Językowa przestrzeń felietonów literackich Czesława Miłosza

Abstract

The objective of the article is to demonstrate the most essential linguistic features of Czesław Milosz’s columns against the background of the criteria of the genre, which constitute the peculiar “Miłosz” discourse understood as suspending the text in a cultural space. The analysis comprises eight columns published in 2003 in Tygodnik Powszechny, and it is based on the methodology applied in the studies of discourse: structuralism (patterns and models of expression as an act of speech, elements of textology) and cognitive linguistics. First, the notion of the genre of column is discussed, then, the textual and pragmatic features of Milosz’s texts are distinguished, and flnally, the columns are examined as texts seen among other cultural texts, with a particular emphasis on inter- textuality. Milosz’s columns turned out to be texts with concise titles, subordinated to the conventions governing joumalism, semantically and thematically coherent in the global discourse space. The chief characteristic of a column - subjectivism, is realized through parenthesis; the sender’s ego is exposed in neutral contents, and rarely in expressive statements. Each of the analyzed texts shapes the thinking processes of its recipients opening a number of paths to extra-textual knowledge. The broad spectrum of inter-texts appearing in the columns, presentation of topics with profound penetration of the national and global culture, and oscillation between literature and journalism present the readers with highly erudite challenges.