Elżbieta Magdalena Wąsik

Educational career

She has got her basic education in the domain of German and Dutch general linguistics (1981–1986), along with the PhD in general linguistics (1995) from the University of Wrocław. Subsequently, she completed her habilitation at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in 2008 and received her D.Litt. degree.

Professional Experience

Having received her vocational MA degree in German with a specialization in Dutch on June 27, 1986 in the Institute of German Language and Literature at the Faculty of Languages and Literatures of the University of Wrocław, she got employed in the Department of General Linguistics, University of Wrocław, as Trainee-Assistant from November 15, 1986.

Subsequently, from November 15, 1987 she became Assistant, and from October 1, 1989 Senior Assistant.

She opened the procedure for her dissertation submission on June 22, 1993. She defended her doctoral dissertation Ecology of Minority Languages on the Example of Frisian (Ekologia języków mniejszościowych na przykładzie języka fryzyjskiego), written under the supervision of Prof. Dr. habil. Antoni Furdal, on November 23, 1995 at the Faculty of Languages and Literature of the University of Wrocław.

On February 15, 1996 she was promoted to the position of assistant professor.

With the beginning of the academic year 1999/2000, as a result of organizational changes in the faculty, she found herself in the Division of General and Comparative Linguistics of the Institute of German, University of Wrocław.

Since October 1, 2000 she has worked at the position of assistant professor in the School of English of the Adam Mickiewicz University, teaching on the ecology of Germanic languages and Frisian, at first in the Research Center for Dutch and Afrikaans, later on in the Department of Linguistic Semiotics, and at present in the Department of Old Germanic Languages, AMU.

She obtained her D.Litt. of humanistic sciences degree in general linguistics after the habilitation colloquium on July 7, 2008 in the School of English of the AMU in Poznań, on the basis of the habilitation dissertation Language – A Tool or a Property of Man? Towards an Idea of Ecological Grammar of Human Linkages (Język – narzędzie czy właściwość człowieka? Założenia gramatyki ekologicznej lingwistycznych związków międzyludzkich).

She is contracted as professor extraordinarius at AMU from September 1, 2011 until August 31, 2017.

She took part in the 13th and 14th Seminar on Language, Literature and Culture of Albania (August 15–30, 1987 and August 15–30, 1988 respectively) organized by the University of Pristina in Kosovo, then Yugoslavia.

She completed her scientific-research assistantship in the Frisian Institute of the University of Groningen granted by Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (February 1-June 30, 1990).

Teaching Duties

In her hitherto teaching activity, she has taught the following courses at the University of Wrocław:

Courses taught at Adam Mickiewicz University before habilitation:

Courses taught in the last years after habilitation – in the AMU School of English, now Faculty of English:

Scientific Achievements

Professor Elżbieta Wąsik has published 3 books:

She wrote 35 articles (including 3 communiqués and 2 reviews) as well as 31 abstracts in conference or congress materials and reports belonging to the domain of general and Germanic linguistics, Dutch and Frisian studies, philosophy of language and the methodology of linguistics, inter alia, on:

Her contribution to science has been noticeable in the following domains:

She has marked her presence on international conferences and congresses in Poland, Federal Republic of Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Belgium, Finland, Latvia and the United States. She has delivered 42 papers (including 35 on international meetings, 4 on national and 3 on local ones).

Academic Schooling

She is the supervisor of two doctoral dissertations. She has reviewed one doctoral dissertation. She has prepared one editorial review of a scientific article. She performs the duty of a scientific supervision of one doctoral student fulfilling the condition for opening the dissertation procedure.

Professional Memberships

Between 1987 and 2000 she was an associate worker of the Language Commission of the Wrocław Scientific Society.

Since 1989 she has been a member of the Polish Society of Linguistics, and since 1998 a member of Societas Linguistica Europaea.

On April 1, 2010 she was nominated a Scholar of the International Communicology Institute in Washington, DC on the recommendation of the Director and the Collegium of Fellows.

Since September 2011 she has been a Full Member of the Semiotic Society of America.

On May 21, 2012 she received a nomination (with Diploma and Medal) for Fellow of the International Communicology Institute in Washington, DC from the hands of Professor Richard L. Lanigan on the recommendation of the ICI Director of the Collegium of Fellows.

Organizational Achievements

In the field of cooperation with scientific partners abroad, she organized two scientific workshops within the framework of Poznań Linguistic Meetings (PLM):

1. The first one, co-organized with Oebele Vries from the University of Groningen, was held in Gniezno in 2009 and exposed the issues of the heritage of Frisian identity in language and culture. Thanks to contacts established at that time, she invited Professor Arjena Versloot from the Frisian Academy and the University of Amsterdam to conduct two sessions on Frisian in the academic year 2009/2010 and 2010/12.
2. Then, along with Professor Dr. Richard L. Lanigan, Director of ICI, she organized the Semiotic Self in Communicative Interactions workshop within the PLM on May 1–3, 2011.

In the following year, cooperating with Józef Zaprucki, PhD from the Karkonosze Higher State School in Jelenia Góra, she organized the symposium Semiotics of Belonging: Existential, Axiological and Praxeological Aspects of Self-Identity at Home and Abroad within the framework of the 27th International Summer School for Semiotic and Structural Studies, held in Imatra, Finland on June 8–12, 2012.

In 2013 she presented the results of her investigations into the linguistic self in communicative interactions at the international 6th ICI Summer Conference and First Annual Duquesne Conference, organized by Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 9–13, 2013.

Honorary Distinctions

In 2008 she received an Individual Award of the 2nd Degree for the achievements in scientific work granted by the Rector of Adam Mickiewicz University.

Biographical Listings

Her name was the subject of a biographical entry in the Golden Book of Humanistic Sciences (Złota Księga Nauk Humanistycznych) (Gliwice: Helion, 2012).

In 2013, she received an external nomination to present her Curriculum Vitae in the Marquis Who's Who in the World (A Who's Who in America publication of Reed Elsevier) encyclopedia.

She was nominated a Member of the „Leading Educators of the World 2013” by the International Biographical Center in Ely, Cambridgeshire.