Abstract:
A linguistic-cultural approach” In its cognitive, cultural, and anthropological dimensions, semantics is not confined to the problem of how linguistic meanings fit into the narrow frames of definitions. It is also concerned with a description of the human understanding of the world – an understanding that is psychologically, biologically, and culturally motivated. Semantic analysis thus reveals “stories of the world”: “micro-narratives” and “grand narratives” inherent in word meanings. The goal of the present study is to discuss two grand narratives of the soul, central to the worldview of contemporary humans. Metaphysics and psychology give access to two criss-crossing perspectives, whose mutual permeation may (but need not) lead to a certain “rift” in worldview, an epistemological uncertainty. This is because each perspective differently defines the spiritual aspect of humans, each differently positions the soul relative to the body. Are these perspectives in conflict? Are we dealing, in conteporary Polish, with two distinct definitions of the soul, or do they tend to merge into an open definition, in response to human cognitive and epistemological needs? No pretence is made here as to the unequivocal solution to the problem; rather, a diagnosis is proposed of contemporary meanings, inscribed in linguistic-cultural narrations of dusza ‘the soul/the mind’, and bodility. On the theoretical side, the study is based on the linguistic worldview conception, the open definition model, and a narrational approach to semantics, derived from Jean-François Lyotard’s considerations of “little” and “grand narratives”. The analytical part will be based on Polish lexicographic and textual data.
