which they originate;
the presence and role of English in modern European languages;
vocabulary syntactic structures, verb valency and the ways in which predicates are linked to arguments, which results in lexicographical studies and dictionaries of predicate-argument structures that are used both in translation practice and language teaching;
collocations and connectivity of lexical items and the degree of ossification of lexical structures.

Such studies, which are contrastive and conducted in teams, find their direct application in teaching and learning as well as in a translator’s work. The compilation of data deriving from different language areas allows us to draw some conclusions of a typological and sociolinguistic nature regarding the structure of vocabulary, trends of its development, variations and functioning in different European countries.

Diachronic lexical studies in the field of lexicology, lexicography and grammatography seek to demonstrate the continuity of linguistic phenomena and the way in which they are codified throughout the centuries by revealing: 1. the evolution of vocabulary along the temporal axis; 2. changes in the productivity of word-forming mechanisms as well as mutual influences of languages, which is reflected in the types of borrowings together with the manner and degree of their integration in language; 3. semantic changes in lexical units; 4. the evolution of lexicographical techniques.

From a teaching and learning perspective, lexicographical studies on the development of lexicographical techniques and the history of dictionaries on specific language areas aim to: 1. reconstructing the techniques used in modern lexicography; 2. formulating rules for dictionary selection according to the user’s needs and the ability to use the information it contains.

The above presented scope of the department’s scientific and didactic activities determines its main development trends and may be modified depending on its composition, current teaching and learning needs, specificity of languages and individual interests of Department members.

International cooperation takes place with academic centres in Italy, France and Belgium.

National cooperation — with the Central Examination Board for matriculation exam, the Centre for Education Development (former In-Service Teacher Training Centre) and the Ministry of National Education (now the Ministry of Education and Science) in the field of Italian language teaching and learning.

Department of Literary and Intercultural Studies

Head: prof. dr hab. Anna Tylusińska-Kowalska

Members:

Scope of research

The department’s staff conduct multidirectional and interdisciplinary research in the fields of: dialogue among cultures, dialogue between literature and culture, intercultural communication, literary comparativism, historical conditions of contemporary international relations within and outside the European Union. The department research interests also include the history and literature of certain foreign language areas, literary theory in the light of the latest scientific studies, multifaceted research on the intercultural role of humanistic and literary translation (analysis and criticism of translation, literary translation theory, the role of literary and cultural translation within intercultural dialogue).

Furthermore, its members concentrate their attention on the study of the key problems of contemporary culturology, the most significant aspect of which is cultural transfer, i.e., the mutual exchange of spiritual values on the frontier of various Eastern European cultures and literatures as well as their ties with Polish culture. In particular, they investigate:

cultural connections between Slavic nations, their history and current status,
cultural dialogue between Poland and Eastern Europe,
journalism and personal documentary literature in Eastern European countries: the range of issues and values they present, similarities and differences in terms of problems and themes, language and style,
reception of Eastern European literatures in Poland.

International and national cooperation with academic centres in the USA, UK, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Italy, France, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia and Hungary. The Department works closely with the Institute of Italian Culture and the Italian Embassy in Poland, as well as with the Jagiellonian University, University of Wrocław, University of Gdańsk and the University of Lublin.

Department of Language Theory and Language Acquisition

Head: prof. ucz. dr hab. Magdalena Olpińska-Szkiełko

Members:

Scope of research

The department’s in-depth research focuses on issues related to linguistics, glottodidactics and translation studies, specifically language theory, semantics, theories of first and second (foreign) language acquisition and their glottodidactic implications, teaching and learning of specialised languages, Polish-German comparative (contrastive) linguistics as well as terminology and lexicology of specialised languages. The range of topics requiring the department’s detailed investigation is constantly expanding. The current scientific output of the department’s staff constitutes a testimony to many innovative theoretical solutions and applications concerning the practice of teaching specialised languages and specialised text translation. The scientific and research activities conducted at the department have resulted in a number of habilitation theses.

International and national cooperation takes place with academic centres in Poland, Germany, China and Japan.

Department of Translation Studies

Head: prof. ucz. dr hab. Monika Płużyczka

Members:

Scope of research

The department’s research activities concentrate on studies and considerations regarding broadly conceived translation activity. The research is conducted mainly in the recently prevailing trend of the so-called process-oriented translation studies, i.e., it is oriented towards the description of mental processes involved in the process of translation, as well as the description and investigation of translators’ mental qualities that enable them to perform translational acts, which comprise specific translation competences. Furthermore, department members also carry out both product-oriented and recipient-oriented translation studies. Thus, various research methodologies as well as different research methods, being part of these methodologies, are used: questionnaires, surveys, translation product analysis, contrastive text analysis, interviews, translation tests, translation accuracy tests, alongside experimental methods: eye tracking, GSR, etc.

The research areas of the department include, among others: translation competence, competence models, mental processes involved in translation – neurobiological and psychological aspects of translation processes, translation theories, various paradigms of translation studies, oral and written translation, audiovisual translation, sight translation, new technologies in translation studies, translation quality, praxeology of translation, the development of translation studies as a scientific discipline, contrastive analyses of translated texts, intersemioticity and intermediality in translation, etc. In addition to considerations and research in pure and applied translation studies, research is also carried out in the field of translodidactics, namely the didactics of both written and oral translation. Methodological proposals concerning this field are also being developed.

International and national cooperation

Currently, there is ongoing scientific cooperation as part of EU grants in collaboration with foreign universities, including:

Free University of Berlin / Germany
University of Verona / Italy
University of Haifa / Israel
University of Vienna / Austria
Catholic University Foundation / The Netherlands
University of Trnava / Slovakia
University of Stavanger / Norway
University of Basel / Switzerland

Cooperation in other scientific bilateral projects as well as in the organisation of conferences and symposia:

University of Wrocław (joint translation conference ‘TRANSLATON’, organisation of guest lectures, scientific symposia and joint scientific publications)

University of Silesia
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz / Germersheim (Germany)
Smolensk State University / Russia
Russian New University in Moscow / Russia
University of Konstanz, Department of Linguistics, Institute of Slavonic Studies
Institute of Humanities and Information Technologies, Moscow / Russia
Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) in Haifa