"Kto ja jestem, Polak mały i tczewianin zagorzały…" - Conceptualisation of community/communities in the works of young residents of the Kociewie region

Abstract

The goal of the article is to show the linguistic conceptualisation of the community in the works prepared by children and young people from Kociewie for an artistic competition. The analyses make use of Janusz Anusiewicz’s theory of cultural linguistics, as well as the concept of the linguistic and textual image of the world. The research also takes into account the point of view and perspective of the sender. The analysis of the linguistic material has shown that the conceptualisation of the community contained in the juvenilia is approached from two perspectives: the human community and the community of place. The textual creation of the former (concerning either a family or environmental community) is based primarily on the occurrence of the speaking subject most often in the 1st person plural and the use of the possessive pronoun our. There is also the use of value-laden lexis naming family traditions, as well as statements of a declar­ative nature. In the second perspective – the commonality of a person with a place – the use of the 1st person singular forms of verbs and the personal pronoun my predominates. This conceptualisation is characterised by a strong emotionalism expressed by a value lexis, defining the emotional states of the sender. In general, however, the repertoire of linguistic means used by the authors of the analysed juvenilia is modest.