The purpose of this article is to compare and indicate the differences in addressative forms functioning in university correspondence in Poland and Germany. The last two decades have seen the emergence of new forms of address alongside the traditional, conventionalized ones. This process is based on linguistic reflection of socio‑ political and cultural transformations in both countries. In German, the focus on gender equality has entered a new phase after the so‑called feminization of language. This new phase means the use of gender‑neutral language, which would also include non‑binary people. The issue is also not alien to Polish universities, but in that case, we can only speak of an initial stage of development. In our article, the analysed addressatives used in university business mail from 2015–2023, reflect the contemporary state of their development. Although the established addressative forms that have been in use for years constitute the most numerous group of examples in both languages, the changes taking place in German are more dynamic and language users are more willing to apply new means and depart from tradition.

The starting point for the considerations of the present article is Eugeniusz Tomiczek’s concepts of linguistic interpersonal communication, which expose the addressee of the text in the communication model and emphasise the necessity of the adequate textual influence on the addressee of the message, resulting from this identification. Linguistic acting through texts creates a more complicated reality in translational communication. The article attempts to describe, what has been made possible by using the cognitive‑communicative concept of a text and the concept of the extended translation model. The author of the present article proposes a cognitive‑communicative model of translation, which takes into account the surface of mental‑cognitive conceptualisations and reconceptualisations, which are strategically profiled, as well as the surface of articulation and perception of the material form of the text.

The aim of the article is to analyze court decisions in terms of the ways they make use of the methodology of corpus linguistics. With this aim in mind, the following text properties have been examined: the way the information about the source of the corpus is provided in the rulings of Polish courts, what problems reported in the rulings were solved with the use of corpora, and what comments on the use of corpora are found in the examined documents. The analysis of court decisions shows that they often lack information necessary to identify corpora. There is also no mention of the assumed rules for data collection. The corpora are used primarily in the qualitative perspective but the correct application of quantitative methods may allow generating more objectified data helpful in assessing the linguistic material.

The following research section outlines the general communication foundation of Polish police slang and with a scrutinized exemplification of real‑life examples thriving among the police slang users. Both: members on the force units along with individuals associated with these are fervent police slang initiators and users, which makes this slang’s variant barely known to the general public. This paper presents and discusses two sociolinguistic themes. ONE: a selection of motives that drive slang users when employing slang vocabulary in practice; TWO: a presentation of Polish police slang’s major thematic fields which this vocabulary convers when used in context.

A monograph on the German reception of Witold Gombrowicz’s work remains a research desideratum even today, even though this reception was the very beginning of Gombrowicz’s literary world career. The author identifies the main actors such as translators, editors, literary critics and historians of literature as well as the main milestones of the career. Zybura’s research is generally based on the unpublished correspodence, part of he bequest of the German Slavist Heinrich Kunstmann (1923–2009) compiled at the Willy Brandt Center for German an European Studies at the University of Wrocław.

Saša Stanišić (ur. 1978), niemieckojęzyczny pisarz o bośniacko-serbskich korzeniach, w 2023 roku otrzymał Literacką Nagrodę Europy Środkowej Angelus za powieść Skąd (Herkunft). Celem niniejszego artykułu jest osadzenie twórczości tego autora w kontekście pejzażu literatury środkowoeuropejskiej rozumianej jako wspólnota oparta na kulturze, opisywanej m.in. przez Milana Kunderę czy Olgę Tokarczuk. Tłem dla rozważań jest motyw budowania opowieści w oparciu o historię mówioną, poszukiwanie korzeni i pogodzenie się z trudną przeszłością, a także fragmentaryczne narracje o cechach baśni – motywy często występujące w twórczości wielu dotychczasowych laureatów Angelusa, tj. Swietłana Aleksijewicz, Martin Pollack czy Péter Esterházy.

The aim of the article was to reveal the attitudes found in the latest Polish poetry; attitudes regarding national identification. Preliminary research shows that so‑called “engaged poetry” emphasizes a sense of human brotherhood, with little trust in tribal identity. In the poems of such oriented artists, “Poland” and “Polishness” appear rather as faulty and not very reliable goods. Why is it like that? This is the basic question the author tried to answer.

In this essay, the author analyzes the essayistic and literary criticism of an outstanding contemporary poet, Piotr Matywiecki. For this poet, the interpretation of poems is a mission and a vocation, work that creates a poetic community. In reading, he emphasizes the metaphysical background of poetic works and the awareness of ethical values established by them. In his analysis of poems, he begins with admiration and ends with a broad philosophical perspective into which he writes the discussed poetry. In this approach, the poem becomes an independent entity that draws the reader into a conversation, reorganizing the order of the known world. Intuition, voice setting and posture begin the process of reading, while erudition as the ability to evoke resonant sources deepens and expands it.

The aim of this article is to examine the development of the fairy‑tale opera (Mächenoper) at the Wrocław Opera. One libretto based on folk tale is examined in detail: Little Red Riding Hood. The article also touches on twelve libretti that were based on other fairy tales or a fairy‑tale material or composed as operatic texts for children and premiered at the Wrocław Opera between 1945 and 2020. The paper also attempts to define the poetics of a fairy‑tale opera libretto at the Wrocław Opera.

The present paper cosists of two parts. In the first part, the Sanskrit stotra literature is briefly characterised. Part two contains an analysis of a hymn of praise addressed to the god Brahmā (Kum. II 1–16). This hymn contains elements characteristic of laudatory hymns, that is, paying homage to the deity (namas), mentioning his name at the beginning, emphasising his nature, function and extraordinary achievements. This is the purpose of the epithets used to describe Brahmā. There is no request or prayer addressed to the deity in the hymn, because the stotra in question is a form of worship of the god with a philosophical background.

The topic of the article is the image of family relationships presented by contemporary Austrian playwrighter Catherine Aigner in her drama Welt ohne Tage. The author, adopting a psychoanalytic perspective, consciously gives up the typical contemporary Austrian drama accounting trend in favour of focusing on what is important for contemporary people recipients of general human problems. The author of the article also discusses Polish theatrical reception of this drama, contributing to research on contemporary Austrian drama, pointing to one of the important tendencies of its development and showing its interpretative potential at the same time.

Marius von Mayenburgʼs plays provide a critique of contemporary society, which is replete with violence and conformity. The playwright refers to the so‑called ‘new realism,’ and also incorporates elements of the post ‑dramatic theatre. Biblical motifs in contemporary literature, including German literature, have recently lost their popularity; however, they have not disappeared altogether. They continue to be a source of inspiration for artists across various domains. Marius von Mayenburg is no exception, as he fearlessly incorporates and reinterprets these motifs, harnessing their universal messages in his plays. This paper aims to trace biblical motifs and determine their function in three well‑known plays by the author: Parasiten, Märtyrer and Mars.

Martin Pollack, one of Austria’s most recognizable contemporary intellectuals, takes up family themes in his literary works, which are inextricably linked to the tragic and brutal events of the twentieth century. Pollack’s biological father, Dr. Gerhard Bast, a high‑ ranking SS and Gestapo officer, was prosecuted for war crimes after World War II. The stepfather, like the writer’s grandparents and uncles, did not renounce Nazi ideology until his death. Tabooization, denial and a conspiracy of silence were the methods used by the writer’s mother, stepfather and grandparents in the face of childhood questions about his active father during the war, in an attempt to relativize the concept of crimes and responsibility for them. Pollack built an image of his father based on conversations with witnesses to his crimes, analysis of archival documents, as well as information received from interested, often anonymous readers. The image thus created had to replace memories of the father he never met. Gerhard Bast was thus an example of the so‑called absentee father, who, due to his military and political involvement and the subsequent need to escape justice in post‑war Austria, did not participate in the upbringing of his biological son. Hans Pollack, the author’s stepfather, remarried his mother, actively participating in the upbringing of the future writer. Thus, here we have an example of the realization of two types of fatherhood, characteristic of the first half of the 20th century: an absent biological father and a legal father who assumes parental responsibilities. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the literary image of the realization of the above‑mentioned models of fatherhood (legal and biological) in selected works by Martin Pollack.

The following article discusses the letter written by Ludwik Szczepański to Karl Kraus. In this letter, the Polish writer and journalist draws the attention of the Austrian satirist to two texts published in ‘Neue Freie Presse’. They depict the heroic acts of the Polish legionnaire – Stanisława Ordyńska, which, according to Szczepański, did not take place. Analyzing the content of Pole’s letter, the author refers, not only to the aforementioned texts published in ‘Neue Freie Presse’, but also to the article by Szczepański published in ‘Ilustrowany Kuryer Codzienny’ (Illustrated Daily Messenger). The editor of the Cracow daily journal addressed issues such as uncritical reception of the content published in the press, journalistic integrity, and the style of the articles pertaining to wartime events. The author shows that these were particularly important subjects for Kraus, discussed repeatedly in the pages of his journal ‘Die Fackel’. The author wonders about Szczepański’s intentions behind writing the letter to the Austrian.

In this article, the author leans into the points of contact between Heinz Piontek and Peter Handke. They are, at first glance, different writers. However, dedicated to Handke and his text Das Gewicht der Welt, Piontek’s essay of the same title is thought‑provoking. The writers had several facts in common; the article addresses the problem of common acquaintanceship and friendship, as evidenced, among other things, by Piontek’s correspondence, mutual reactions to each other’s work (mostly Piontek’s reaction to Handke’s creative transformation in the 1970s), and, finally, points of contact in creativity – the intertextuality of the writers’ works and their attitude to tradition, using the example of their relationship with J.W. Goethe.

The article focuses on the issue of “gaining a voice” in women’s literature from the second half of the 20th century. Starting from an attempt to recreate the probable method created by the writers, creating the possibility of revealing one’s inner “self” and extracting women from silence and quietness. An analysis focused on the role of “writing space” and everyday objects in women’s writing is undertaken – with particular emphasis on the metaphorical wall, which seems to be the key to understanding selected texts written by women.

Paul Maar is one of the most influential contemporary authors of German children’s and youth literature. The paper presents the work of this versatile artist adopting various genres and literary forms, also addressed to adult readers. Maar seems to move away from social‑critical realism in favour of the emotional participation of the young reader in the inner experiences of the protagonist. A clear example of this very trend is the analyzed novel Eine Woche voller Samstage, celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first publication, which over years has become a long‑seller in Germany. Its major character, Sams, is often referred to as “Pippi’s younger brother”.

Hans Marchwitza (1890–1965), writer and proletarian poet, was born in Scharley near Beuthen in Upper Silesia. Marchwitza worked as a miner before turning to the left‑ wing journalism in the 1920s. An outspoken communist, he fought against right‑wing forces that overthrew the Weimar Republic in Germany. In August 1940, after the German army occupied France, the writer was held in a camp in Marseille. From there, in June 1941, he went to Ellis Island and sought entry to the United States. He was one of more than thirty German émigré writers who were granted asylum in the United States, thanks largely to the involvement of American leftist writers. Of the more than two hundred applications by German writers, dozens of them, mostly prominent ones, were subjected to surveillance by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). While in America, Marchwitza self‑ published two volumes of poetry, “Untergrund” and “Wetterleuchten. Gedichte. A collection of anti‑ fascist poems” (New York, 1942). Most of the reportages and short stories collected in the volumes “In Frankreich” (1949) and “Unter uns” (1950) containing memoirs and notes from the life of a miner in Silesia and the Ruhr region, as well as selected life stations from his stay in France and Spain. The writer returned with his second wife Hilde Stern to a defeated Germany in 1946.

Authors of this article analyze the autobiographical short story by Hermann Hesse, The Patient (Kurgast), where the writer recounts his therapeutical stay in the Swiss health resort, Baden. The stylistic device, which dominates in this work is a satire and self‑irony, unusual in previous works of the author of Steppenwolf. This stylistic trick also appears in the autobiography published two years later; The Nuremberg Trip. In both texts Hesse is critical about certain forms of culture in Baden. He mocks the attitudes of patients who indiscriminately accept the cultural offer of the Swiss resort.

Victor Duruy is a well‑known figure of French science. A professor of history at renowned Parisian schools, the minister of education of Emperor Napoleon III and a reformer of secondary education. In 1860, at the invitation of the hospodar of Wallachia, Prince Bibesco went on a journey from Paris to Bucharest. At the request of Edouard Charton, editor‑in ‑chief of the magazine “Le Tour du monde” (Around the World), his peregrinations were published in this journal in 1861 and continued in 1862 and 1863. The accounts were translated into Polish and published in the Warsaw weekly ‘Wędrowiec‘. He was an attentive observer of the everyday life of inhabitants. He was interested in everything that was happening around him, even how people dressed , whether they wore traditional costumes, and what fashion was like in big cities. There are no thrilling adventures, no chilling descriptions. This is the usual journey of a distinguished scientist who mostly describes what he saw. The article presents the journey of Victor Duruy in France, Germany and Austria in detail. Duruy described in detail the historical events of the regions visited, their monuments, as well as their residents. His descriptions will interest both historians, art historians, geographers, ethnographers, and sociologists. In France, he visited Champagne, Lorraine, Alsace in Germany, Baden‑Württemberg and Bavaria in Austria, upper Austria, with its capital city Linz, and Vienna. He travelled by train and steamer, he was not satisfied with either of these means of transport, he strongly criticized them. He did not prefer technical novelties, he preferred to move by stagecoach and sail a river on a sailing ship. He didn’t like most of the monuments in Germany or Austria. He admired only the passing landscapes. Accurately – as befits a historian, he describes all kinds of skirmishes between the French and the German. His reflections are sometimes not fair, it is probably related to the memories of many wars between these countries. “Wędrowiec” does not contain all his accounts, the latest describes the imperial city of Vienna. A full account of the trip from Paris to Bucharest was posted in a French magazine. The articles in both, the French magazine and the one published in Warsaw, contain a lot of black and white woodcuts by Dieudonné Auguste Lancelot

The article is based on the memories of prof. Tadeusz Kielanowski (1905–1992), a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine of the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv and his employee in the interwar period, and a doctor in Lviv hospitals during the war. The personal experiences of a medic from Lviv are shown in the article in the historical and social context of the war and the Soviet and German occupation of multicultural Lviv, as well as dating back to the interwar period – important for later events. These contexts particularly concern Polish‑Ukrainian ‑Jewish relations, especially in relation to the medical community. Among the many threads of Kielanowski’s memoirs, an important place is occupied by issues concerning medical attitudes towards national antagonisms and various conflicts, as well as the ethos and role of a doctor during the war – as the author perceives them and tries to implement them. The article discusses, among others: issues regarding the specificity of the medical profession in the conditions of war reality. Do the principles and obligations arising from medical ethics influence the doctor’s preservation of his humanity during various conflicts, especially armed conflicts? Is the doctor’s role then limited to professional duties, or do they in some way determine his attitude, activities and life choices?

The subject of the article is an analysis of the legal regulations introduced in the Third Reich by the Act of October 4, 1933 on editors. It regulated not only the requirements for candidates applying to be entered on the list of editors kept by the German press association, the rules of practicing the profession of editor, association membership in this profession, but also criminal liability in the event of violation of the provisions of the Act. The importance of this legal act is manifested primarily in the fact that it was one of the key elements of the NSDAP policy to unify German public life. The aim of the act was to consolidate the press market and to create a loyal group of journalists who would carry out their tasks in the manner provided for in the act, and subordinated to the current party interests. The achievement of this goal was achieved, inter alia, by guaranteeing social and personal security to journalists loyal to the party. In addition, the press was given fundamental importance in the process of building a state and a totalitarian society, redefining the tasks of mass media and the concepts of freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Despite the efforts made and subordination to the party’s public opinion, the controlled media did not enjoy the recognition of readers. The decline in the number of newspapers sold has led to the collapse of many publishing houses. The end of hostilities and the abolition of Nazi legislation also resulted in the abolition of the provisions regulating access to the profession of editor, which did not apply from May 23, 1949.

The reportage Journey to Poland (1925) by Alfred Döblin is the result of the author’s journey across Poland in the autumn of 1924, during which he visited several cities, including Lublin. The text shows two interpenetrating realities on the ground of the Polish state reborn in 1918: Polish and Jewish. For Döblin, an assimilated German Jew, a visit to Poland was an opportunity to come into contact, in principle for the first time in such an intensive way, with the Jewish religion and culture with which he was so fascinated. In his travel diary, he describes various elements of religious life – including the appearance of temples, the way of wearing talit, the course of liturgy, the description of Jewish festivals and cemeteries. In most of the descriptions, Döblin’s admiration for Jews manifests itself primarily in the fact that they were able to preserve their religious identity and live in harmony with the Polish community.

Abstract The question phrased in this article’s title finds a positive answer in the following substance. In the first part of article there was made an attempt to define a term “ars rhetorica”, which happened to be methodologically problematic. However, it is not impossible, although rhetoric can’t be limited by boundaries established by commonly used division of science fields. Then research projects led by linguists of the Wroclaw University’s Institute of German Philology has been analyzed in the context of a problem phrased in the beginning of this work. The analysis allows one to notice an engagement for methodological, analytic and theoretic possibilities of rhetorical research amongst the scholars. Reflection of what has been mentioned above is being found in the outline of linguistic‑rhetorical bibliography, attached to this work.

Almost 45 years ago, at the beginning of the 80ties of the 20th century, a young graduate of German Studies at the University of Wrocław, became an assistant of Dr. Eugeniusz Tomiczek, later professor and director at the Institute for Germanic Studies (Instytut Filologii Germańskiej). Tomiczeks scientific interests had lay in the field of sociolinguistics; so he invited his new assistant to this field of study. The start of it was a Polish‑German comparative research on the language use in newspapers. The corpus for it consisted of articles from the central press organs of the ruling parties in the German Democratic Republic and in the Polish People’s Republic: Neues Deutschland and Trybuna Ludu. The topic was: military vocabulary in the press language. The author started his work in the spring of 1981, and in December of that year, the Martial Law was introduced. Encouraged by his supervisor, the author continued his research, supposing however that his text would possibly become ‘unpublishable’ in these circumstances, due to the strong military censorship. And so it happened… Because the conclusion of this research was: it was not the Polish newspaper under General Wojciech Jaruzelski, that military vocabulary excessive had used; on the contrary… Now, after many decades, this article (somehow expanded) can finally be published: in honour of Professor Eugeniusz Tomiczek

The article examines the use of formulaic expressions in foreign language instruction as a significant and beneficial goal. The assumption is made that native speakers do not fully utilize the creative potential of the language and instead tend to speak in idiomatic formulations, referred to as “chunks” or formulaic expressions. Building on this premise, the foundational theory of formulaic language is presented. Subsequently, didactic suggestions from the specialized literature are discussed. The article advocates for an intensive incorporation of formulaic expressions in foreign language didactics.

The book brings the Polish reader closer to the specialized scientific discourse conducted within the scope of works published in English within the domain of anthropological linguistics. Both authors are interested in making the described research subject more accessible to the Polish reader. They describe various models of linguistic and cultural atrophy, which can be very useful as a basis for further work, for example, in the study of language acquisition, linguistic loss and language death phenomena. The book can serve as a basis for classes on language contact and on endangered and minority languages as well. It organizes and systematizes the existing knowledge of anthropological linguistics, while at the same time being a manifestation of the theoretical views of the authors, who thoroughly discuss selected issues often relying on their extensive field research experience.

In the article, the boundaries of politeness and impoliteness are addressed. These are selected examples of the communicative acts in which both polite and impolite linguistic behavior can be interpreted opaquely. At the same time, an attempt is also made to establish a typology of such communicative acts using the example of German pseudo‑compliments and mock insults.

Doctor rating portals are a relatively new online phenomenon that allow doctors to present themselves and patients to publicly rate doctors. According to statistics, the evaluation process is positive in most cases, with the most relevance being the critical reviews that endanger the image of a particular doctor and have a negative impact on potential patients. In this context, the focus of the article is on the complex speech act of CRITICISING. The analysis is based on the typology of CRITICISING according to Hanus (2018). The aim is to determine which methods of CRITICISING appear in the doctor’s evaluations and how they are implemented linguistically.

The following text presents a little‑known fact from the history of Silesian‑German literature: the relationship between the writers Gerhart Pohl and Carl Hauptmann. Pohl (1902–1966) – first and foremost a prose writer, but also a playwright, publisher, reader, columnist and prominent member of writers’ associations – is known in literary circles primarily as an acquaintance, biographer and a kind of “guardian of memory” of the other Hauptmann brother, the Nobel Prize winner Gerhart. A closer examination of the sources, however, reveals Carl Hauptmann’s significant role in Pohl’s literary legacy and biography, as well as the great esteem in which Pohl held Carl Hauptmann. Firstly – Gerhart Pohl mentions the novel “Einhart der Lächler” as one of the main inspirations for taking the literary path. Secondly – Pohl’s first meeting with Carl Hauptmann takes place more than a decade earlier than Pohl’s meeting with Gerhart Hauptmann. Finally – Pohl considers Carl Hauptmann to be a precursor of Expressionism, as well as the author of the greatest German‑language book of the Rübezahl. The source material for the following analysis are Gerhart Pohl’s texts about Carl Hauptmann from his journalistic and occasional texts and essays.

In this paper, the role of landscape depictions in Theodor Fontane’s war books and in their “autobiographical by‑products” is addressed. These are primarily the war history works Der deutsche Krieg von 1866 (The German War of 1866) and Der Krieg gegen Frankreich 1870–1871 (The War against France 1870–1871), and the related travelogues Reisebriefe vom Kriegsschauplatz [Böhmen 1866] (Travel Letters from the Theatre of War [Bohemia 1866]), Kriegsgefangen. Erlebtes 1870 (Prisoner of War. Experience 1870) and Aus den Tagen der Okkupation. Eine Osterreise durch Nordfrankreich und Elsaß‑Lothringen 1871 (From the Days of the Occupation. An Easter Journey through Northern France and Alsace‑Lorraine 1871). The article discusses and analyses the different function of landscape depiction in the works of both groups; in the case of the war book Der deutsche Krieg von 1866, the illustrations contained in that publication, created by the graphic artist Ludwig Burger, are also addressed.

Jürgen Fuchs (1950–1999) was one of those GDR‑born writers, whose biographies were not only shaped by the SED regime, but which also successfully de‑formed it. He was one of the few individuals who eloquently and unwaveringly exposed the taboos and mechanism of the totalitarian state. Fuchs’s literary oeuvre is a testimony of his times as well as a confrontation with the communist regime and its legacy in the form of the Stasi records. Coloured autobiographically and saturated with his own life experience, his writing takes the reader on a shocking journey into the time of the second German dictatorship, allowing them a look behind the scenes of the (post) socialist society. At the same time it brings about a realisation that as an intellectual Fuchs felt obliged to interfere whenever it was necessary to prevent violence, lies and forgetting about the past. The article presents West Berlin as a site of Jürgen Fuchs’s literary and political emigration. It outlines his life experiences related to the search for identity and discusses literary texts created in the new reality.

At the turn of the 20th century, the territory of Poland was divided among Prussia, Russia and Austria. Despite serious political problems, literary and artistic life blossomed in two largest centres of Polish culture, Krakow and Lviv, which then belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy. The paper analyses Karl Kraus’ Die Fackel, the only literary journal in the Austrian Empire that attempted to present the Viennese intellectuals with the samples of lavish Polish culture of that time. The study shows that Kraus’ choice fell solely on the texts originally published in German, i.e. the works of Przybyszewski and Rittner’s theatre criticism. Kraus also mentioned his close friend Janikowski, a journalist from Krakow’s bohemian circles, but did not refer to his works. Die Fackel clearly failed to present the full spectrum of Polish modernism, mainly due to a language barrier and lack of German translations. From the perspective of early 20th century Vienna, Polish literature seemed peripheral.

The aim of the paper is to commemorate the life and work of the talented painter Gerda Stryi, born in Katowice in 1905. She graduated from the Academy of Art in Wrocław. Her teachers were well‑ known artists – Otto Mueller and Oskar Moll. At the beginning of her career she travelled to Norway, France and Southern Europe (Italy, Corsica, Greece) together with her husband – Erich Leitgeb, who was also a painter. After Hitler’s seizure of power, she was banned from exhibiting her works and had to make a living by designing stage decorations. After the Second World War, she was expelled from her domicile and found a new home in Wiesbaden. Like many artists, poets and writers from Lower and Upper Silesia who were forced to emigrate after 1945, she joined the art colony in Wangen im Allgäu. She remained artistically active until shortly before her death and regularly took part in various exhibitions. She died in 1992 at the age of 87. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Stryi’s death, a special exhibition is held at Haus Schlesien in Königswinter with the aim of bringing her artworks back into the public eye. Keywords

How the pacifist poet Max Herrmann‑Neisse experienced his town during the war can be seen in his letters to his bride Leni Gebek and to his friend and teacher at a Neisse Primary School Friedrich Grieger. Unfortunately, the fragmentaily preserved correspondence only lasted until March 1917, when Herrmann left Neisse and moved to Berlin. The writer exposes everyday life in his by the military shaped hometown, problems with food supplies, information on cultural events such as the theatre repertoire or the exhibition of Upper Silesian artists taking place in Nysa in 1916. However, above all, the correspondence reflects the writerʼs profound disappointment at the affirmative attitudes towards the war, presented both by the inhabitants of Neisse and representatives of the literary scene with whom the writer had collaborated before the outbreak of the war.

Wolfgang Templin (born in 1948) was active in the democratic resistance in the former GDR. He co‑founded the party Bündnis 90 in reunified Germany and was writer and author of history books. In the conversation with Marek Zybura (born in 1957) —the Chair of History of Literature and Culture of Germany in the Willy Brandt Centre of German and European Studies at the University of Wroclaw—Templin discusses the origins of his Piłsudski biography (2022), which is being published in the Polish translation by Bellona in Warsaw.

Poitevin‑Saintongeais and Bourbonnais are two oïl languages, bordering the Occitan area, and more precisely the Marchese Croissant. Even though a few interesting works do exist, including Paul Duchon’s book, serving here as our basis for comparison, this latter language remains scarcely known and academically understudied. The main points of convergence between Poitevin‑Saintongeais and Bourbonnais, as well as a brief presentation of the characteristic of the latter constitute, therefore, the core of this article. The question of oïl historical influence on the evolution and construction of the oc dialects in the contact and transition areas is also succinctly discussed.

The aim of the paper is to discuss trends (in genres, authors, translators, publishers, target languages, publishing strategies and publication formats) in the translation of Polish literature in Spain over the last ten years and to compare the results to the situation from the previous period. The database of the Spanish Ministry of Culture as a source of information was used. The analysis shows that in the last ten years the interest for Polish literature in Spain continued to grow and a certain inclination to edit Polish popular literature can be observed. The new trend is the expansion of graphic genres, children’s and non‑fiction literature. The paper lists the names of published authors (including new surnames from the top ten), publishing houses editing Polish literature and the most prolific translators.

In the article, the authors present the certification procedures for interpreter candidates in Poland and in the United Kingdom, Austria, and Germany. Such interpreters are called, depending on the country, sworn translators, public service interpreters, or court‑certified interpreters. The examination procedures in Poland, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria have been analyzed, particularly examination conditions (e.g., thematic scope, exam duration, length and type of texts to be translated, educational requirements, access to and type of translation aids), examination evaluation criteria (e.g., language skills, translation skills, fatal error), and the pass rate. In addition, the oral part of the sworn translator examination in Poland has been compared with the certification procedures for interpreter candidates in the United Kingdom, Austria, and Germany, and the solutions in this regard have been evaluated. The analysis of foreign examinations has allowed us to suggest modifications to the format and assessment of the oral examination in Poland, which, despite the changes introduced in 2018, still does not entirely align with the practical aspects of interpreting by sworn translators.

In 2019, the Polish Society of Sworn and Specialized Translators and Interpreters (TEPIS) published a new set of rules titled “Professional Code of the Sworn Translator and Interpreter”, thus replacing the previous Code of the Magdalena Łomzik Sworn Translator and Interpreter. With the introduction of the sworn translator examination in 2004, interest in certified translation and, consequently, the number of various publications dealing with both the theory and practical aspects of pursuing the profession of certified translator has grown. Unfortunately, these publications have not yet been brought in line with the 2019 rules. Therefore, when these publications are used, it is necessary to compare their content with the new recommendations. The article presents the most significant amendments to the recommendations on how to produce certified translations, comparing them with the previous version of the Code. The analysis aims at describing the types of amendments made and at assessing their impact on the use of other sources of knowledge in this field.

The aim of the article is to provide an insight into the problems faced by candidates for sworn translators of German associated with the correct application of formal rules for the production of certified translations. The material to be analysed consists of 30 translations done by trainees preparing for the sworn translator examination as part of an online course. The theoretical part includes a brief characterization of certified translation and a description of the formal rules governing its production. The empirical part analyses the translations of candidates in terms of compliance with the formal requirements. Finally, the analysis carried out is summarised and conclusions are presented.

On the basis of many years of experience as a sworn translator in Germany and Poland, the author describes the role of comparative law in the translation process. After presenting an outline of multifaceted competences that a sworn translator should have and after showing how the lack of them affects the correctness of translations, the author explains the essence and development of comparative law. The practical part includes terminological, linguistic, and cultural examples demonstrating the scope of applications of comparative law in the sworn translator’s work.

The article discusses the use of a translation project as an alternative form of a Bachelor’s thesis and a Master’s thesis in the Department of Translation Education, a unit of the Institute of English Studies at the University of the National Education Commission in Kraków. After a few preliminary remarks devoted to a thesis project, of which a translation project is a type, in the light of statutory and intrauniversity regulations, the author presents the theoretical assumptions of project‑based learning, especially in the context of a thesis project. Next, he outlines the requirements that must be met by a Bachelor’s thesis project and a Master’s thesis project in the Department of Translation Education. He then characterizes the subject matter of Bachelor’s and Master’s projects that have been completed so far and discusses three of each in greater detail. Finally, in order to understand why a translation project is attractive to Bachelor’s and Master’s thesis writers, he examines key features of the project that may contribute to its popularity.

The aim of the article is to analyze the modern technological solutions within the context of translation classes after the Covid-19 pandemic. For that purpose, the author describes authentic teaching experiences gathered while instructing students how to use modern digital tools. Furthermore, the impact of the post‑pandemic reality on higher and secondary education institutions as well as the current market situation are considered. The author takes into account the relationships between the factors mentioned above and the post‑editing of machine translation. Finally, the article discusses a teaching experiment based on the post‑editing of a machine translation by students during a translation class and suggests a few conclusions for teaching post‑edition.

Faced with the unprecedented challenges brought about by the Covid 19 pandemic, it has become necessary for educational institutions to rethink how they can provide quality education in radically changed circumstances. The rapid transformation from the traditional classroom to a distant learning environment became a necessity overnight, also in academic teacher education of German as a foreign language. In this article, the author shares her personal experience of teaching German to third‑year full ‑time students and discusses effective strategies for planning, creating, and delivering remote courses on the Moodle e‑learning platform. The focus is particularly on utilizing the open‑source web conferencing system BigBlueButton for video conferencing.

The principal objective of the article is to present the complementary education method with an e‑ learning component, using the Practical Russian course taught during the first year of foreign language studies as an example. As part of the course, conventional classes were supplemented with computer‑assisted learning. The study describes the most important elements that were taken into account when designing the course, such as the recipient’s profile, the selected distance learning model, the role of communication in the teaching process, and the structure of individual modules. The article also presents the motivation for the choice of the asynchronous mode for classes and describes the types of resources and activities used during the course. In order to introduce new vocabulary, phrases, and grammar material, a teacher can use the Page module. It enables the placement of text, pictures, audio recordings, references to external websites, and displayed elements directly on the platform. As part of particular thematic blocks, text materials in a foreign language were accompanied by audio materials, which made it easier for students to practice pronunciation as students repeated sequences of words or sentences after the teacher. With a view to practicing language skills, the Test module was used to create various types of questions, multiple choice tests, matching tests, and short answer tests. The above function enables automatic assessment of answers and the instant transfer of test results to both students and the teacher.

According to the current core curriculum, the development of intercultural competence should start as early as at kindergarten level. The article discusses intercultural competence in the context of foreign language teaching in kindergartens and shows how this competence should be developed at this level of education. One of the possible methods of developing intercultural competence in kindergartens is through telling stories. The method that includes the purposeful use of stories, fables, or tales in teaching a foreign language is called the narrative method. The article briefly presents the three‑ phase methodology used in the narrative method and illustrates it with an example of a story that has been adapted for educational purposes to be used in a German lesson to develop intercultural competence of kindergarten pupils. The article also includes examples of different activities which can be used in German classes for enhancing pupils’ intercultural competence. The advantages of the development of intercultural competence at an early age are manifold: it is likely that kindergarten pupils will be aware of the differences between their home culture and foreign cultures, that in the future their beliefs will not be based on prejudices and stereotypes, and, finally, that they will be tolerant, open to foreign cultures and, consequently, open to foreign languages.

The article demonstrates how the short story Der Mann, der Luft zum Frühstück aß by Radek Knapp can be utilized as a teaching tool to enhance intercultural competence. The purpose of using literary texts written by Poles in German is to develop intercultural competence of learners. In the first part, after outlining the main assumptions of the intercultural approach and after discussing the role of literary texts in foreign language classes, the short story author’s profile and the content of the short story are presented. The main part of the article focuses on the way the first chapter of the short story can be designed for learners from the B1+level.

The aim of this article is primarily to outline the specification and complexity of the discourse that is the song translation, with a specific focus on the translation of literary song. The song translation is a clash of two dominants – semantic and melic; both equally occupying a priority place in the hierarchy of the foundations of translation. This raises the question of whether the song translation should be treated as a subcategory of the literary translation or as a separate entity requiring specific translational competence, knowledge of extra‑ linguistic fields (e.g., musicology), and clarified educational methods. The author also draws attention to the problem of identifying the song translator. Given the fact that artists who are not in any way related to the field of translation studies are also referred to as song translators, the author once again makes quibbles about the classification of song translation as a subcategory of literary translation. A seemingly uncomplicated problem, when taken apart, begins to take on a form that requires further research in the field of the literary song translation in order to precise its characteristic features, main principles, and frameworks that would facilitate the work of the song translators.