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Vol. 69 No. 4 (2025): Symbolic Boundaries in Social Communication

Articles and essays

Symbolic Boundaries in Decommunization Discourse: Analysing the Media Coverage of a Conflict over Renaming of Jan Piechocki’s Street in Bydgoszcz

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35757/KiS.2025.69.4.3
Submitted: February 25, 2025
Published: December 12, 2025

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of media discourse on a dispute over the renaming of Jan Piechocki’s street in Bydgoszcz. The case study aimed to answer the following questions: how are symbolic boundaries constructed in decommunization discourse in Poland, and how do local media construct these boundaries (specifically, what position do they take in a memory dispute, which stakeholders are able to voice their opinions, and what are their stances on this specific case of renaming and how do they justify them)? It also examined how specific discursive strategies contribute to the sharpening or blurring of these symbolic boundaries. For this purpose, the author used the analytical toolkit of the Discourse-Historical Approach to analyze discourse strategies occurring in local media articles and to present their linguistic realizations. He found that local media rejected the conservative, binary approach to decommunization and expressed their involvement in the defense of Piechocki as the street’s patron, illustrating this conclusion with a careful selection of quotes.

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