Jacek Warchala

The essay covers the dialectics of silence–secrecy and speech; an apparent antinomy of silence and speaking is considered in various aspects: linguistic, philosophic, sociologic, religious and marketing; in this last aspect, the meaning of silence in advertising and public relations is discussed

The present article deals with the issue of text and textuality in such „unstable” and not-so-easy-to-grasp forms as advertising campaigns. The main contention of the article is that we need to reformulate the classical concept of text based on verbal transmission, and enhance it by taking into account visual elements as well as such formally indefinite phenomena as presuppositions and inferences. This is also implied by the necessity to reformulate the concept of intention and by the assumption that the text is always „text for a receiver”, or something that is contituted by the latter’s intention.

The article takes up the problem of changes in the modern literacy. The author discusses two factors impacting the metamorphoses of the modern culture of writing: a tendency to iconize the messages and the influence of colloquiality on the form of a written text. A modern text functions in new cultural conditions, dominated by iconicity and colloquiality as the principles shaping its cohesion; a tendency is observed to depart from the principle of text hypotaxis towards a parataxis of senses. This leads to changes in understanding and building of a text as a whole.

The article describes Walery Pisarek’s connections with the Silesian region. Two aspects are highlighted. Firstly, his work as a miner in a coal mine, where young Walery Pisarek was serving his sentence, imprisoned as a student for active involvement in an anti-communist resistance movement. Secondly, Professor’s ties with Silesian universities, when he was already working as a linguist and a media expert at the Jagiellonian University. His scientific merits made him honored with the title of doctor honoris causa of the University of Silesia. The article also presents Walery Pisarek’s opinion opposed to the controversial thesis that the Silesian dialect is a regional language – Walery Pisarek stated that from a linguistic point of view, Silesian is not a separate language, but a group of dialects.