On the Theory and Practice of Witold Doroszewski's Linguistic Counselling

Abstract

Linguistic counselling has quite a long tradition in Poland. Witold Doroszewski had been its leading figure since the interwar period until the 70s. His cultural interests dealt with both counselling alone and its theoretical foundations.

The theory of Doroszewski's linguistics counselling may be divided into: some general statements about the essence and the theory of correctness of language, general directives of linguistic counselling, and particular criteria of linguistic correctness. He was the first among linguists who sought to describe and classify the latter criteria (Kryteria poprawności językowej in 1950).

Doroszewski's counselling practice is characterized by: a reflexive instead of categorical character of solutions, usual reference to the criterium of sense as a measure of correctness, asserting greater power of habit than logic in language, rich variety of aesthetic evaluations, defining without explaining, referring to one's own sense of language and to Słownik poprawnej polszczyzny which he was editing.

In the case of correctness with which he deals repeatedly, Doroszewski sometimes verifies his previous evaluations. He does this by extending his counselling with new examples or else with quotations from dictionaries, an analysis the problem from a different point of view and with reflections on his one sense of language.

The style of Doroszewski's counsels is plastic and suggestive. He is no alien to a metaphor and joke, or even malicious remarks. We often find remarks which bear a didactic, moralizing and even narrative tone.

The confrontation of his counselling theory with practice shows their certain incompatibility. It does not mean that there was something wrong in his activity. On the contrary, it shows phenomenon of this researcher within the discipline situated in the fringes of linguistics.