Amatorskie promowanie gwary cieszyńskiej (wybrane formy, strategie, rozwiązania)

Abstract

AMATEUR PROMOTION OF THE CIESZYN DIALECT (SELECTED FORMS, STRATEGIES, SOLUTIONS) The paper focuses on the dialectological topics and problems related to sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics and psycholinguistics. It gives us insight into Cieszyn Silesia’s linguistic situation, especially in the Czech part of Zaolzie. It presents four social and individual activities, which aim to promote, support, and even revive Cieszyn dialect. The authors describe respectively: 1) testing knowledge of the dialect in form of quizzes, 2) promotion of the dialect across musical texts, 3) encouraging children and young people to use the dialect in a dialect contest, and 4) recording amateur vlogs, which are to enhance internet users’ language and national awareness. Internet and authors’ own remarks related to the official and unofficial social events are the sources of the language materials used in this analysis. Language and cultural development in society – as it is well known – heads toward unification that is increasingly difficult to resist effectively. The subjects responsible for promoting the dialect are eager to maintain the territorial dialect of the national language for future generations. Although they sometimes do it unprofessionally, linguists should be interested respectively in their efforts.