Świadomość retoryczna uczniów szkół ponadgimnazjalnych (w świetle badań empirycznych)

Abstract

The essence of the article is constituted by the results of a poll conducted among students of upper secondary schools in Cracow. The poll was used to examine broadly defined rhetorical awareness treated as a set of information and skills essential for the reception and construction of both spoken and written utterances in a way that allows achieving communicative effectiveness and the aim consistent with speaker’s intention. The gathered data was used to analyse numerous problems including: students’ knowledge of theoretical notions connected with rhetoric and the sources of this knowledge, the ways in which young people define and understand the notion of rhetoric, students’ strategies of the creation of spoken and written utterances as well as the level of identification of the factors of communicative effectiveness. The results of the poll enabled to determine that students possess wide, although mainly intuitive, knowledge about linguistic and social communication. They are able to determine not only their own communicative effectiveness but also that of other senders, possess practical skills of creating spoken and written utterances as well as know how to achieve an aim consistent with the intention in utterances and by their means. These abilities are mainly the result of educational actions realized at school, during Polish language lessons.