Methods of Presenting Human-Animal Relationships in Texts from the 20th and 21st Centuries: Analysis of Materials from the National Corpus of Polish

Abstract

The aim of the article is to reveal how the human-animal relationship is reflected in real linguistic utterances made in Polish. 2,813 sentences from the National Corpus of Polish, in which the words człowiek / ludzie (person / people) and zwierzę (animal) co-occur, were analysed. On the basis of direct contexts, a dozen groups of sentences were distinguished, reflecting different ways of perceiving the relationship in question: from equating the two, through varying degrees of indicating the similarities and differences between humans and animals, to a clear emphasis on distinction between them. It was found that speakers most often indicate humans and animals as playing different roles — performers vs. recipients — in various activities and experiences. Speakers also often emphasise the strong similarities between humans and animals, particularly often referring jointly to both human and animal in their utterances, but as separate objects. Sentences equating humans with animals account for only about 8% of the analysed set.