The public space of the Polish high school classroom and the space navigation category of the theatre: A communicative analysis performed for the needs of didactics and glottodidactics

Abstract

1 IntroductionThe paper portrays the Polish high school classroom as a public space, where one can apply the concept of the theatre as a laboratory. The theoretical background that will elaborate on the aforementioned idea discusses such issues as public space navigation and its types, the theatre as a space navigation category and the concept of the high school classroom as the workshop of communication. The research part of the paper attempts to establish to what extent the space under analysis, in which students are shaped as communicators, can be identified as the theatre-laboratory.2 Public space navigation and its typesPublic space, as a universal framework for communication, may be classified into categories which represent diverse operational backgrounds for communicative processes. The resulting spatial types designate different modes of navigating through public space that may be used by communicators. The classification by Puppel (2008) distinguishes such public space navigation classes as agora, forum, arena, home, lecture hall, temple and theatre (Puppel's categories of navigating through space are described by Bielak 2015:39-44). Significantly, the only common features the aforementioned types share are communicative resources, interactivity and communicativeness, aspects concerning navigation through public space being divergent. The agora signifies an unrestricted exchange of different thoughts. The forum is characterised by the application of very high communicative resources contributing to refined rhetoric skills, whereas the arena represents competition, i.e. a communicative war between different varieties of communicative resources. The temple stands for the type of space determined by ritual-oriented communication. The lecture hall represents an educational milieu characterised by broadcast transmission and directional reception (i.e. one of the language design features defined by Hockett 1963), whereas the home, being an elementary type of space, is responsible for developing communicators' cultural capital. Finally, the theatre constitutes a space rich in communicative means of expression which are subject to escalation. Since the spatial category of the theatre constitutes the underlying idea of the paper, the subsequent section will be devoted to the detailed presentation of the aforementioned space.3 Theatre as a public space navigation categoryThe theatre, as a public space, is determined by a number of ideas. One of them is 'imitation'. The above notion originates from the Greek term mimesis (i.e. copying). In Ancient Greece the concept in question was one of the primary aesthetic categories which determined the relationship existing between a piece of art and the outer reality. Originally, mimesis signified dancing, music and mimicry (the notion of mimesis had its roots in the rituals characteristic of the Dionysian cult). Further on, the term acquired a wider meaning and came to be used to refer to imitating reality by means of art. Firstly, mimesis pertained to drama and later on to music. With time its frame of reference became broader and began to include poetry and sculpture as well (Aristotle 1988; Auerbach 1968; Bielak 2015:42, based on Puppel 2008; Klosinski 1990; Mitosek 1997; Mimesis; Tatarkiewicz 1973:225-230).In Ancient Times, the most elaborate approach to mimesis was presented by Aristotle, who developed Plato's views on the concept under analysis. Both philosophers associated the meaning of mimesis with a mime, i.e. an actor who used gestures to express the emotions, feelings and actions of a drama protagonist. Notably, Aristotle approached the phenomenon of mimesis as the process of both creating new reality and presenting this reality by means of art. In consequence, artistic creations could not constitute mere acts of copying reality as each artist could present their own version of reality which had no correspondence to the real world. …