Academic genres in teaching polish as a foreign language (with the example of a scientific article)

Abstract

The article aims to emphasise the teaching of utterances representing Polish academic genres, mainly on academic courses of Polish as a foreign language. A large group of learners consists of candidates to Polish universities and foreign students pursuing education in Poland. Being part of the Polish academic community they should be well prepared for the reception and production of genres of speech used in academic discourse. The article presents a genological analysis of a scientific article constituting the basic genre in this discourse. Considering the binding regulations and recommendations included in appropriate textbooks, the author proposes a description of the genre based on the genre theory of John Swales and the concept of the genre pattern of Maria Wojtak. The author recommends teachers of Polish as a foreign language to focus their students’ attention on all aspects of the pattern: structural, pragmatic, cognitive and linguistic, and also show them different variants of the genre: its canonic as well as alternative and adaptive forms. In spite of the high uniformity of utterances, the cultural environment and exponents of the genre should be highlighted.