Table of contents

The history of Poradnik Językowy as a journal can be divided into a few periods:

1) 1901–1931: the Cracow period of the journal, with Roman Zawiliński as the editor-in-chief, addressed to a wide audience and dedicated to proper language use;

2) 1932–1939: the Warsaw period, with Kazimierz Król (1932), Witold Doroszewski (1932–1936, 1938–1939) and Stanisław Szober (1936–1937), who substituted W. Doroszewski during his stay in the USA, when the journal started to gain a more scientific character and its reach and rank increased;

3) 1948–1976: the period when the publication of the journal was resumed after the Second World War, uninterruptedly headed by Witold Doroszewski, as the most significant periodical for the Warsaw community of linguists dealing with Polish and a body of the Society for Language Culture (Towarzystwo Kultury Języka) (since 1971), a journal with a nationwide and international reach;

4) 1977–2008: the period when the journal’s policy continued to be pursued by Witold Doroszewski’s followers, who successively held the position of editor-in-chief: Mieczysław Szymczak (1977–1985), Danuta Buttler (1985–1991), Halina Satkiewicz (1991–2008);

5) 2008–2015: the period when changes as regards the journal’s organisation and policy were introduced to adapt it to new legal, economic, academic and generation considerations.

Slightly different time spans enable a description of the scientific outcome and the reach of Poradnik Językowy based on the still available bibliographical studies and preserved source materials.* The following chronological time spans emerge here: 1901–1970; 1971–2000; 2001–2015. The relevant and, at the same time, tangible variable data were: the number of authors (particularly in the “Papers” and “Papers and dissertations” sections), differentiation between the authors based on their background (authors from Warsaw, those from other academic centres in Poland, foreign authors), the number of Polish academic centres collaborating with the journal’s editorial board (resulting from the affiliation of authors whose texts were published in the journal), the number of countries (from which foreign authors came). These data are summarised in the table presented below.

Table

Variable data / Period 1901–1970 1971–2000 2001–2015

Authors 420 650 190

–Warsaw 190 250 70

– Other Polish academic centres 210 370 100

– Foreign academic centres 20 30 20

Polish academic centres 12 15 20

(excluding Warsaw)

Countries of origin of foreign authors 6 10 7

The figures presented above should be treated primarily as approximate data although – which deserves emphasising – ones clearly reflecting the proportions between the variables characterising the identified periods. It is necessary, however, to comment on these findings, as the periods distinguished with respect to the scientific outcome and the reach of Poradnik Językowy do not coincide with the key periods in its history as a journal. The following conclusions can be drawn at this point:

1) Throughout the 20th century, the number of authors whose texts were published in Poradnik Językowy grew gradually in all groups of authors: those from Warsaw, from other parts of Poland, and from abroad. This undoubtedly attests to a continuous increase in the journal’s rank, reach and popularity. What should be particularly emphasised in this respect is the dynamics at which the journal developed in the 2nd half of the 20th century, when it was headed first by Witold Doroszewski and then by his followers. In the Cracow period (1901–1931) and the Warsaw period (1932–1939), local authors prevailed, but it must be stressed that this group included outstanding linguists and humanists, i.a. Jan Rozwadowski, Jan Łoś, Kazimierz Nitsch, Józef Birkenmajer, Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński, Henryk Gaertner, Mieczysław Brahmer, Karol Estreicher (in the Cracow period); Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, Tytus Benni, Aleksander Brückner, Jan Bystroń, Witold Doroszewski, Adam Antoni Kryński, Stanisław Słoński, Stanisław Szober, Henryk Ułaszyn (in the Warsaw period). At the turn of the 21st century, a regress could be noticed (the number of authors decreased slightly in terms of proportion), yet the status of the journal increased again in the last decade.

2) Throughout the journal’s publication time, in particular since the Warsaw period (1932–1939), the number of authors writing for Poradnik Językowy from Polish academic centres other than the journal’s publication place has gradually increased: 12 → 15 → 20. As has already been mentioned, the number of authors from academic centres located outside Warsaw has successively grown, with the number of non-Warsaw authors being considerably greater than that of Warsaw ones in two of the periods in question (1948–1976, 1977–2008). This proves that Poradnik Językowy, which used to be a local publication – at first a Cracow periodical, and then a Warsaw one – has become a nationwide journal. In the last period, this has been obviously associated with the ranking system for scientific journals and the scoring system for the published texts, where Poradnik Językowy is now ranked high. Initially, the second most numerous group of linguists whose texts were published in Poradnik Językowy, following authors from Warsaw, were those from academic centres located in Cracow, Wrocław and Gdańsk, later – in Cracow, Lublin and Łódź, and now – in Cracow, Lublin, Poznań and Katowice. Apart from them, the following academic centres are represented: Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Częstochowa, Gdańsk, Gorzów, Kielce, Łódź, Olsztyn, Opole, Rzeszów, Siedlce, Słupsk, Szczecin, Toruń, Wrocław, and Zielona Góra.

3) From the resumption of the publication in 1948, throughout the 2nd half of the 20th c., there was a significant increase in the number of foreign authors writing for Poradnik Językowy. At first, this was due to international relationships established by the editor-in-chief, Witold Doroszewski, and his activities in international academic institutions (e.g. the International Committee of Slavists, the Committee for Atlas językowy Europy (The Linguistic Atlas of Europe), UNESCO, etc.), and hence papers written by linguists from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Yugoslavia, the GDR, and the USSR (e.g. R.I. Awaniesow, T. Bešta, E. Decaux, E. Eichler, F.P. Filin, V. Frančić, A. Habovštiak, P. Ivić, I. Lekov, S. Michałk, I. Nemec, J. Petr, H. Schuster-Szewc). These relationships were maintained by Witold Doroszewski’s successors: Mieczysław Szymczak and Danuta Buttler. Recently, a new generation group of authors has emerged, originating either from Polish communities abroad or from the circles of Polish universities’ graduates, representing countries such as: the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Canada, Lithuania, Sweden, Ukraine, Uruguay, Hungary, Italy. Authors from abroad have always accounted for a relatively small group, as Poradnik Językowy is a journal dedicated primarily to the Polish language. Nonetheless, their participation in creating the periodical proves the journal’s international reach, confirmed also by its registration in the European Reference Index for Humanities and in other online databases.

As the final conclusion arising from the data presented above, it should be recognised that the position achieved by Poradnik Językowy among Polish linguistic journals over the past 60 years, as regards both applied (exothematic) and theoretical (endothematic) linguistics, unambiguously makes its impact on the development of Polish language standards and knowledge of the Polish language probable. The course of the processes has been determined by the contents of the journal and the policy pursued by Polish state authorities with respect to language in various periods of the journal’s life.