Metatextual Strategies of Communication Based on the Source Material by the Potem Cabaret

As there has been an increase in scientific interest in cabaret in Poland, the author of the following article puts her contribution to the growing collection of articles concerning this scope of research. The essay refers to the texts by the Potem literary cabaret, who performed in the years 1984-1998, and it focuses on the analysis of metatextual expressions made by various speakers: (a) by the subject of the text as uttering the words and yet being external to the world presented, (b) by the announcer and (c) by the author himself. The expressions analysed are set in definite speaker’s structures such as opening and closing formulas as well as in side text passages. The metatextual structures both provide information about the world presented but also reveal the game played on the addressee by the speaker who provokes the former to a more active reception. The game applies mechanisms that aim to have a comic effect. In her analysis of the metatextual structures in cabaret texts, the author calls for assuming the cultural perspective, which opens new horizons for further analyses