Wpływ kontekstu na konotacje leksemów miasto i obywatel w przedwojennym białostockim tygodniku „Prożektor”

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to review the words miasto (‘city’) and obywatel (‘citizen’) in the context of the past and the present. The source material were selected issues of the political and social weekly “Prożektor”, published in Bialystok in the years 1925–1929. The discussed lexemes do not have negative values in dictionary definitions. Such values are given to them only when they are combined with suitable stylistic means such as epithets or metaphors. The vision of the world shown in the weekly seems to be colloquial, and the connotations of the words miasto and obywatel include the general opinion of the public. The analysis of the lexemes shows that there are social experiences reflected in shaping the meanings of words. Bialystok editors of the weekly “Prożektor”, which was published during the war, gave the word obywatel some ideological meaning, which still seems to be valid. The semantics of the word miasto seems to be unchanged and is associated with the development and modernity, also as well as with a place of corruption.