Gender-dependent language anxiety in Polish communication apprehensives

This paper analyzes the relationship between communication apprehension and language anxiety from the perspective of gender. As virtually no empirical studies have addressed the explicit influence of gender on language anxiety in communication apprehensives, this paper proposes that females are generally more sensitive to anxiety, as reflected in various spheres of communication. For this reason, language anxiety levels in communication apprehensive females should be higher, unlike those of communication apprehensive males. Comparisons between them were made using a student t test, two-way ANOVA, and post-hoc Tukey test. The results revealed that Polish communication apprehensive secondary grammar school males and females do not differ in their levels of language anxiety, although nonapprehensive males experience significantly lower language anxiety than their female peers. It is argued that the finding can be attributed to developmental patterns, gender socialization processes, classroom practices, and the uniqueness of the FL learning process, which is a stereotypically female domain.

Medici del corpo contro terapeuti della parola: una riflessione su medicina e sofistica

The aim of the present paper is to investigate the connection between ancient medicine and sophistry at the end of 5th century B.C. Beginning with analyses of some passages from the De vetere medicina (VM), De natura hominis (NH) and De arte, the article identifies many similarities between these treatises, on the one hand, and the sophistic doctrines, on the other: these concern primarily perceptual/intellectual knowledge and the interaction between reality, knowledge and language. Among the Sophists, Gorgias was particularly followed and imitated, as he was admired not only for his tremendous rhetorical skills, but also for his philosophically significant work On not being, which probably influenced various discussions in the Hippocratic treatises. However, if Gorgias argues in favor of language as dynastēs megas, the authors of VM, NH and De arte consider knowledge to be far more relevant and reliable than logos. These Hippocratic treatises criticize the philosophical thesis and the resulting kind of reductionism. Above all they defend the supremacy of medicine over any other art. By using the same argumentative and rhetorical strategies that were employed by Gorgias, these treatises reverse the thought of those Sophists who exalted only the technē tōn logōn.

Mit Ofelii we francuskojęzycznej literaturze belgijskiej doby symbolizmu.

Wydział Neofilologia: Instytut Filologii Romańskiej