Demokracja

This volume of the Leksykon aksjologiczny Słowian i ich sąsiadów [Axiological Lexicon of Slavs and Their Neighbours] concerns democracy and marks the next stage of work on the series. The first five volumes are devoted to important axiological concepts, examined on the basis of data from 15 to 20 languages: home (2015), work (2016), honour (2017), Europe (2018) and freedom (2019). Work on the Lexicon is a part of the research project EUROJOS (Europejski językowy obraz świata, European Linguistic Worldview), which since 2001 has been affiliated with the Ethnolinguistic Commission at the International Committee of Slavists, the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Linguistics and Literary Studies at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University. The volume contains parallel descriptions of the concept of democracy in 14 languages, including seven Slavic languages – Western (Polish, Czech), Eastern (Russian, Belarusian) and Southern (Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian) – and seven other European (Ancient Greek, Lithuanian, Danish, German, French) and non-European (American English, African Hausa) languages. In accordance with the principles of the Lexicon, all volumes share a common theoretical and methodological platform: they use the developed system of conceptual tools and a common and coherent methodology. These principles and methodology are described in the introductory article by Professor Jerzy Bartmiński, the founder of cognitive ethnolinguistics. Parallel semantic descriptions of the concept of democracy in different languages and cultures are based on a comparable set of data (sources): systemic (including dictionary data), survey and textual (including corpora). Linguistic material for individual articles was systematically collected before 2022. The descriptions of the concept of democracy made on the basis of data from different languages are not the final goal of the volume as the work involves the synthesis, comparison and identification of nationally specific and universal features of the concept. Such a synthesis is presented in the summary article: “Koncept Demokracja w lingwokulturach słowiańskich, europejskich niesłowiańskich i pozaeuropejskich” [The Concept of democracy in Slavic, European Non-Slavic and Non-European Languages and Cultures].