Page 55 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

Hans-Georg Gadamer49 should also be mentioned here. He claimed that language is a distinctive feature of human being in the world, and that understanding makes it possible to unveil the rational order of the human world through the analysis of both linguistic realities, the meanings and contexts existing in it, and linguistic communication determining interpersonal understanding50. The influence of language on the interpretation of reality was also described by M. Foucault, who believed that language is not a neutral representative of the world, but a factor constituting it, and at the same time determining the categories of thinking and the ways of perceiving reality51. His concept of knowledge showed the ontological connection between discourse and education and became the basis of many developed theoretical positions in discourse analysis, also in the present time52.
As Malmberg (1969, p. 91) writes, the shift to treating language as a means of expression and communication, and thus as a social phenomenon and cultural factor, gave the discipline a motivation that the Young Grammarians doctrine (German: Junggrammatiker) could not53. Generally speaking, it can be said that the shift of focus from the history of language and the study of the genetic relatedness of languages to the synchronic analysis of the language system and linguistic functions has made linguistics more "useful" from a practical point of view, but if the science depended only on the possibility of its practical use, it would quickly lose its strength and die a natural death54. Nevertheless, the Polish linguist W. Doroszewski (1962, p. 54) criticises this change, writing that de Saussure's doctrine can be understood as a double submission: to Durkheim55 – in terms of langue – and to Tarde56 – in terms of parole – as he states this is clear proof of the reflexivity of linguistics, as a submission to doctrines with a broader thematic scope. He goes on to add that linguistics is a science whose history consists of a constant overlapping of basic concepts derived from different sciences and in yielding to those disciplines that had more extensive, better-developed general problematics, in view of which he postulated that linguistics should work on its basic issues and the methodology related to them. The works of Doroszewski and the above-mentioned researchers were probably known to Rittel. In the first
49 H. G. Gadamer lived in Breslau (Wrocław) until 1919 and began his studies at the University of Breslau. Later he moved to Marburg to study (Gadamer, 2020).
50
Encyclopedia PWN, Gadamer, Hans-Georg, https://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo/Gadamer-Hans- Georg;3903496.html.
51 In: Szymańska, 2016, p. 25. Foucault, 1977.
52 Ostrowicka, 2017, p. 162.
53 A turning point in the development of nineteenth-century linguistics was the emergence of the Young- Grammarians school. It was founded in the 1870s in Germany, and its centre of activity was Leipzig. Young- grammatists were interested in historical-comparative research based on the law of exceptionlessness of phonetic rights and the concept of analogy. The introduction of the concept of exceptionlessness of vocal laws into linguistics was the result of the influence of natural sciences on this field. It was recognised that vocal laws are temporally and spatially limited (they act at a certain time and in a certain territory). After: Gawrońska- Garstka, 2010, p. 39.
54 Ostrowicka, 2017, p. 162.
55 Durkheim believed that it was he who succeeded in laying the lasting foundations for the edifice of sociology as a science with its own subject matter and its own methods, distinct from other sciences. He insisted that sociology was an independent and self-contained science and that his method was "independent of all philosophy". See Doroszewski, 1962, p. 89.
56 According to Tarde's conception, sociology was social psychology. The French thinker believed that human actions are interpsychic photographs that make the individual into the social. He studied the logical and extra- logical laws of human imitation. This approach was also criticised by other Polish scholars, including Leon Petrażycki, who regarded it as the result of the French scholar's one-sided and reductionist understanding of social reality, as well as Ludwik Krzywicki. Tarde also had supporters among Polish sociologists; he was supported, for example, by Edward Abramowski and Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz. Cf. Polak, 2015.
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