Authors
Anna Stanisz-Lubowiecka1; 1 SSEES, University College London, UK Discussion
The current opposition in Poland often criticises the Law and Justice party for its use of propaganda not too dissimilar from the communist period. Experts critical of the current governing coalition argue that both types of propaganda share a few features: polarisation, binarism, depreciation of political opponents, semantic manipulations, and the dominance of persuasive function of language. I intend to show that it is not just the propaganda that is similar in the two periods. So is its criticism. In this paper I am comparing language ideologies in the oppositional academic metalinguistic discourse in the period of authoritarian communism (Barańczak, Bralczyk, Głowiński, Karpiński) and during democratic backsliding (Antas, Kłosińska, Napiórkowski, Rusinek). In both periods, oppositional academic discourse relies on similar language ideologies to oppose authoritarian communism and right-wing populism, respectively. However, the “critical” language ideology observed in the period of democratic backsliding is more complete than in authoritarian communism, as it is explicit about what language should be like and how such language corresponds to liberal values and a liberal democratic regime. I argue that this discourse plays an important role in struggles over the desired type of the political regime and governmental ideology in Poland, contributing to the collapse of communism in 1989 and to the articulation of the liberal position in the ongoing culture war in recent years. 
