Abstract
The objective of this paper is to acquaintance the readers with works of Aleksander
Szulc, an eminent Polish linguist and researcher in glottodidactics, devoted to the
topic of learning and teaching vocabulary during courses of German as a foreign
language. Special attention has been paid to the notions of conventional syntagm
and situation idiom introduced by Szulc. The fi rst part of the paper focuses on the
former notion, which partially corresponds to the notion of collocation. We present
the role of conventional syntagms in learning and teaching foreign vocabulary and
the impact they have on the process of interference. We also argue for the presence
of conventional syntagms in vocabulary building activities in classroom and
in course books. Further we show the evolution of Szulc’s defi nition and understanding
of the notion of conventional syntagm and how he progressed from this
notion to the notion of collocation. The second part of the paper focuses on situation
idioms which correspond to the modern notion of pragmatic fi xed phrases.
After their short presentation, we argue for their signifi cance in learning German as
a foreign language and hence, for the necessity of their incorporation in teaching of
German. Finally, the article is also an attempt at reintroducing Szulc’s insights into
academic discourse and an appeal to recognize his contribution to the research on
collocationality.
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