Published: 2025-08-07

Proper names in descriptions of space in „Guide for Mental Tourists” by Paweł Dunin-Wąsowicz and Andrzej St. Rodys. On selected aspects of the work’s onomasiological poetics

ADAM SIWIEC

Abstract

The article discusses names related to descriptions of space in the book Odczapów. Przewodnik dla turystów mentalnych („Randomville: A Guide for Mental Tourists”). Its main aim is to show how these names function within the conventions of a tourist
guide, against the backdrop of stylistic devices associated with its ludic transformation – that is, the parodic modification of the guidebook form. Spatially marked expressions are various toponyms that name objects and, being components of descriptive sentences, define their location. First of all, this role isplayed by those names that identify and distinguish different places of the fictionalerritory described in the guide, while at the same time serving the linguistic and graphic representation of space (in the prose and on maps). Secondly, there are also toponyms that connect the text with the reality they imitate (toponomastic tropes). Those names that determine topofication occupy a prominent position in the literarymessage and constitute an inalienable part of world-centred narration. That is, they contribute to the spatial creation of the world intended in this specific work, naming
and distinguishing its various components.

Keywords:

proper names, description of space, genological convention, stylistic distance, ludic transformation, parody (tourist guide style), world-centred narration

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Citation rules

SIWIEC, A. (2025). Proper names in descriptions of space in „Guide for Mental Tourists” by Paweł Dunin-Wąsowicz and Andrzej St. Rodys. On selected aspects of the work’s onomasiological poetics. Stylistyka, 35, 353–384. https://doi.org/10.25167/Stylistyka35.2025.18

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