Who Belongs to the Family? About a Difficult Answer to a Seemingly Easy Question

Pazio-Wlazłowska, Dorota

doi:10.31724/rihjj.51.1.6

Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, Vol. 51 No. 1, 2025.

Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.6

Who Belongs to the Family? About a Difficult Answer to a Seemingly Easy Question

Dorota Pazio-Wlazłowska orcid.org/0000-0001-8858-8432 ; Instytut Slawistyki PAN, Warszawa

Full text: polish pdf 659 Kb

versions

page 213-232

downloads: 333

cite

APA 6th Edition

Pazio-Wlazłowska, D. (2025). Who Belongs to the Family? About a Difficult Answer to a Seemingly Easy Question. Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, 51 (1). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.6

MLA 8th Edition

Pazio-Wlazłowska, Dorota. "Who Belongs to the Family? About a Difficult Answer to a Seemingly Easy Question." Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, vol. 51, no. 1, 2025 https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.6. Accessed 17 Aug. 2026.

Chicago 17th Edition

Pazio-Wlazłowska, Dorota. "Who Belongs to the Family? About a Difficult Answer to a Seemingly Easy Question." Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik 51, no. 1 https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.6

Harvard

Pazio-Wlazłowska, D. (2025). 'Who Belongs to the Family? About a Difficult Answer to a Seemingly Easy Question', Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, 51(1). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.6

Vancouver

Pazio-Wlazłowska D. Who Belongs to the Family? About a Difficult Answer to a Seemingly Easy Question. Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik [Internet]. 2025 [cited 2026 August 17];51(1). https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.6

IEEE

D. Pazio-Wlazłowska, "Who Belongs to the Family? About a Difficult Answer to a Seemingly Easy Question", Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik, vol.51, no. 1, 2025. [Online]. https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.51.1.6

Abstract

Although the family − in spite of the dynamic changes in social life – is still very important for Polish linguoculture, defining universal criteria unambiguously, determining who belongs to it poses significant difficulties. It is impossible to draw up a closed, exhaustive list of its members. An analysis of the data − legal acts, tombstone inscriptions, lexicographical definitions and survey results − indicates a wide variety of parameters that may determine whether someone (human and non-human persons) is a family member. These include kinship, affinity, running a joint household, cohabitation, birth of a child, strong emotional ties, etc. The selection of the parameters depends on the particular situation and subject’s individual and subjective decision, which changes, among other things, according to the purpose of the inclusion, the subject’s intentions and his/her personal experience.