From the perspective of her own experience as the chairperson for the Central Commission for Degrees and Titles, the author provides a critical description of the state of academic development among academic teaching staff between 2011 and 2016. Alarming phenomena as far as academic promotions are concerned undergo an analysis in the context of social, political and structural changes, as well as institutional mechanisms on the ministerial level and at particular universities, taking into consideration the human factor.

The article discusses the issue of proper names defined as symptoms of culture. The first part is of a theoretical character and develops the theory of symptomatology of culture in the context of semiotics (Ch. Peirce), psychology and psychoanalysis (S. Freud and J. Lacan), and onomastics. Symptomatology of culture is a practice of interpreting a certain group of texts of culture and extracting common qualitative traits within them. This is especially in the case of those traits specific to them and often encountered, which could testify to particular serious and deeply-rooted social phenomena leading to their appearance. In the empirical part the author presents a way of using (onymic) symptomatology in practice to research modern culture. She uses the examples of popular psychological and auto-therapeutic guidebooks and treats them as linguistic symptomatic forms of the most significant linguistic and cultural phenomena along with their social causes and functions which are often dysfunctional or abnormal in character. The analysis comprises the most typical conceptual and syntactic constructions encountered in the group.

Aramaic receipts and title-deeds on clay tablets are formally distinguished in the 7th century B.C., although they are closely related juridical documents. Only two receipts are known at present and both have a triangular shape like loan contracts. Instead, titledeeds, often called sale acts, have a rectangular shape and are narrowest along the lines of writing. They are sealed on the upper edge of the tablet or in the upper part of the obverse. So far, there is only one Aramaic title-deed concerning a field and a second one fixing the boundary between two properties. Instead, four or five deeds concern the acquisition of persons, not necessarily slaves. Considering the state of the clay tablets and their somewhat inadequate edition, a new transliteration and translation of the operative parts of the deeds are provided below, omitting the lists of witnesses. Short comments are proposed also for the fragment of a title-deed dated in the 34th year of Nebuchadnezzar II.

The article focused on the place of feminized job/activity titles in the modern Ukrainian language, their perception and use. In particular, it contains analysis of lexicographical works which show the gradual increase in the number of such language units during the 20th – early 21st century within Ukrainian. This process has happened against the background of increased educational and professional opportunities for women. During that time feminized job/ activity titles have become so regular in the speech practice of Ukrainians that eventually they were introduced in dictionaries. However, for a long time these language units remained stylistically marked as ‘colloquial’ or ‘vernacular’. Scrolling through social networks shows that even today they are sometimes perceived as mocking or contemptuous words. The results of a poll illustrate that speakers associate them with feminist movements or political factors, but mostly recognize feminized job/activity titles as a manifestation of the synchronization of social and linguistic processes. Today, the main issues regarding feminized job/activity titles in Ukrainian are their further standardization and the possibility of neutralizing any stylistic colouring.

The theme of the description and analysis are the titles of stories in the collection „Na Skalnym Podhalu” by Kazimierz Tetmajer, as well as the title of the whole book itself. The aim of this description is to indicate the formal (syntactic) and semantic differentiation of titles, to present their stylistic and textual conditions and determine the function which they have in the structure of individual stories and in the whole collection. As far as the form is concerned, one can distinguish between double (3) and simple (36) titles. A considerable number of simple titles are in the form of a sentence (10), one title represents announcements (nominal sentences), the remaining ones (25) are the titles in the form of notifi cation. The most common and the most characteristic titles for that collection are the titles-sentences with a structure of Jak umarł Jakub Zych and determining announcements with a structure of O Wojtku cudaku. In terms of semantics, the titles of stories represent the basic type which is informative and descriptive one because they provide information on the content of stories: most often about main characters or plot themes, less frequently about the place of the action, theme or type of the text. One of the titles has an interpretative value. The titles occurring in “Na Skalnym Podhalu” strongly correlate with the style of texts in the collection, where the dominant principle is folklore. This principle is visible in the stylisation of the Podhale dialect and in the stylisation of a tale as the form of oral folk tale. Thus, the presence of dialect forms and dialect lexis as well as many proper names which were authentic lexically and often also denotatively, being connected with geographical and cultural space of the Podhale region and Tatra mountains. Furthermore, the pattern “O + miejscownik” (About + locative) referring to metatextual and pragmatic frame of oral folk tales also occurs very often. The titles of stories in the collection “Na Skalnym Podhalu” not only perform the typical delimitative, distinctive and identifying functions but also descriptive and — as in the case of the title of the whole book — integrative ones.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the distinguished properties of by-names as forms different from official ones, to analyze their structural and semantic features and to search for their historical evidence. By-names of Chinese places should not be defined as unusual and informal, since actually in many cases by-names are formal and very common in China nowadays. By-names are generally bestowed on important places (mostly cities) that win the public interest. Most of them have two structural parts, the front specific parts are determiners / qualifiers and the back ones are generics. The generics generally are: cheng 城 ‘town / city’, du 都 ‘capital’, jiang 江 ‘river’, shan 山 ‘mountain’, dao 岛 ‘island’ etc. The lexical meanings of lexical items forming specific parts of by-names mainly refer to animals, plants, minerals, local manufactured products, climate and natural scenery, geographical location, humans, areas, etc. Chinese contemporary by-names, used on various occasions, vary in frequency and stability. The by-names discussed in the paper only account for a small proportion and are listed just due to their relatively high frequency, stability and acceptability.

The purpose of this paper is both to present issues related to the interpretation of currently in force provisions on awarding degrees of doctor, habilitated doctor and the title of professor in the light of the Higher Education Law, as well as to attempt to reflect on whether a specific model of scientific promotion (career path) can be found in the analysed regulations. The issues seem to be of key importance for the practice of applying the latter, especially if one assumes that the supreme purpose of a particular model of scientific career is to ensure the highest quality of scientific research.

There may be circumstances where academic degrees or the title of professor are obtained deceitfully, i.e. in breach of copyrights or moral principles in science. Dishonesty in scientific research constitutes gross misconduct because it is executed in order to appropriate ideas, findings, collocations and theses of others, without accurate citation of the source. It also entails infringement of intellectual property rights. Scientific misconduct in ethical and legal aspect is explicit. It disqualifies the offender as a scientist. The unlawful act of obtaining an academic degree (Ph.D.) or the title of professor in such a deceitful manner, irrespective of how much time has passed, shall not make the resumption condition fall under the statute of limitations. Thus, it enables the reopening of procedures to deprive the person who deceitfully obtained an academic degree or title of this degree or title.