Lexical Determinants of Cultural-Social Differences in Zygmunt Kałużyński’s Film Reviews

Abstract

The material basis of this article is the selection of Zygmunt Kałużyński’s film reviews titled Kanon królewski. Jego 50 ulubionych filmów (‘Royal Cannon. His 50 Favourite Movies’) (2005), previously published in the weekly magazine Polityka. Thanks to this critical analysis of media works, this film journalist-cum-reviewer plays the role of a re-constructor of cultural awareness and a guide through world cinematography, acting as an intermediary in the reception of films.

The principal notion used for ordering and describing the sample material in this article is the difference in the usage of the lexeme culture, based on the definition by Jadwiga Puzyna, namely: 1) the specific dominant aspects of spiritual and cultural life for a whole society in a given era; 2) acts in the semiotic space; 3) the behaviours of certain social groups and the norms that determine them.

The cultural us–them opposition is, in Zygmunt Kałużyński’s texts, specified by using syntactic expressions that imply the belonging to a social and/or national group, especially when the differences explained by the critic present native cultural delays in comparison to the West. In the case of presenting the specifics and the contribution of Polish culture to world cinematography, lexemes that directly identify nationality are used.