Cieszyn i Český Těšín. Oblicza dwujęzyczności po polskiej i czeskiej stronie granicy

Abstract

Af ter a concise introduction to the topic (the division of Cieszyn Silesia in 1920, traditional multi-ethnicity and multilingualism of the region, Czech language policy, Polish minority institutions and clubs in the Czech part of the Zaolzie region), the author devotes her attention to the specifics of current linguistic communication in public places. She is particularly interested in the quality of both languages (based on written and spoken communication, of ficial and unof ficial language), who and why is the recipient of the Polish language on the Czech banks of the border river Olza, for whom and for what purpose the Czech language is intended in the Polish part of the formerly homogenous city. The presented linguistic material is authentic; the author analyses it in terms of the linguistic means used (lexical borrowings from foreign, non-Slavic languages and their declension, the creation and use of diminutives, the knowledge of interlingual homonymy) and also graphical means (the shape of letters, the spelling rules), as well as the pragmatics or cultural context of the texts. The article attempts to answer the following questions: how bilingualism is ref lected in the overall appearance of both cities and how it dif fers on the Polish and Czech sides.