Zdzisław Wąsik

Professor at the Merito University in Wrocław & President of the Discipline Linguistics in the Research Federation of WSB–DSW Merito

Zdzisław Wąsik (born 1947) is a Polish linguist, semiotician and communicologist. Having departed from Germanic, comparative Indo-European, and general linguistics, he specializes recently in metascientific epistemology, mundane phenomenology, and philosophy of cosmology. At present he is employed as Professor at the WSB Merito University in Wrocław, and acts as President of the Scientific Council of the Discipline “Linguistics” in the Research Federation of WSB–DSW Merito Universities in Poland. His academic experience has been enriched by teaching at four universities in Wrocław, Opole Poznan, and Torn, as well as at three vocational schools of higher education in Silesia. He has publicized his own 7 books and 143 articles, and (co)edited 35 collective monographs on the structural typology of questions, the semiotic paradigm of linguistics, the ecology of languages, and the history of general linguistics. Out of his scholarly output, widely distributed are his two books Epistemological Perspectives on Linguistic Semiotics (Frankfurt am Main 2003), From Grammar to Discourse: Towards a Solipsistic Paradigm of Semiotics (Poznań 2016), 1 article “From signs of language and culture to semioses of life: Appreciating Tom Sebeok’s role in the building of global semiotics” (2021), and 2 chapters “Natural and cultural layers in the discursive becoming of language as a semiotic system” (2023), “Umwelt, Lebenswelt, Dasein & monde vécu – (de)constructing the semiotic cosmology of human existentiality” (2023). Among his 171 conference papers, 137 were delivered at the international forum, particularly in the USA, Yugoslavia (Kosovo), Brazil, Norway, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, and Belgium. At first as a regular participant and later as a member of the executive committee, he took part in 8 world congresses of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (Barcelona–Perpignan 1989, Berkeley 1994, Dresden 1999, Helsinki–Imatra 2007, Sofia 2014, Kaunas 2017, Buenos Aires 2019, Thessaloniki 2022. What is more, he was a frequent participant in 11 summer schools organized by the International Semiotics Institute at Imatra (1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012) and at Kaunas (2014, 2015, and 2016). Parallelly, as a Semiotic Society of America member, he presented his papers at its annual meetings (2011, 2015, 2017, 2019). He was also invited to give a plenary talk at the 8th Latin American Semiotic Congress in Bogotá, Colombia (September 2017). Against the background 20 (co)organized workshops, panels, and symposia, worth mentioning are the last ones, namely Ecosemiotic Paradigm for Nature & Culture (Mikołów, Poland, July 2018), Eco-Communicology & Worldview Crisis (Powsin-Warsaw, Poland, July 2020) and this year, Ecophenomenology & Complex Systems Adaptation (Powsin-Warsaw, Poland, August 2024). In recognition of his worldwide engagement at the scientific and organizational levels, he was elected Fellow of the International Communicology Institute (ICI) in Washington, DC, USA (2005) and subsequently nominated a member of the ICI Bureau and Director of the Regional Coordinators for Europe (2009). The confirmation of his leadership role in the activities of professional and social associations as well as outstanding research productivity was the nomination to the fifth ICI Laureate Fellow (2018).