Kilka uwag o dwujęzyczności dziewiętnastowiecznych mieszkańców wsi nadbużańskich w twórczości Leona Kunickiego (na przykładzie powieści Iwanko)

Abstract

The article presents the phenomenon and mechanisms of the development of bilingualism among the nineteenth-century inhabitants of villages situated on the Bug River. The issue is principally exemplified by the novel Iwanko [Ivanko] by Leon Kunicki (1828–1873), a writer associated with southern Podlasie (the Włodawa area). Referring to different situational contexts of the characters in the novel, the author of the study has shown the mechanisms of switching linguistic codes: Polish and Ukrainian. An illustration of these complex communication processes is the Greek Catholic (Uniate) community of Horodno village. The status and prestige in a bilingual community stem from non-linguistic causes, as shown by the cited examples from the novel. The acquisition of Polish by Podlasian Ruthenians is one of the basic conditions for job promotion and, sometimes, social advancement. According to the author of the study, the novel analysed is a good philological source for investigating language contacts on the Polish-Ukrainian borderland.