Wybrane aspekty mowy nienawiści w Polsce

Abstract

The recent political and social events that took place in Europe made us all re-visit some of the basic assumptions of intercultural communication studies. According to the authors of this paper, most theoretical and empirical studies concerning intercultural communication seem to neglect the fact that some interlocutors are intentionally impolite and motivated by their racist and/or xenophobic views, which becomes visible in contact with representatives of other cultures, nationalities or countries. Such behaviour may take the form of physical attacks while linguistic performance may include verbal/nonverbal signs of interlocutors’ prejudiced attitudes. Poland is no exception here. It is our conviction that: 1) there is a dire need to define what hate speech motivated by racism and/or xenophobic attitudes is and what its features are and that 2) linguistic research on this phenomenon can offer a considerable step forward in this area. Since there are apparently no clear and precise criteria what constitutes an act of verbal and nonverbal violence in Polish, the authors of this paper aim at portraying its characteristic features on the basis of semi-formal interviews carried out with migrants living in Poland. The research took place within the RADAR project (Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism), co-funded by the European Commission, and conducted in six of the European Union countries.