Słowa klucze polskiego dyskursu publicznego. Słowa dnia i słowa roku

The article analyses the notion of a keyword. Keywords of the public discourse are chosen on the basis of questionnaires, plebiscites or on the basis of usage frequency in newspapers. Both methods have been applied in the project of the University of Warsaw. Words of the day are statistically the most popular words appearing in daily newspapers. The words of the year are chosen by a jury of linguists from among proposals submitted by participants of the internet plebiscite announced on university websites. The article presents Polish words of the years from 2011, with the word of the year 2015 uchodźca ‘refugee’ (words with the same meaning have been chosen in many countries). The main question posed in this paper is whether ‘word of the year’ polls can shed light on the permanently valid keywords of national culture (as they are defined by Anna Wierzbicka, Jerzy Bartmiński or Walery Pisarek), or instead reflect one-off occurrences in the short-term story of current social events.