Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies has been operating since 1995. It is a non-profit association which contributed to public welfare and gathers people who want to act selflessly on its behalf. We organise scholarly conferences, run a publishing house, and publish two scholarly journals.
The name of the Society draws on the Latin saying tertium non datur (there is no third possibility). Involved in studies of human communication we think otherwise, however, that is tertium datur, for, we believe, there is no perfect text, no error-free translation. On the other hand, the task of specialists in the field of theory and practice is to make sure that texts and translations are written in a language that is more and more correct, precise and flexible, capable of expressing the changing extra-linguistic reality.
The main objective of Tertium is to promote knowledge of what language is and what linguistic communication is among the academic community and beyond. The Polish language is in contact with other languages on a daily basis, hence our interest in translation. Language and translation are fascinating because there is no perfect text or translation that cannot be better adapted to the context. Using language in communication, including writing texts in a native or a foreign language, is therefore a creative activity - even in the era of the Internet and computer-aided translation tools.
Currently, many texts appear in Polish (as well as in translation into foreign languages) the linguistic form of which is imperfect, not only for stylistic reasons, but also for basic communication purposes - the message of such texts reaches their addressees with difficulty or not at all. And yet in today's conflict-shaken Europe, communication between people and nations has a key task - hence our interest in intercultural communication, as well as anthropological linguisticswhich searches for the sources of cultural differences in language.
Understanding in the public sphere is often salvaged by humour of language users, hence one of the central aspects of our activity is the study of humour on the European and even global scale. And the public sphere also means communication in the (multilingual) school or university environment, hence one of our regular points of scholarly interest is methods of teaching foreign languages and translation..
