Word ethics. The results of a survey administered among high school students dealing with the rules of words’ usage

Abstract

I present the results of the study on the word ethics, which I carry out in a group of 78 students from Gdańsk high school. They are students of one class of the first and two second classes, which I teach Polish and ethics. Students, among other things, talk about how they understand the postulates of Jan Twardowski, whom I presented to them as my master of the use of the word, what is the ethics of words, or whether there is a need for a social discussion on this subject. I finish the brief discussion of the results of the study, pay attention to the linguistic sensitivity of young people, an interesting decalogue of the users of words, which they put together in the study summary, but also notice the phenomenon of permissibility for the presence of profanity in everyday language. I express, however, the hope that the language of the future will be primarily a tool for building bridges of understanding - not a knife of struggle with the Other.