1 Introduction
1.1 Obese People as an Excluded Group in Modern Western Society, Including Poland
Nowadays, the metaphor âobesity epidemicsâ is very common in media discourse. In light of this narrative, obese people are subject to stigmatization. Thus, obesity can be considered a discrediting attribute, according to Erving Goffman (1963), that causes people to go to extreme lengths to remove it (such as swallowing tapeworms, taking dangerous, life-threatening drugs like amphetamine, or undergoing bariatric surgery). Obesity is a visible, stigmatized trait that cannot be hidden. As Amy Erdman Farrel (2011, 5) points out, based on appearance, society draws far-reaching conclusions about the character of obese people (referred to by Goffman as character stigma), that they are unpredictable, lazy, gluttonous, and unable to control their primitive instincts. She also notes that obese people are not treated by society as fully-fledged human beings entitled to polite and respectful treatment. Farrell draws the following conclusions from these facts:
Drawing from Goffmanâs taxonomy, fat is both a clearly visible physical stigma and a character stigma insofar as people assume the presence of fat means something negative about the person. [â¦] More fundamentally, however, the political cartoons, advertisements, and physiciansâ writing I explored from the 19th century suggest that fat stigma is deeply rooted in the development of ideas about race, gender, and civilization. Fatness was a motif used to identify âinferior bodiesââthose of immigrants, former slaves, and womenâand it became a telltale sign of a âsuperiorâ person falling from grace. In todayâs term, fat, if it had a color, would be black, and if it had a national origin, it would be an illegal immigrant, non-U.S., and non-Western.
Farrel 2011, 7â8
Obese people in modern Western societies (including Poland) are undoubtedly stigmatized and excluded because of their appearance, which does not conform to beauty standards, i.e., a slim, athletic, shapely figure. Charlotte Copper (2008) claims that a certain model of obesity perception has been formed and is considered the only appropriate one. She summarizes it as follows:
Within this dominant model, fatness is contextualized as pitiful and/or many of the following: lacking in moral fibre, diseased, potentially diseased, greedy and lazy, not just ugly but disgusting, pathetic, underclass, worthless, a repulsive joke, a problem that needs to be treated and prevented.
Copper 2008, 2
In Poland, Maria Mamczur, the author of the book Gruba. Reportaż o wadze i uprzedzeniach âFat woman. Reporting on weight and prejudiceâ observes:
A fat person is worse. A modern whipping boy. You can still get back at them, relieve your frustration, and boost your ego. You can hate them, harass them, bring them down and humiliate them with impunity. Exclude. Because a fat person does not fit into the modern utopiaâthe beautiful world of eternally young, healthy and wealthy, to which most people aspire.
Mamczur 2022, 29; translation ours
Ewa Golachowska and Dorota Pazio-WlazÅowska (2023) used surveys to study how the Polish word grubas âfattyâ is perceived in contemporary Poland. Their results show that Polish people perceive those referred to as âfattyâ primarily in the physical aspect. The most salient element is their appearance, including body weight. Respondents most often indicate it as a feature that characterizes a fat person. Health, aesthetics, and acceptance are much less present in the semantics of the noun grubas, âfattyâ. According to the authors, for the stereotype of grubas, âfattyâ, the dominant aspect is physical, which is expressed in excessive body weight, greater than socially acceptable. In light of the collected survey data, this is the most entrenched semantic feature determining the conceptual center of the model of the fat person (Golachowska, Pazio-WlazÅowska 2023, 325â326). Dictionary data also show a very negative image of an obese person. As Dorota Pazio-WlazÅowska (2022) notes, according to dictionaries, a typical fat person is a large person who overeats, is clumsy and has difficulty moving, and is unattractive to the opposite sex. Anna Teler (2021, 107) emphasizes the prevalence of body shaming on social media such as Instagram and Facebook, a phenomenon whereby the body and its image become the subject of embarrassment, humiliation, and objectification due to weight, appearance, diseases, physical dysfunctions, or divergences from cultural requirements (e.g., hairy legs, cellulite).
1.2 Fat Activism
The excluded group of obese people, women in particular, has begun to develop an awareness of oppression and discrimination, which led to the creation of the social movements of body positivity, body neutrality, and fat activism.
According to Charlotte Cooper (2008), the fat activism movement in the US started in 1969 and consisted of three waves (the first one: 1967â1989, the second one: the 1990s, and the third one: starting in 2000). In June 1967, the first protest against the oppression of obese people took place in New York. Its participants burned diet guides and photos of the British model Twiggy.1 In the 1970s, a group called The Fat Underground âpublished a manifesto [â¦] on the inefficacy of dieting, discrimination at work, eating, health, psychiatry, sexism, eating disorders, public furniture, medical power, stereotypes, and humourâ (Cooper 2008, 9). This manifesto presented fat people as discriminated against and excluded in the same way as others are excluded due to classism, racism, sexism, ageism, capitalism, and imperialism (see Wójcik 2021, 386). More recently, an academic discipline called fat studies has emerged, which deals with social beliefs about human weight.
Kaja Wójcik (2021) writes that:
Body positivity and body neutrality are social phenomena whose manifestations have been visible in the media for several years. Although these concepts, and therefore the interpretations of corporeality behind them, come from activist circles in the United States, it seems that they also function with increasing success in Polish social reality and increasingly represent the norms and values of the young generation.
Wójcik 2021, 381â382; translation ours
Marta Woźniak (2021, 74) notices that the term body positive was created in 1996 by Connie Sobczak and Elizabeth Scott, who wanted to free the community from social messages that keep people in a constant state of struggle with their bodies. Woźniak (2021, 83) also reports that the term body neutrality appeared for the first time on the Internet in 2015 and was popularized by a fitness trainer, Anne Poirier. The premise of the body neutrality movement is to accept your body and think not about what it looks like but what it is capable of. These two social movements include obese people, but they are much broader because they also consider other body features that are not accepted in modern culture.
In Poland, the fat activism movement (referred to as grubancypacja) is just emerging. The novelty of this new way of thinking is proven by the fact that no Polish language dictionaries contain the expressions ciaÅopozytywnoÅÄ âbody positivityâ, ciaÅoneutralnoÅÄ âbody neutralityâ, or grubancypacja âfat activismâ. Only the University of Warsaw Language Observatory2 records the word grubancypacja, which was registered in 2023.
In the present paper, we want to analyze two words: gruby âfatâ and otyÅy âobeseâ in Polish-language discourse from the perspective of Polish fat activism, body positivity, and body neutrality. We concentrate on the re-evaluation of the word otyÅy âobeseâ (which is generally considered a medical term or a neutral word) and the reclamation of the word gruby âfatâ. Reclamation is defined by Mihaela Popa-Wyatt (2020, 159) as âtaking back control by targets of words used to attack themâ. She elaborates on this idea as follows:
A dominant group repeatedly deploys a slur as a linguistic weapon so as to achieve power over a target group. This weapon is a speech-act (the slurring speech act) which assigns a low power role to the target. In-group members can disarm this weapon by using the slur term to self-refer. By self-labelling in a non-derogatory way they create a new speech act (the reclaimed speech act) that is only accessible to in-group members. This new speech act assigns in-group members a powerful role. Creating and owning this new speech act also creates feelings of empowerment. Another effect of the new speech act is to make it harder for out-group members to use the slurring speech act.
Popa-Wyatt 2020, 160
Fat activism and fat emancipation discourse in Polish can be considered a part of a larger and more complex discourse on obesity, where various perspectives collide. It is worth noting that from the medical perspective, the body-positivity movement and the idea of fat liberation can cause concern. The line between obesity (as a disease) and just being fat (fat and healthy) is not clear; it depends on individual factors. The medical community insists that the belief that you can be fat and healthy is a harmful narrative that may harm people who have obesity (although they do not know about it or are not aware that obesity is a disease that requires appropriate treatment) and see a doctor too late.
In the first part of our text, we present data resulting from the quantitative analysis of our corpus. We analyze key vocabulary and the semantic prosody of selected lexical units with the highest keyness (e.g., gruby âfatâ, otyÅy âobeseâ, szczupÅy âslimâ, and otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ; see 2.1 and 2.2). In the second part, we discuss the lexical-semantic phenomena most characteristic of this discourse, like newly coined derivatives and discursively modified meanings of keywords, especially the adjectives gruby âfatâ and otyÅy âobeseâ, as well as their function in the discourse.
For our research, we have compiled a corpus of texts written from the perspective of obese people, called The Corpus of Fat People Discourse (henceforth: CFPD). The corpus contains 262,000 segments, and it consists of the following texts:
2 Methodological Framework
In this study, we use both quantitative research, i.e., corpus-based analysis, and qualitative research focusing on selected lexemes (gruby âfatâ and otyÅy âobeseâ). From the perspective of corpus research, we describe keywords characteristic of fat peopleâs discourse and the semantic prosody of lexical units with the highest keyness.
2.1 Keywords
In linguistics, keywords are words characteristic of a given text (author, style, genre, etc.). Pierre Guiraud (1954), who first introduced this term into linguistics, defined keywords statistically in relation to a single text: as words whose frequency in a given text by a given author is higher than in the language in general. Jadwiga Sambor treats keywords as âwords characteristic of a given text, author, style, etc.â but includes them in a broader class of thematic words (Sambor 2001, 519). In our research, the latest Corpus of Contemporary Polish (2011â2020)9 serves as a reference corpus.
The analysis of keywords in The Corpus of Fat People Discourse shows how certain words are re-evaluated or reclaimed (Popa-Wyatt 2020) by people belonging to a group that is socially excluded due to physical characteristics (overweight, obesity), who are often also activists of the body-positivity movement.
2.2 Semantic Prosody
Semantic prosody determines the character (positive or negative) of the examined lexical unit through the meaning of other words co-occurring with it. John Sinclair (1966, 87â88) described semantic prosody as a strictly pragmatic category, while Michael Stubbs (1995) called it semantic discourse prosody. Bill Louw (1993) believes that semantic prosody is a contextual phenomenon, a sort of secondary stylistic background of the basic meaning of the word. At the same time, semantic prosody is different from connotation. Alan Partington (1998, 68) argues that the difference between the two concepts is that connotation involves a single word, whereas semantic prosody is a meaning concerning a sequence of lexical units in a given utterance. Moreover, Louw (2000, 49â50) believes that connotation refers to the phenomenon when a given user hears a word and immediately associates it with certain mental images. Prosody, on the other hand, is based on the relationship between a lexical unit and its immediate environment. According to Louw (1993, 2000), whose concept we adopt, the semantic prosody of words is studied quantitatively using corpora. Semantic prosody is determined based on the collocations of a given lexical unit, and, according to Louw (1993), a binary division into positive and negative evaluations of the examined lexeme should be adopted. Therefore, we ignore neutral or unclear collocations in our analysis. When examining contexts, we follow Dominic Stewart (2010, 107â108) in analyzing five to six words to the left and right of the analyzed lexical unit.
2.3 Semantic Analysis of Expressions
In the part concerning the qualitative analysis of lexis, we focus on the description of the structure and meaning of new words (Waszakowa 2017), as well as on changes in meaning in the sphere of evaluative connotations of adjectives basic to this discourse (Puzynina 1988, 1992; Linde-Usiekniewicz 2000; Tokarski 2008). Following Bożena Witosz (2010), we assume that fat people discourse is an example of the discourse of the excluded, i.e., created by social groups aware of exclusion due to a certain characteristic (e.g., sexual orientation, gender affiliation, political views, religion, etc.). In this case, the reason for exclusion is the body and its visible features: size/volume/mass. Fat people discourse is a voice from inside the group, statements by people about themselves. They convey their point of view about their everyday experiences with the rest of society (with non-fat ânormalâ people) and take actions (also at the level of language and communication) that are intended to change this situationâto counteract discrimination and show the true, not stereotypical, face of fat people (Bielska 2020, 179).
3 The Analysis of the Corpus
The most frequent lexical items (15 adjectives, 15 nouns, and 15 verbs that occupy the top positions on the frequency list) in our corpus (CFPD) were compared with the Corpus of Contemporary Polish (2011â2020) (CCP) in an attempt to determine the keyness of lexemes belonging to three separate word classesâadjectives, nouns, and verbsâin the CFPD corpus. Tables 1â3 give the following information about a lexical unit: raw frequencies of a lexical item in the Corpus of Fat People Discourse (f CFPD) and in the Corpus of Contemporary Polish (f CCP), normalized frequencies in the Corpus of Fat People Discourse (nf CFPD) and in the Corpus of Contemporary Polish (nf CCP), log-likelihood ratio10 (LL) (Rayson and Garside 2000), and log ratio11 (Log Ratio) (Hardie 2014). We assume the critical cutoff point for statistical significance is at p-value < 0.05 (words that do not meet these conditions are marked in gray in Tables 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3).
Table 10.1
Keyness of the most frequent adjectives in the Corpus of Fat People Discourse
|
Lexeme |
f CFPD |
nf CFPD |
f CCP |
nf CCP |
LL |
Log Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
gruby âfatâ |
1 160 |
4 431 |
1 000 |
10 |
10 822.17 |
8.79 |
|
inny âotherâ |
472 |
123 |
156 502 |
1 565 |
8.99 |
0.20 |
|
prosty12 âsimpleâ |
459 |
1 753 |
41 747 |
417 |
615.08 |
2.07 |
|
duży âbigâ |
385 |
1 471 |
96 331 |
963 |
59.97 |
0.61 |
|
dobry âgoodâ |
303 |
1 157 |
92 581 |
926 |
14.00 |
0.32 |
|
caÅy âwholeâ |
234 |
894 |
106 557 |
1 066 |
â7.67 |
â0.25 |
|
ważny13 âimportantâ |
214 |
817 |
52 608 |
526 |
35.97 |
0.64 |
|
szczupÅy âleanâ |
213 |
813 |
1 843 |
18 |
1174.54 |
5.46 |
|
różny âdifferentâ |
209 |
798 |
36 338 |
363 |
100.92 |
1.14 |
|
wÅasny14 âmy ownâ |
185 |
707 |
50 996 |
510 |
17.66 |
0.47 |
|
otyÅy âobeseâ |
156 |
596 |
324 |
3 |
1252.13 |
7.52 |
|
spoÅeczny âsocialâ |
150 |
573 |
35 254 |
353 |
30.20 |
0.70 |
|
zÅy âbadâ |
143 |
546 |
31 394 |
314 |
36.66 |
0.80 |
|
piÄkny âbeautifulâ |
118 |
451 |
21 309 |
213 |
52.20 |
1.08 |
|
nowy ânewâ |
118 |
451 |
110250 |
1102 |
â129.87 |
â1.29 |
Table 10.2
Keyness of the most frequent nouns in the Corpus of Fat People Discourse
|
Lexeme |
f CFPD |
nf CFPD |
f CCP |
nf CCP |
LL |
Log Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
osoba âpersonâ |
1 163 |
4 443 |
92 880 |
929 |
1791.72 |
2.26 |
|
ciaÅo âbodyâ |
773 |
2 953 |
32 185 |
322 |
2034.55 |
3.20 |
|
rok âyearâ |
704 |
2 689 |
395 113 |
3 951 |
â118.64 |
â0.56 |
|
czÅowiek âhumanâ |
643 |
2 456 |
153 343 |
1 533 |
122.35 |
0.68 |
|
czas âtimeâ |
480 |
1 834 |
172864 |
1 729 |
1.65 |
0.09 |
|
kobieta âwomanâ |
450 |
1 719 |
68 957 |
690 |
282.07 |
1.32 |
|
życie âlifeâ |
372 |
1 421 |
112 261 |
1 123 |
19.09 |
0.34 |
|
zdrowie âhealthâ |
365 |
1 394 |
16 835 |
168 |
895.38 |
3.05 |
|
otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ |
358 |
1 368 |
510 |
5 |
3 084.92 |
8.07 |
|
badanie15 âresearchâ |
354 |
1 352 |
23 532 |
235 |
649.61 |
2.52 |
|
jedzenie âfoodâ |
325 |
1345 |
6660 |
67 |
1 272.42 |
4.22 |
|
temat16 âtopicâ |
292 |
1 115 |
35 088 |
351 |
274.01 |
1.67 |
|
waga âweightâ |
284 |
1 085 |
4 468 |
45 |
1 250.92 |
4.60 |
|
lekarz âdoctorâ |
275 |
1 051 |
19 555 |
196 |
474.51 |
2.43 |
|
dieta âdietâ |
274 |
1 047 |
3 385 |
34 |
1 329.97 |
4.95 |
The keywords show quite interesting tendencies in the examined discourse. The high keyness of the adjectives gruby âfatâ and otyÅy âobeseâ is not very surprising, but the high position of the adjective szczupÅy âslimâ is quite puzzling. Usually, this adjective appears as an antonym of the adjective gruby âfatâ. In the analyzed discourse, people are either slim people with privileges or fat people who are excluded and persecuted, as exemplified by (1)â(2):
Table 10.3
Keyness of the most frequent verbs in the Corpus of Fat People Discourse
|
Lexeme |
f CFPD |
nf CFPD |
f CCP |
nf CCP |
LL |
Log Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
móc âbe ableâ |
635 |
2 426 |
300 137 |
3 001 |
â30.82 |
â0.31 |
|
wiedzieÄ âknowâ |
429 |
1 639 |
132 338 |
1 323 |
18.22 |
0.31 |
|
mówiÄ âsay-V.IMPFâ |
363 |
1 387 |
152 871 |
1 529 |
â3.54 |
â0.14 |
|
musieÄ âhave toâ |
272 |
1 039 |
122 710 |
1 227 |
â7.95 |
â0.24 |
|
chcieÄ âwantâ |
255 |
974 |
154 110 |
1 541 |
â62.73 |
â0.66 |
|
myÅleÄ âthinkâ |
253 |
966 |
47 528 |
475 |
101.62 |
1.02 |
|
powiedzieÄ âsay-V.PERFâ |
211 |
806 |
102 722 |
1 027 |
â13.45 |
â0.35 |
|
powinien âshouldâ |
184 |
703 |
56 739 |
567 |
7.84 |
0.31 |
|
chodziÄ âwalkâ |
160 |
611 |
51 226 |
512 |
4.70 |
0.25 |
|
trzeba âmustâ |
151 |
577 |
55 251 |
553 |
0.27 |
0.06 |
|
czuÄ âfeelâ |
145 |
554 |
42 404 |
424 |
9.46 |
0.39 |
|
widzieÄ âseeâ |
138 |
527 |
62 332 |
623 |
â4.09 |
â0.24 |
|
wyglÄ daÄ âlookâ |
135 |
516 |
34 941 |
349 |
17.99 |
0.56 |
|
jeÅÄ âeatâ |
121 |
462 |
11 403 |
114 |
155.68 |
2.02 |
|
lubiÄ âlikeâ |
117 |
447 |
22 441 |
224 |
44.56 |
0.99 |
(1) Oto biaÅy i szczupÅy zbawiciel wjeżdża na salÄ kinowÄ uratowaÄ nas przed grubÄ MonicÄ , Schmidtem, czy Norbitem.
âHere comes a white and slim savior entering the cinema to save us from fat Monica, Schmidt, or Norbit.â
(2) CiaÅopozytywnoÅÄâraz jeszcze, niechże to wreszcie wybrzmiâpolega na zajmowaniu siÄ niwelowaniem nierównoÅci pomiÄdzy Åwiatem szczupÅych, a Åwiatem grubych.
âBody positivityâonce again, let it be heardâis about eliminating inequalities between the world of slim people and the world of fat people.â
The state of slimness is also something fat people aspire to, which is often their unfulfilled dream, see:
(3) Przez 20 lat byÅa gruba i nieszczÄÅliwa. OdchudzaÅa siÄ bez efektu. PotrzebowaÅa zmiany. âMiaÅam wrażenie, że siedzi we mnie piÄkna, szczupÅa dziewczyna, która chce siÄ uwolniÄ z tego dużego ciaÅa i nie możeââopowiada z goryczÄ .
âShe has been fat and unhappy for 20 years. She was trying to lose weight without any effect. She needed a change. âI had the feeling that there was a beautiful, slim girl inside me who wanted to free herself from this big body and couldnât,â she says bitterly.â
(4) Te chwile, sekundy, kiedy znów nienawidzÄ siebie i widzÄ w lustrze tÅustÄ ÅwiniÄ, a nie szczupÅÄ kobietÄ.
âThose moments, seconds when I hate myself again and I see a fat pig in the mirror, not a slim woman.â
The adjective duży âbigâ in many contexts refers to the fat body or body parts of fat people, see:
(5) No to jak w takim razie mówiÄ o dużych ciaÅach? Najlepiej byloby siÄ od nich odstosunkowaÄ, prawdÄ mówiÄ c, ale skoro już jest taka potrzeba, toâgruba.
âSo how can we talk about large bodies? It would be best just to leave them freaking alone, to be honest, but if you must, sayâgruby.â
(6) W tej wiejskiej otyÅoÅci jest jakiÅ rodzaj witalnoÅci. U Orzeszkowej w âNad Niemnemâ jest podobnie, panie z dworów sÄ ÅciÄ gniÄte gorsetami, w talii bardzo wÄ skie, natomiast dziewczyny z ludu sÄ mocno zbudowane, z dużymi tyÅkami, z dużym biustem, bo przecież istotna byÅa też kwestia wykarmienia dzieci piersiÄ .
âIn this rural obesity there is some kind of vitality. Just as in Orzeszkowaâs novel âOn the Niemenâ: the ladies from the manor houses are corseted to give them very narrow waists, while the commoner girls are strongly built, with big butts and large breasts, because the issue of breastfeeding the children was also important.â
The adjective inny âotherâ often emphasizes the opposition between âmeâ (i.e., a fat person) and people usually fitting into the modern canons of body shape. It usually describes situations when a fat person is judged and compared to people with a ânormalâ figure, e.g.:
(7) W wielu historiach pojawiaÅ siÄ także wÄ tek porównania do ciaÅ innych, czÄsto innych kobiet czy ideaÅu/kanonu atrakcyjnoÅci majÄ cy na celu wskazaÄ, że ciaÅa respondentek i respondentów nie sÄ prawidÅowe czy wrÄcz atrakcyjne.
âMany stories also featured the theme of comparison to the bodies of other people, often other women, or the ideal/canon of attractiveness, intended to indicate that the bodies of the respondents were not correct or even attractive.â
On the other hand, the adjective różny âdifferentâ often emphasizes the diversity of shapes, silhouettes, and bodies of women and men of different weights and figures.
(8) W narracji do filmu powstaÅego z tej okazji Riri nie tylko mówi o seksualnej inkluzywnoÅci, o tym, że każdy może siÄ czuÄ seksownie w swoim ciele i że jej bielizna jest dla różnych ciaÅ, ale potwierdza to obsadÄ tancerek, aktorek i modelek biorÄ cych udziaÅ w wydarzeniu.
âIn the narration of the film created for this occasion, Riri not only talks about sexual inclusivity, about everyone being able to feel sexy in their own body and that her underwear is for all sorts of bodies, but confirms it with the cast of dancers, actresses, and models taking part in the event.â
(9) PowiedziaÅabym jej, że zainspirowaÅa mnie do zrobienia wszystkiego, co w mojej mocy, aby uczyniÄ Åwiat bezpiecznym i peÅnym szacunku dla ludzi o różnych ksztaÅtach i rozmiarach.
âI would tell her that she inspired me to do everything in my power to make the world safe and respectful for people of all shapes and sizes.â
The set of keywords includes two antonymous adjectives: dobry âgoodâ and zÅy âbadâ. The adjective dobry âgoodâ often appears in phrases such as dobra figura âgood figureâ (i.e., slim), dobre intencje âgood intentionsâ, w dobrej wierze âin good faithâ, dobre praktyki âgood practicesâ, dobra rada âgood adviceâ, etc. The adjectives dobry âgoodâ and zÅy âbadâ are also used to emphasize the opposition between the world of fat people (bad) and thin people (good), e.g.:
(10) [W]prowadza to różnicowanie ludzi na dobrych i zÅych grubasów, czyli coÅ, [â¦] z czego za wszelkÄ cenÄ dotyczÄ cy ciaÅa dyskurs powinien wyjÅÄ na staÅe. Każde ciaÅo to dobre ciaÅo. Grube też.
â[T]his differentiates people into good people and bad fat people, which is something [â¦] that the body discourse should reject forever. Every body is a good body. Fat ones, too.â
(11) KtoÅ jest gruby, wiÄc jest zÅy, nieatrakcyjny, leniwy i caÅy zestaw stereotypów, które zostaÅy już przebadane, jakie sÄ przypisywane grubym ciaÅom.
âSomeone is fat, therefore they are bad, unattractive, lazy, and a whole set of stereotypes that have already been studied that are assigned to fat bodies.â
The adjective spoÅeczny âsocialâ presents a group of obese people in contrast to the rest of society or as people involved in creating a new social movement. It often appears in phrases such as życie spoÅeczne âsocial lifeâ, ruch spoÅeczny âsocial movementâ (about the fat activists), grupa spoÅeczna âsocial groupâ (about a group of fat activists), sprawiedliwoÅÄ spoÅeczna âsocial justiceâ, and wrażliwoÅÄ spoÅeczna âsocial sensitivityâ (the goals of fat activists).
The adjective piÄkny âbeautifulâ is used in two ways: either as a term for slim people or as a feature of all bodies, which fits in with the postulate of fat people not to equate beauty with slimness, e.g.:
(12) Kultura piÄkna i jej siostra bliźniaczka, kultura diety, mieszkajÄ na skrzyżowaniu. [â¦] Kogo widzisz, kiedy pytam jak wyglÄ da najpiÄkniejsza kobieta Åwiata? To generalizacja, ale wiÄkszoÅÄ z nas myÅli o mÅodej kobiecie, o jasnej skórze [â¦], dÅugich wÅosach, nogach do nieba, smukÅej ale zaokrÄ glonej w biuÅcie i biodrach sylwetce, peÅnych ustach.
âBeauty culture and its twin sister, diet culture, live at a crossroads. [â¦] Who do you see when I ask what the most beautiful woman in the world looks like? This is a generalization, but most of us think of a young woman, with fair skin [â¦], long hair, legs for days, a slim but rounded figure at the bust and hips, and full lips.â
(13) MusieliÅmy siÄ rozbieraÄ na scenie, do bielizny. OtwieraliÅmy siÄ przed publicznoÅciÄ , ale też przed sobÄ nawzajem. ZaczÄliÅmy bardziej akceptowaÄ nasze ciaÅa. Agnieszka chciaÅa pokazaÄ, że grubi też sÄ piÄkni. Å»e to nie jest tak, jak myÅli wielu, że grubas to jakieÅ miÄso i nic wiÄcej. Otyli majÄ piÄkne twarze.
âWe had to undress on stage, down to our underwear. We opened up to the audience, but also to each other. We started accepting our bodies more. Agnieszka wanted to show that fat people are beautiful as well. That it is not like many people think: that a fat person is just some meat and nothing more. Obese people have beautiful faces.â
In the analyzed discourse, what is striking is the high frequency of the nouns osoba âpersonâ, czÅowiek âman, humanâ, and kobieta âwomanâ, coupled with the very low frequency of the word mÄżczyzna âmanâ (only 101 appearances in the corpus). The noun osoba âpersonâ is often combined with the adjective gruby âfatâ. The high frequency of the word osoba âpersonâ clearly results from the authors of the texts consciously refraining from indicating gender. The noun czÅowiek âman, humanâ is used generically (e.g., Rozmiar czÅowieka w gabinecie lekarskim mierzy siÄ na różne sposoby âThe size of a person in a doctorâs office is measured in various waysâ) or as a synonym for osoba âpersonâ (without an indication of gender). The collocations gruby czÅowiek âfat man/person-N.SGâ, grubi ludzie âfat people-N.PLâ are also common. Despite consciously avoiding indicating the gender of obese people, in the corpus, the word kobieta âwomanâ appears four times more often than the word mÄżczyzna âmanâ. A large portion of these uses concerns survey research among fat people (interestingly, the overwhelming majority of respondents were women). However, there are examples in the corpus that show a belief that fat women are more excluded in society than fat men, e.g.:
(14) Na pewno to, co przeżywajÄ kobiety w kwestii fatfobii, różni siÄ od doÅwiadczeÅ mÄżczyzn. WiÄ Å¼e siÄ to z patriarchatem i konkretnymi oczekiwaniami wobec kobiecych ciaÅ, zmieniajÄ cymi siÄ w zależnoÅci od obowiÄ zujÄ cego kanonu piÄkna. OdstÄpstwa od niego majÄ negatywny wpÅyw na życie kobiet.
âCertainly, what women experience in terms of fatphobia is different from menâs experiences. This is related to patriarchy and specific expectations towards womenâs bodies, which change depending on the dominant canon of beauty. Deviations from it have a negative impact on womenâs lives.â
(15) [O]kazaÅo siÄ, że grube mÅode kobiety znacznie rzadziej wychodziÅy za mÄ Å¼. To byÅo dwadzieÅcia osiem procent w porównaniu do piÄÄdziesiÄciu szeÅciu procent szczupÅych kobiet. Ich dochód w gospodarstwie domowym byÅ o jednÄ trzeciÄ niższy, trzy razy czÄÅciej żyÅy w biedzie i o poÅowÄ rzadziej koÅczyÅy studia.
â[T]hey found that fat young women were much less likely to marry. This was twenty-eight percent compared to fifty-six percent of slim women. Their household income was one-third lower; they were three times more likely to live in poverty and half as likely to graduate from college.â
It is hardly surprising that the FPD corpus contains such nouns as ciaÅo âbodyâ, otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ, and jedzenie âfoodâ. Since one of the texts included in the corpus concerns the attitudes of health-care professionals towards fat people, the frequencies of the words zdrowie âhealthâ, życie âlifeâ, waga âweightâ, lekarz âdoctorâ, and dieta âdietâ are also high.
The noun ciaÅo âbodyâ often appears in the phrase rozmiar ciaÅa âbody sizeâ. It is quite interesting that the bodies of fat people are often talked about as if they were something separate from them, e.g., one of the survey questions for fat people is: What language does medical staff use to talk about fat bodies? The examples below clearly demonstrate this separation of corporeality from the actual person, see:
(16) Czy w Polsce, w kraju, który szczególnie nienawidzi wszystkiego, co odstaje od normy i jakkolwiek różni siÄ od Åredniej można wydaÄ ksiÄ Å¼kÄâpomnik doÅwiadczenia traumy i życia w grubym ciele.
âIs it possible to publish a book that would be a testament to the experience of trauma and life in a fat body in Poland, a country that particularly hates everything that deviates from the norm and differs from the average?â
(17) Ze wzglÄdu na krzywdzÄ ce przekonania o grubych ciaÅach, grube osoby, zwÅaszcza kobiety, wobec których oczekiwania dotyczÄ ce wyglÄ du sÄ bardziej restrykcyjne, pozostajÄ w zwiÄ zkach, które nie sÄ dla nich dobre i peÅne miÅoÅci ze wzglÄdu na strach przed pozostaniem samej, brakiem wiary przed znalezieniem innej szansy na romans i relacje.
âDue to harmful beliefs about fat bodies, fat people, especially women for whom the expectations about their looks are more exigent, stay in relationships that are neither good for them nor loving due to fear of being alone and the lack of faith in finding yet another chance for romance and relationship.â
The noun otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ generally refers to a disease and typically appears with collocates like leczenie otyÅoÅci âobesity treatmentâ, nadwaga i otyÅoÅÄ âoverweight and obesityâ, and pacjent z otyÅoÅciÄ âa patient with obesityâ. The noun jedzenie âfoodâ is typically used in the expressions zaburzenia jedzenia âeating disorderâ, jedzenie kompulsywne âcompulsive eatingâ, (nie)zdrowa relacja z jedzeniem â(un)healthy relationship with foodâ, nadmierne jedzenie âexcessive eating, overeatingâ, ograniczenie jedzenia âreducing food intakeâ, utrata kontroli nad jedzeniem âloss of control over eatingâ. Food is therefore presented as the chief problem of fat people, not as a basic necessity of life or simply a pleasure.
4 Semantic Prosody
We performed a semantic prosody analysis for lexemes for which the log ratio (LR) was greater than 5, i.e., gruby âfatâ (LR 8.79), otyÅy âobeseâ (LR 7.52), szczupÅy âleanâ (LR 5.46), and otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ (LR 8.07). In our study, following Louw (1993), we only consider positive and negative contexts, while disregarding the neutral and ambivalent ones. Examples of positive contexts include sprawczoÅÄ i podmiotowoÅÄ grubych osób âthe agency and subjecthood of fat peopleâ, kreatywnoÅÄ otyÅych osób âthe creativity of obese peopleâ, piÄkno nie ma rozmiaru, a bycie otyÅym jest OK âbeauty has no size, and being obese is OKâ.
Examples of negative contexts include: postrzeganie grubych osób jako leniwych i niekompetentnych âperceiving fat people as lazy and incompetentâ, grubasy sÄ leniwe i ÅmierdzÄ âfat people are lazy and they stinkâ, niechÄÄ czy wrÄcz nienawiÅÄ do osób otyÅych âdislike or even hatred towards obese peopleâ, spoÅeczne uprzedzenia wobec otyÅych âsocial prejudice against obese peopleâ, żaden facet nie dotknie takiej tÅustej Åwini âno man will touch such a fat pigâ, otyÅoÅÄ bierze siÄ z obżarstwa âobesity comes from gluttonyâ, opresja szczupÅego, piÄknego ciaÅa âan oppression of a slim, beautiful bodyâ. The results of examining contexts from the perspective of semantic prosody are presented in Table 10.4.
Table 10.4
Semantic prosody of selected keywords in the Corpus of Fat People Discourse
|
Lexeme |
Positive collocations |
Negative collocations |
|---|---|---|
|
gruby âfatâ |
28â¯% |
72â¯% |
|
otyÅy âobeseâ |
11â¯% |
89â¯% |
|
otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ |
â |
100â¯% |
|
szczupÅy âslimâ |
24â¯% |
76â¯% |
Although people in this group openly declare that they prefer to be called âfatâ rather than âobeseâ and try to reclaim and change the evaluation of the adjective gruby âfatâ (an issue we cover in the next part of the paper), the analysis of semantic prosody did not show substantial differences between the contexts related to the adjectives gruby âfatâ and otyÅy âobeseâ. The adjective gruby âfatâ is only slightly more often used in positive contexts than the word otyÅy âobeseâ, but a significant majority of its collocations are negative. This most likely results from the fact that the examined corpus of texts includes various discourses and narratives (apart from texts written from the point of view of fat people, the out-group perspective is also present, e.g., in quotes and paraphrases of utterances the fat people are subjected to), and therefore different ways of evaluating words. However, there is a negative evaluation of the noun otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ in the discourse of fat peopleâthe word otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ never appears in combination with expressions with a positive evaluation. What is surprising is the very negative evaluation of the adjective szczupÅy âslimâ that results from the combination of the cult of thinness typical of contemporary Western culture with the simultaneous oppression and exclusion of fat people.
5 Qualitative Phenomena in the Fat People Discourse
We want to focus on two of the most expressive lexical-semantic features of fat people discourse. The first involves a group of new word formations with the root morpheme grubâ âfatâ, especially the lexeme grubancypacja and related derivatives. The second is a specific, discursively conditioned modification of the meaning of basic words, like gruby âfatâ, which is no longer negative, but becomes a neutral description of the body; gruboÅÄâno longer only âthicknessâ or âfatnessâ, but rather âbeing fatâ; otyÅy âmorbidly obeseâ and otyÅoÅÄ âobesity (as a disease)â.
5.1 New Words with the Morpheme grub-
These new words with the morpheme grub- are nominal parts of speech: nouns (names of people characterized by a given feature or activity, and abstract names) and adjectives (relational, expressing a general connection between the named object and the word-formation basis). We did not find any new verbs based on the root grubâ in the examined discourse. This proves that new lexical structures are primarily nominalizations: Polish equivalents of English expressions and concepts that have been coined in order to give names to hitherto unnamed phenomena. The most characteristic and important expression that captures the essence of Polish fat people discourse is the word grubancypacja, which is the Polish equivalent of the English expression fat liberation.17
In terms of word formation, the lexeme grubancypacja is a compound composed of two words: the adjective grub(y) âfatâ and the noun emancypacja âemancipationâ. The word formation mechanism involves formal blending: the inflectional stem of an adjective grubâ is directly combined with the part of the word emancypacja that remains after cutting off the initial segment emâ. The blending (fusion) process usually takes place without morphological division and the use of word-formation affixes. As a result, we get a new lexical unit that means âemancipation of fat peopleâ. Due to its formal structure, the Polish noun grubancypacja does not translate back into English as fat liberation without the loss of formal blending. If we wanted to achieve a parallel effect in English, that structure might read fatancipation.
The adjective gruby âfatâ as the word-formation basis of the compound is related to the keyness of this word in the CFPD. However, the use of the word emancypacja âemancipationâ rather than wyzwolenie âliberationâ is less obvious. The noun emancypacja is less common; it is specialized and associated by Polish language users primarily with the emancipation of women in the 19th and 20th centuries. The choice of this noun could be dictated by both formal (ease of constructing word formations) and semantic reasons. The word emancypacja emphasizes the subjecthood and activity of those who fight for their rights and equal treatment, as well as the success of these efforts. This motivation is illustrated in this statement by the author of this word, Natalia Skoczylas:
(18) Termin âgrubancypacjaâ przyszedÅ do mnie, gdy myÅlaÅam o emancypacji i emancypantkach, o przywracaniu sobie godnoÅci i miejsca, ale w bardziej bojowy sposób. [â¦] Rozumiem grubancypacjÄ jako aktywnÄ obecnoÅÄ i mówienie o doÅwiadczeniu w grubym ciele.
âThe term âgrubancypacjaâ came to me when I was thinking about emancipation and emancipated women, about restoring dignity and a place to myself, but in a more militant way. [â¦] I understand âgrubancypacjaâ as actively being present and talking about the experience in the fat body.â
Fat emancipation activists overtly explain the word formation motivation behind the word grubancypacja, as well as the purpose of its popularization. They primarily include the need to name phenomena that are important for a minority groupâboth negative and harmful (such as discrimination and stigmatization of fat people by the rest of society) and positive (grubancypacja is the name of this positive phenomenon), which are intended to counteract the negative:
(19) âGrubancypacjaâ pochodzi od sÅów âgruboÅÄâ i âemancypacjaâ, bo mówiÄ c o systemowej dyskryminacji, chcemy jednoczeÅnie podkreÅlaÄ sprawczoÅÄ i podmiotowoÅÄ grubych osób w pracy na rzecz równego traktowania. Popularyzujemy to sÅowo w naszym podcaÅcie, bo wierzymy, że codziennoÅÄ grubych osób może wyglÄ daÄ inaczej i żeby jÄ zmieniÄ, trzeba dotykajÄ ce nas zjawiska takie jak fatfobia, dyskryminacja czy przemoc nazywaÄ po imieniu.
ââ¯âGrubancypacjaâ comes from the words âgruboÅÄâ âthickness / fatness / being fatâ and âemancypacjaâ âemancipationâ, because when talking about systemic discrimination, we want to emphasize simultaneously the agency and subjecthood of fat people in working for equal treatment. We popularize this word in our podcast because we believe that the everyday life of fat people may be different, and in order to change it, we need to call the phenomena that affect us, such as fatphobia, discrimination or violence by their names.â
In the fat people discourse, there are other structures in formal-semantic relation to the noun grubancypacja: the feminine noun grubancypantka (i.e., âactivist of fat emancipationâ / âsupporter of the fat emancipation movementâ) and the relational adjective grubancypacyjny ârelated to the fat emancipation movementâ, e.g., grubancypacyjny raport âa fat-emancipation reportâ, grubancypacyjny edukator âfat-emancipation educatorâ, grubancypacyjne lektury âfat emancipation readingâ. The masculine noun grubancypant is used only sporadically, referring to the first male activist and educator of fat emancipation in Poland:
(20) Grubi mÄżczyźni majÄ tendencjÄ do przyjmowania postawy âgood fattyâ. Czyli żartujÄ ze swojego ciaÅa, czÄsto siÄ poniżajÄ câmówi JÄdrek, pierwszy grubancypant w Polsce [â¦].
âFat men tend to adopt a âgood fattyâ attitude. So they joke about their bodies, often humiliating themselvesâsays JÄdrek, the first grubancypant (âfat activist-N.Mâ) in Poland [â¦].â
We can see here the correlation with the analysis of keywords in the corpusâamong the most frequent nouns; there is kobieta âwomanâ, but not mÄżczyzna âmanâ. Fat people discourse in Poland is dominated by women; they create this discourse and are more willing to share their stories.
There are also other compounds in the discussed discourse, based not on the structure and concept of grubancypacja, but on the adjective gruby âfatâ itself, in the meaning given to it by the creators of the discourse. This group of words includes the nouns grubaktywistka âfat activistâ / âactivist of fat emancipation-N.Fâ and grubaktywizm âactivism of fat peopleâ / âactions of activists of fat emancipationâ. We have not found any confirmation of the use of the masculine noun grubaktywista. Finally, we can also observe the interfixal compound grubopozytywnoÅÄ, constructed analogously to the word ciaÅopozytywnoÅÄ (the Polish equivalent of body positivity); the noun ciaÅo âbodyâ is replaced with the morpheme grubâ âfatâ. This is to emphasize the positive attitude towards this particular body feature that was the basis of the body positivity movement in its early days before it expanded and changed its goals (Gelsinger 2021; Wolska-Zogata 2022).
The sources of these expressions are concepts taken from English and critical fat studies. But there is one original way of using the adjective gruby âfatâ in Polish fat people discourse, namely the expression Vingardium Grubiosa, i.e., the name of the podcast created by Natalia Skoczylas and Urszula Chowaniec. Vingardium Grubiosa originated as a humorous, attention-grabbing, and intriguing modification of the spell Vingardium leviosa from J.K. Rowlingâs books about Harry Potter. This spell caused objects to levitate, to float in the air as if they were weightless. The part levââ from the original version is replaced by grubââ (referring to the concept âgrubyâ). In English, this spell would sound like this: Vingardium Fatiosa. It is an example of word formation based on analogy to a specific linguistic structure that also has a conceptual motivation. In Polish, the adjective puszysty âfluffyâ connotes lightness and is used as a euphemism when referring to fat people (e.g., puszysta pani âlit. a fluffy ladyâ). When we combine this name with the graphics complementing the logo of the podcast (see Figure 10.1), the irony and the fact that the authors talk in a humorous vein become even more apparent.
Figure 10.1
The logo of the Vingardium Grubiosa podcast (
5.2 Why gruby âFatâ, and not otyÅy âObeseâ?
First, it is worth mentioning that describing someoneâs body in terms of fatness entails a quantification and reference to a certain standard, accepted norm. While the semantics of many gradable adjectives in the positive grade include reference to some standard, either real or imagined (BogusÅawski 1994, Linde-Usiekniewicz 2000), here the standard, the accepted âaverageâ state, is more cultural and societal than in the case of the other adjectives. Polish has many expressions used to describe people with fat bodies, primarily adjectives and nouns.
Adjectival terms include: gruby âfatâ, otyÅy âobeseâ, puszysty âfluffyâ, pulchny âplumpâ, okrÄ gÅy âroundâ (the last three have a euphemistic function), tÅusty âfat, greasyâ, tÄgi âstoutâ, korpulentny âcorpulentâ, spasiony, utyty, utuczony âfat, lit. fattenedâ, and others. Nominal expressions can be divided into three categories: 1) names of trait bearers derived from adjectives indicating features: grubas < gruby âfatso < fatâ, spaÅlak < spasi(ony) âporker < porkâ, tÅuÅcioch < tÅusty âfatty < fatâ; 2) metaphorically used names of round (large) objects, as well as fatty and rounded meat and flour dishes: baryÅa âbarrelâ, beka âbarrel-N.AUGMâ, pulpet âmeatballâ, pyza âdumplingâ; 3) names of animals associated with thickness: wieprz âhogâ, Åwinia âpigâ, wieloryb âwhaleâ (Roszak 2013).
As we can see, all nouns mentioned here are not neutral, they are used as labels defining a person through the prism of their appearance; they are marked as colloquial, insulting, and stigmatizing. Each of the adjectives mentioned also has the potential for some negative evaluation. Polish does not make it easy to talk about fat people in a neutral way. It is very difficult to find lexical means that would describe these people objectively, without conveying judgmental attitudes and negative connotations, or without euphemizing and infantilizing. In the opinion of some Polish language users, the adjective otyÅy âobeseâ is a more appropriate term to characterize a person with a large body mass/volume/size than the word gruby âfatâ. To many speakers, the adjective otyÅy is the professional term, more polite than the direct, colloquial, and rude gruby. Taking this context into account, the acceptance of the word gruby âfatâ as crucial to the fat people discourse, and the relation between the words gruby âfatâ and otyÅy âobeseâ require comment.
5.3 The Words otyÅy âObeseâ and otyÅoÅÄ âObesityâ as Rejected and Censored Units
Among all possible adjectival terms referring to fat people, activists primarily use the words gruby âfatâ and otyÅy âobeseâ, which they clearly contrast with one another. In the discourse we discuss, both the adjective otyÅy âobeseâ and the noun otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ are definitely rejected and written with an asterisk substituting one of the letters, like people write slurs and other vulgar words on social media, to avoid banning.
(21) Możliwe, że trafiÅyÅcie w internecie na zapis âot*Åy_aâ lub âot*ÅoÅÄâ. SkÄ d ta gwiazdka? Ano wÅaÅnie z potrzeby przypomnienia, że instagram czy inne media spoÅecznoÅciowe to nie jest gabinet lekarski, oraz że nie godzimy siÄ, żeby jednostek chorobowych używaÄ jako obelg wobec osób.
âYou may have come across the word âot*Åy_aâ or âot*ÅoÅÄâ on the Internet. Where does this asterisk come from? Well, we need to remind you that Instagram or other social media are not a doctorâs office, and that we do not accept using names of disease entities as insults towards people.â
Words relating to obesity are criticized as expressions that impose a medical perspective. Fat activists are of the opinion that these lexemes identify all large, fat, unhealthy bodies, and thus negatively evaluate both the bodies themselves and the people living in these bodies. They see this phenomenon as one of the manifestations of the medicalization of language, which, in their opinion, is a precursor to verbal abuse:
(22) Poza tym mam poczucie, że używanie zmedykalizowanego jÄzyka wobec ciaÅ, zwÅaszcza ciaÅ nieprzystajÄ cych do normy, to dawanie pozwolenia na âconcern trollingâ, czyli udawanie, że chodzi o zdrowie, a tak naprawdÄ otwiera furtkÄ do przemocy werbalnej.
âMoreover, I feel that using medicalized language for bodies, especially bodies that do not conform to the norm, is giving permission for âconcern trollingâ, i.e., pretending that it is all just about health, but in fact it opens the door to verbal violence.â
The discourse of the majority group with ânormalâ (i.e., standard) bodies is framed in a rather comforting, though false narrative that they do, in fact, care about the medical condition of fat people. Fat activists notice that people with ânormalâ bodies do not want to be seen as rude, which they believe they would be if they used the word gruby âfatâ, or criticized the way a fat person looks. They prefer to justify their assessment of a fat person and their recommendations about the advisability or necessity of losing weight in terms of caring about fat peopleâs health. Thatâs why they prefer to use the word otyÅy, âobeseâ. In the fat activism discourse, such an attitude is seen as an elegant-sounding excuse for the criticism and stigmatization of a minority group, as can be seen in the following passage, where the author makes ironic remarks about the alleged âcareâ attitude:
(23) Mówienie o ludziach âgruba_yâ wskazuje, że chodzi nam o estetykÄ, to nie wyglÄ da dobrze. OdwoÅajmy siÄ wiÄc do stanu zdrowia i wtedy caÅa narracja o koniecznoÅci odchudzania siÄ dla zdrowia i szkodliwoÅci choroby (o której w sumie nie wiemy, czy dana osoba jÄ ma, czy nie, ale kogo by to obchodziÅo) spina siÄ eleganckÄ , medycznie brzmiÄ cÄ klamrÄ . I już, można siÄ w spokoju okopywaÄ na pozycji autorytetu.
âSaying about people that they are âgruba_yâ âfatâ indicates that we care about aesthetics, it doesnât look good. So, letâs refer to the state of health and then the whole narrative about the need to lose weight for healthâs sake and about the harmfulness of the disease (though we donât actually know whether a given person has or not, but who cares) becomes elegant, medical sounding. And now you can feel free to entrench yourself in a position of authority.â
The definition in the latest dictionary of the Polish language (i.e., Wielki sÅownik jÄzyka polskiegoâWSJP18) seems to confirm the activistsâ beliefs regarding the understanding of the adjective otyÅy âobeseâ. It is assigned the meaning âcharacterized by too much fat under the skin or too much body weight compared to accepted standards, which is considered unhealthyâ. This definition includes references to accepted (socially created) standards as a reference point in assessing the body, and to quantitative evaluative elements (âtoo muchâ), it also evokes the disease frame (âconsidered unhealthyâ). Combined, these semantic components lead to a qualitative evaluation of a person through the prism of their appearance (body size). By the same token, otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ is defined in WSJP as âthe characteristic of someone who has too much fat under the skin or too much body weight compared to accepted standards, which is considered unhealthyâ.
Moreover, in WSJP the adjective otyÅy âobeseâ only refers to humans. In contemporary general Polish, we do not describe inanimate objects as âobeseâ, nor do we use the term metaphorically for abstract concepts. When applied to animals, especially pets, e.g., otyÅy kot âobese catâ or kot z otyÅoÅciÄ âcat with obesityâ, the term suggests irregularities in the functioning of the catâs organism (disease), and implies the ownerâs guilt (overfeeding).
In the fat people discourse, the semantic relation between the words gruby âfatâ and otyÅy âobeseâ or otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ is directly expressed:
(24) Przymiotnik âotyÅ*â odnosi siÄ [â¦] do jednostki chorobowej, nie do cechy wyglÄ du czÅowieka, jakÄ jest gruboÅÄ.
âThe adjective âotyÅ*â âobeseâ [â¦] refers to a disease entity, not to a feature of a personâs appearance, which is body thickness / being fat.â
(25) NienawidzÄ, kiedy ludzie używajÄ sÅowa âotyÅyâ jako synonimu sÅowa âgrubyâ, dlatego że otyÅoÅÄ ma swojÄ definicjÄ jako jednostka chorobowa. DefinicjÄ bardzo nieaktualnÄ i wymagajÄ cÄ zaktualizowania, co siÄ zresztÄ w różnych czÄÅciach Åwiata dzieje. Ma jÄ nie każda gruba osoba, o czym wiemy z badaÅ i mamy na to dowody.
âI hate it when people use the word âotyÅyâ âobeseâ as a synonym for âgrubyâ âfatâ because obesity is defined as a disease. The definition is very outdated and requires updating, which is already happening in various parts of the world. Not every fat person has obesity, which we know from research and have evidence for.â
According to the approach presented here, the two adjectives are not synonyms: The adjective gruby has a wider scope of meaning, and it applies both to obese people (people with obesity) and to simply fat people who do not have obesity (i.e., are not obese in the medical sense):
(26) Nie każdy gruby ma otyÅoÅÄ, ale każda osoba z otyÅoÅciÄ jest gruba. Widzicie tu tÄ rozkosznÄ autostradÄ umysÅowych uproszczeÅ? Poza wszystkim, czy to nie wstyd, że mamy XXI wiek, a do oceniania stanu zdrowia osób korzystamy z miary powstaÅej w XIX w. Tak, mam na myÅli BMI. Gruby i otyÅy to nie sÄ synonimy.
âNot every fat person is obese, but every obese person is fat. Can you see the highway leading to mental simplification? After all, isnât it a shame that we are in the 21st century and to assess peopleâs health we use still a measure created in the 19th century? Yes, I mean BMI. Fat and obese are not synonyms.â
Therefore, if fat emancipation activists reject the word otyÅy âobeseâ as imposing a disease frame, the word that remains to name the minority group we discuss in a possibly neutral way is gruby âfatâ.
5.4 Gruby âFatâ and gruboÅÄ âThickness, Fatnessâ: Neutral Terms for a Body Parameter?
A dictionary-semantic analysis of the adjective gruby âfatâ from a historical perspective (PacuÅa 2021) shows how its subsequent meanings and the sphere of evaluative connotations have developed over the centuries. In this study, we concentrate on the contemporary Polish and current meanings of words emerging from their uses. The word gruby âfatâ has several meanings, depending on the reference. We can say gruby about a slice of ham or a sweater, or about a man or a joke.
The WSJP, the most up-to-date lexicographic source, contains eight meanings for gruby. The first four concern the features of material objects, for example, a slice (âone whose opposite surfaces or edges are significantly separated from each otherâ), a rope (âhaving a large cross-sectionâ), a sweater (âcomposed of many layers and therefore protecting against coldâ); when we call the voice gruby âthick, coarseâ, we mean that it is âhas a low vibration frequencyâ (it is a specialist term). From each of these uses, a slightly different meaning emerges. But we can say that in all of them, the adjective gruby has a neutral parameterization nature. Referring to the works of Puzynina (1988) and Linde-Usiekniewicz (2000), it can be added that the adjective gruby referring to objects includes quantitative evaluation (an estimated assessment in terms of the quantity of a given parameterâthere is âa lotâ of something), but it is devoid of qualitative assessment (they do not express a judgment about whether something is âgoodâ or âbadâ).
This changes when we use the adjective gruby âfatâ to describe a person (in the fifth meaning recorded in WSJP). When gruby refers to someoneâs appearance (e.g., gruby mÄżczyzna âfat manâ), it means âhaving too much fat or muscle under the skinâ. Its definition includes the quantitative assessment signal âtoo muchâ. But when we look at the corpus data, it turns out that texts reveal additional judgments that qualitatively evaluate these peopleâtoo much fat is bad. As we wrote in the introduction, Pazio-WlazÅowskaâs works (2021, 2022) show that people described as fat, overweight, and obese are portrayed unfavorably, and many stereotypical, negative features (regarding smell, sounds, eating habits, and even character and competencies) are attributed to them.
The last three meanings in WSJP (illustrated by the expressions gruby komplement âboorish, rude, vulgar complimentâ, gruby bÅÄ d âbig mistakeâ, and gruby szacunek âgeneral, approximate, imprecise calculation or estimateâ) contain a negative qualitative assessment of someoneâs behavior (statements), activity, or attitude as evidence of their lack of politeness, sophistication and competence, and the rudeness or inappropriateness of their behavior. The adjective gruby âfatâ (as well as the adverb grubo âroughlyâ) is also colloquially used as an intensifier, introducing the meaning âveryâ in combination with nouns usually naming negative phenomena (e.g., gruby skandal âa big scandalâ, gruby bÅÄ d âa big mistakeâ). All these uses confirm the negative semantic prosody of the adjective gruby itself.
The abstract noun gruboÅÄ âthicknessâ, derived from the adjective gruby, also has several meanings in WSJP. They are parallel with the definitions of the basic adjective. The first three meanings are object-oriented and neutral-parametric in nature; they refer to the features of material objects (e.g., gruboÅÄ sznura ârope thicknessâ, gruboÅÄ swetra âsweater thicknessâ) and, in terminology, to voice (gruboÅÄ gÅosu âvoice thicknessâ). The fourth and last meaning concerns a person (their appearance or general body structure) and contains an element of quantitative assessmentâgruboÅÄ is defined here as âthe characteristic of someone who has too much fat or muscleâ. If applied to a person, the noun gruboÅÄ can also be translated as âfatnessâ, when the author of the statement evaluates someoneâs body in terms of fat (amount of fat tissue), not muscle or generally being âwell-builtâ.
In the general Polish language, the word gruboÅÄ used in relation to humans is almost exclusively associated with the names of parts of the human body (e.g., gruboÅÄ palca, skóry, tkanki âfinger, skin, tissue thicknessâ)ârather than âfatnessâ. Even the connection with the more general noun ciaÅo âbodyâ seems less typical (gruboÅÄ ciaÅa âbody thicknessâ), not to mention such potential collocations as moja/jej/czyjaÅ gruboÅÄ âmy/her/someoneâs fatnessâ. In the analyzed discourse, however, the noun gruboÅÄ âfatnessâ or âbeing fatâ is combined with possessive pronouns, which shows that fatness is perceived as a property of someone, one of many characteristics (like height or eye color) that someone identifies with and treats as a natural, integral trait:
(27) Może wstydziÅa siÄ za samÄ siebie? Tego, że nie podobaÅa siÄ jej moja gruboÅÄ?
âMaybe she was ashamed of herself? That she didnât like my fatness?â
(28) Brakuje ciÄ gle filmów czy seriali, w których bohaterka jest gruba tak po prostuâże jest to jej takÄ cechÄ równie ważnÄ jak to, że jest blondynkÄ . I że jej gruboÅÄ nie jest przyczynÄ kÅopotów czy dramy, która siÄ wokóŠtej postaci dzieje.
âThere are still no movies or series in which the female protagonist is simply fatâthat it is as important a feature as her being blonde. And that her fatness does not cause problems or drama surrounding the character.â
To sum up this part, it should be noted that in the perception of Polish speakers, gruby âfatâ in relation to a person is an evaluative, colloquial term. Despite this, the authors of the texts in the CFPD take some risks and try to use it in a positive context, with a modified meaning (ultimately, however, this does not provide significant results). Of all the Polish adjectival descriptions of fat people, this one has the greatest potential for neutrality. In the analyzed discourse, gruby and gruboÅÄ are recognized by the authors of the CFPD as neutral descriptors of someoneâs body parameters (analogous to thickness as a neutral parameter of material objects, without judging a person for having such a body) and even moreâthe basis of identity (gruboÅÄ understood as âbeing fatâ).
5.5 Reclamation of Words and Building Identity
Making the adjective gruby âfatâ a keyword in the fat people discourse and introducing the noun gruboÅÄ âthicknessâ as the name of a parameter that is intended to be a neutral body dimension (such as height) is an unconventional and, to some extent, risky procedure. On the other hand, paradoxically, of all the synonyms of the adjective gruby âfatâ mentioned before, it seems to be the best choice because it is commonly known, addresses the matter directly, and, most importantly, has the semantic potential of neutrality. Its ambiguity, as well as references to the objective dimensions of objects (height, width, length, and thickness), is a potential basis for âsilencingâ negative connotations and even changing its valuation in relation to the human body. Something like this is happening in the discourse of fat peopleâthe words gruby âfatâ and gruboÅÄ âthickness, being fatâ are intentionally used (and proposed to other language users) not only as neutral descriptors but also as exponents of individual and in-group identity.
The example below (which is an extended repetition of (5) with an additional sentence relevant to this part of our considerations) confirms the choice of the word gruby âfatâ as the most appropriate to talk about the minority group of fat people. Fat activists would prefer not to talk about large bodies at all; body diversity in terms of mass/size/volume should be something normal that does not need to be labeled. They would like to talk primarily about people, regardless of what bodies they live in (skinny or fat), about what they are like, and what they need in social spaces. Creators of fat people discourse point out that the body (or rather our impressions and feelings based on the visible features of the body) cannot be a barrier that does not allow us to see a real person, their character, abilities, and competencies. But if someone for some reason wants to distinguish and name the group of people with fat bodies, fact activists deem the word gruby âfatâ the best description:
(29) No to jak w takim razie mówiÄ o dużych ciaÅach? Najlepiej byÅoby siÄ od nich odstosunkowaÄ, prawdÄ mówiÄ c, ale skoro już jest taka potrzeba, toâgruby. Gruby to przymiotnik odnoszÄ cy siÄ do cechy fizycznej, tak samo jak wysoki, rudy, dÅugonogi.
âSo how can we talk about large bodies? It would be best just to leave them freaking alone, to be honest, but if you must, sayâgruby. Gruby âfatâ is an adjective referring to a physical feature, just like tall, redhead, long-legged.â
Accepting yourself in your body as it is and reclaiming the word gruby âfatâ for yourself is the first step to building your own (and then in-group) identity. But it is not easy. Construal of the self is a liberating, but also long and demanding process. In the statement below, the re-evaluation and acceptance of the word gruby âfatâ is presented metaphorically as a long journey:
(30) Wiadomo, warto z tym sÅowem uważaÄ, bo w odniesieniu do konkretnej osoby może nie zostaÄ przyjÄte z entuzjazmem. âGrubaâ jest mocno obciÄ Å¼ona, latami używania jej wobec naszych dużych ciaÅ jako obelgi. Uznanie âgrubejâ za swojÄ jest bardzo wyzwalajÄ ce, ale potrzeba na to czasu. To indywidualna, bardzo osobista podróż.
âOf course, one needs to be careful with this word, because in relation to a specific person it may not be received enthusiastically. âGrubaâ âfat-ADJ.F.SGâ has negative connotations and has been used as an insult to refer to our bodies for years. Accepting âgrubaâ âfatâ as yours is very liberating, but it takes time. It is an individual, very personal journey.â
In the last example, we would like to present an outline of communication practices and rules of linguistic politeness for talking with and about fat people. The most engaged fat emancipation activists have worked through this new language (and new way of thinking and talking about oneself) within themselves. This does not apply to the entire group, however. So, the term gruby âfatâ should be used to refer to fat people only when we know that these people accept it, feel good about it, and that it will not be harmful to them:
(31) Sama korzystam z tego sÅowa z duÅ¼Ä swobodÄ , wiÄc nie zwracam na nie uwagi. [â¦] WidzÄ, że czÄsto osoby, które nie przepracowaÅy tego sÅowa, majÄ moment, że jeÅ¼Ä siÄ na jego użycie. MyÅlÄ, że używanie sÅowa âgrubaâ jest okej, jeÅli wiemy, że osoby, wobec których chcemy go użyÄ, bÄdÄ czuÅy siÄ z tym dobrze i same siebie okreÅlajÄ w taki sposób.
âI use this word very freely myself, so I donât pay attention to it. [â¦] I see that people who have not worked through this word often have a moment when they bristle at its use. I think itâs okay to use the word âgrubaâ if we know that the people we want to use it about will feel good about it and would describe themselves that way.â
6 Conclusion
Fat emancipation activists oppose negative social phenomena related to fat people (such as fat shaming, fatphobia, and discrimination against fat people), which we consider as an example of the othering phenomenon. Their discursive activities can be interpreted as a strategy of de-othering.
The authors of the analyzed discourse try to reclaim the basic word gruby âfatâ for themselvesâand find a word that expresses their individual and group identity: Tak, jestem gruba/gruby âYes, Iâm fat-ADJ.F.SG/fat-ADJ.M.SGâ. Acting on behalf of themselves and the entire group, they proclaim: âwe, fat people, are among you as a part of society, and we are normal, healthy peopleâ. By rejecting the words otyÅy âobeseâ and otyÅoÅÄ âobesityâ, neutralizing the valuation of the adjective gruby âfatâ, and changing its function from stigmatizing to descriptive, fat activists propose a new language to talk about themselves and the group they represent. In this regard, fat emancipation discourse can be seen as an example of âlinguistic disarmamentâ: representatives of discriminated groups (i.e., fat people) deprive the dominant group (i.e., people with standard bodies) of a lexical tool of discrimination.
Based on texts forming and developing the Polish discourse of fat emancipation, it can be concluded that a long-term goal of fat liberation activists is not only the acceptance of oneâs own and other peopleâs bodies as they are but also the neutralization and normalization of body weight/size/volume and its variability. Neutralization would consist of emphasizing (in the way we think and talk about bodies) the functionality of the body (what we can do with our body, how we can use it) instead of its appearance, without judgment or excitement. Normalization would manifest itself in including fat people (and their needs) in society as an obvious and natural (not other) part that does not require labeling.
Contributorship Statement
The authors have contributed equally to the chapter.
Lesley Lawson (Twiggy)âa very popular model in the 1960s with a very slim, androgynous figure.
This is an online dictionary of Polish neologisms. It is a community dictionary, which means that every Internet user can contribute to it by submitting headword suggestions on this website (
Maria Mamczur, Gruba. Reportaż o wadze i uprzedzeniach. Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej: Warsaw 2022.
A blog about body positivity by Urszula Chowaniecâfat activist (
A report by Natalia Skoczylas and Urszula Chowaniec published in 2022 regarding fatphobia experienced by fat people in contacts with Polish Health Care (
A blog by Natalia Fedan (
An interview with Natalia Skoczylas and Urszula Chowaniec (
An interview with a male fat activist (
The Corpus of Contemporary Polish (Korpus DekadyâKorpus WspóÅczesnego JÄzyka PolskiegoâKWJP) covers texts from the second decade of the 21st century. It is a large reference corpus and might be used with the same confidence as reference publications, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. We have used the balanced corpus which contains 100 million words (kwjp.pl; last accessed: July 8, 2024).
The higher the log-likelihood value, the more significant the difference between the two frequency scores:
95th percentile; 5â¯% level; p < 0.05; critical value = 3.84
99th percentile; 1â¯% level; p < 0.01; critical value = 6.63
99.9th percentile; 0.1â¯% level; p < 0.001; critical value = 10.83
99.99th percentile; 0.01â¯% level; p < 0.0001; critical value = 15.13. (
The log ratio is a statistic for keywords, collocations, and lockwords. The Log Ratio statistic is an âeffect-sizeâ statistic, not a significance statistic: it represents how big the difference between two corpora is for a particular keyword.
A word has the same relative frequency in A and Bâthe binary log of the ratio is 0
A word is 2 times more common in A than in Bâthe binary log of the ratio is 1
A word is 4 times more common in A than in Bâthe binary log of the ratio is 2
A word is 8 times more common in A than in Bâthe binary log of the ratio is 3
A word is 16 times more common in A than in Bâthe binary log of the ratio is 4
A word is 32 times more common in A than in Bâthe binary log of the ratio is 5 (
The adjective prosty âsimpleâ is most often part of the phrase po prostu âsimplyâ, so we disregard it in the analysis.
The adjective ważny âimportantâ appears in the phrases âit is important that â¦â, âthe most important thing is that â¦â, âit is not importantâ. We disregard it in further analysis because it does not provide any significant information about the examined discourse.
The adjective wÅasny âmy ownâ is used in phrases such as seeing something with oneâs own eyes, oneâs own experience, oneâs own well-being, oneâs own body, and emphasizes a subjective, individual experience. We disregard this adjective in the analysis.
The noun badanie âresearchâ in CFPD refers to scientific research or survey research, so we disregard it in the detailed analysis.
This noun appears almost exclusively in phrases such as stereotypy na temat gruboÅci âstereotypes about thicknessâ, przekonania na temat otyÅoÅci âbeliefs about obesityâ. For this reason, it is not included in the detailed analysis.
A more detailed analysis of the word grubancypacja and the conceptual structure GRUBANCYPACJA (as a cognitive blend) in the Polish discourse on obesity was provided by Chojnacka-KuraÅ (2024).
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