The role of questionnaires in the reconstruction of the linguacultural view of respect (szacunek) in contemporary Polish

Abstract

The aim of the study is to present the role of empirical research in the reconstruction of the linguacultural image of axiologically loaded concepts and socially determined connotations. The article relates to methodological assumptions and findings of ethnolinguistics, where the reconstruction of the conceptualisation of particular notions is based on the interpretation of three types of data: (i) the language system, (ii) questionnaires, and (iii) texts. This is the approach adopted in the report Język – wartości – polityka [Language – values – politics] (JWP 2006), and then in the Axiological Lexicon of Slavs and Their Neighbours (LASiS 1-5, 2015-2019), compiled by the team supervised by Jerzy Bartmiński. This study presents the results of a questionnaire regarding respect (Polish szacunek), conducted among one hundred students from five universities in Lublin. Respondents were asked to answer the question: “What, in your opinion, is the essence of respect?”. The data obtained from first-hand sources enable a reconstruction of the students’ image of true respect in the Polish language in an aspectual view.