Gatunkowe uwarunkowania znaczeń symbolicznych

Abstract

Genre conditioning of symbolic meanings

Folklore texts operate on two levels: inside the folk culture in combination with traditional beliefs and customs, and within the national culture as a point of reference and source of inspiration for writers and poets. Individual words also function on those two levels, as they can be understood ‘the literary way’ or ‘the folk way’. The paper presents two units of the vocabulary of the national language (jabłoń ‘apple tree’ and jabłko ‘apple’) which have fixed base meanings but which also accommodate additional senses on a higher semantic level and thus become the signifiant for a new sign. In folklore texts, depending on the genre, the images of apple tree and apple accept the symbolic senses of happy and fulfilled love (in love and courting songs), fertility and vitality (in wedding songs), of readiness for marriage and the stable, cosmic order (in wishing carols), of temptation and sin (in nativity plays), richness and ability to regenerate and renew life (in fairy tales), of the sense of security and parental care (in orphan songs), of the value of family home and proximity to the loved ones (in soldiers’ songs). These symbols can be explained using extralinguistic data (beliefs and customs) as the same senses can be expressed through words, rituals, or objects. The analysis reveals that the images of apple tree and apple serve to communicate values underlying the image of the world contained within the specific genre. The same images, transplanted to a different domain, outside of their particular social group, lose their value, become illegible, incomprehensible, and are viewed as merely a signal of folksiness.