Dlaczego bronię kultury słowa?

This paper is a polemic response to the text by Bogdan Walczak titled Aksjologia a językoznawstwo (Axiology and linguistics), where the author objects to linguists pursuing the ethics of the word and the culture of the word, which comprises its components. Yet Puzynina points to the high popularity of studies on various elements of the ethics of the word in the Polish linguistics of the past three decades. The author of this paper finds the fact that Bogdan Walczak persists in his conviction that linguists should observe the principle: “the only object of linguistics is language considered in itself”, which is characteristic of structuralism, the major cause of his reluctant attitude towards the ethics of the word. The author, in turn, is an advocate of interdisciplinary studies of language in action in applied linguistics, which permit evaluation and advice regarding the ethics of linguistic communication. In the conclusion part, the author introduces numerous quotations proving the significance of ethics in the individual and the community life. In her opinion, they might serve as aid for the linguists who recognize the need to study the ethics of the word, which plays an extremely important role in building a healthy human psyche and a healthy society.