Public debate in discourse analysis perspective : comparative criteria

The article aims at formulating the criteria that might allow establishing the dependency between the discourses present at the public scene as well as their relation to democracy. The text consists of three parts. The first one outlines the problem to be tackled with the help of the analytical model constructed by the author. Departing from Sergiusz Kowalski's proposition, the author presents the most important dividing lines at the Polish public scene. The second part discusses the theoretical model of civil society discourse developed by Jeffrey Alexander. The categories derived from it (apart from the codes also the notion of the discourse community and the community demarcated through discourse) are adopted in the theoretical model presented in the final part of the article. The proposed model, however, refers not only to civil discourses,but also to uncivil or even anti-civil ones.