Onomastic dominants of the Pacific Alliance
Year 2019
Objectives:
- To create a Glossary of personalities of the Pacific Alliance member countries: a dictionary of names of persons significant for the history and culture of these countries. The dictionary is necessary for understanding the history and culture of Spanish-speaking countries, since Spanish has the status of the state language in 21 countries and many geographically determined variants and dialects. In the process of compiling the Glossary, the project team plans to identify and describe 60 individuals for each of the four countries of the Alliance.
- To identify how to form names of persons by place of residence (demonym).
- To identify patterns of formation of onomastic vocabulary, analyze its discursive features.
- To generalize the linguistic potential of the native American substratum - the language elements of the native American origin of the indigenous population of the respective countries.
- To analyze toponymic metaphors - figurative names of geographical objects, historical factors of their origin, the ratio of conceptual and figurative components. For example, the name of the capital of Colombia - Bogotá - goes back to the word bacatá of native American origin and literally means “border of a cultivated field”. The full name of the capital - Santafé de Bogotá - is an example of a hybrid toponym that combines Spanish components of religious themes (translated from Spanish Santa Fe - “Holy faith”) and native American language material. The associative part of the toponym “Bogota” sounds like “Athens of South America” (La Atenas Suramericana) - this is the name of this city, appealing to the purity of speech of the inhabitants of the capital of Colombia.
- To analyze the functioning of onomastic categories in various fields of communication and language policy.
Project goals
- To identify the main trends in the functioning of proper names (onomastic dominants) of the Pacific Alliance countries - the trade bloc of Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru. This is necessary for establishing constructive relationships with Latin American business partners, avoiding conflict situations based on a lack of understanding of the language, cultural values and universals.
- To analyze how onomastic dominants (names of persons - anthroponyms and geographical names - toponyms) are reflected in the consciousness and mentality of Mexicans, Chileans, Peruvians and Colombians. Those dominants that native speakers identify as significant translate the national cultural code in various types of texts and allow us to form new approaches to the study of the linguistic diversity, culture and history of Spanish-speaking countries.
Project leader
All participants
Olga Tchesnokova
Project results
The following scientific articles on the communicative and symbolic potential of proper names were prepared for publication in foreign scientific journals:
“Colombian personalities as markers of onomastic dominants of the Colombian society” (authors: Olga Stanislavovna Chesnokova and Ivan Vicente Padilla Chasing, associate Professor of the Department of Literature, National University of Columbia (Bogota, Colombia)).
The following scientific articles on the communicative and symbolic potential of proper names were prepared for publication in foreign scientific journals:
Observations on the Colombian anthroponymy in text and discourse” (authors: Olga Stanislavovna Chesnokova and Flores Arcila, Ruben Dario (National University of Colombia (Bogota, Colombia)).
Creating a Glossary of Pacific Alliance personalities, including 60 dictionary entries with illustrations for each of the four countries studied. For example, from a dictionary article about one of the most famous Columbians, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, readers will learn that among Colombians he was known as Gabo, and the name of the village Macondo, founded by Jose Arcadio Buendia the hero of the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by García Márquez, became a stable metaphor for the mutual penetration of the real and fictional in the speech of Colombians.
Application area
- Using the obtained results to solve issues of national and ethnic identification of Spanish-speaking countries in the international political arena and in the world economy.
- Optimization of cultural, household and business communication with the countries of the Alliance due to new forms of variation of the Spanish language.
- Improvement of Spanish language teaching methods, translation practices, linguistic culture and textual courses for both RUDN students and external students.