Gatunek listu a kompetencja lingwistyczna i komunikacja dzieci upośledzonych umysłowo

Studies on developing a communicative competence in relation to people with different deficits; cognitive, intellectual, neurological, provide interesting information in a discussion on cerebral, cognitive and socializing mechanisms of language acquisition. The analyses devoted so far to the communication of children with reduced intellectual norm above all concentrated on showing relationships between the level of a cognitive deficit and speech retardation, as well as description of a linguistic competence and skills connected to its individual realizations. The main aim of the article was to show to what extent the students below intellectual norm acquired the letter genre and define if the level of text realization enabled them to actively participate in social life and development of their mental activity. The author treats the realization of a genre model of the letter as an intermediary form inspiring to acquire language rules combined with a search for the means of translation from a microworld to the macroworld. On the basis of an exemplary material consisting of several dozen letters of mentally retarted students from special and integrated schools in Silesia, the author presents components of the genre model of the letter and discusses the structural, pragmatic, cognitive and stylistic aspect of the letter