Why spopielarnia (‘incinerator’) and not krematorium (‘crematory’)? Another View of Alternative Innovations

Abstract

The article presents considerations on the function and nature of alternative innovations. They allow different description of reality, associated with different pragmatic connotations of words or with distancing from the already existing cultural patterns. The new name focuses on the characteristics desired by language users that are indicated either in the word-formation basis (e.g. spopielić ‘to incinerate’), or in the associations related to the primary meaning of the word (e.g. adopcja ‘adoption’, senior ‘senior’) or the typical connectivity (e.g. senior rodu ‘family senior’). Some examples can be considered contemporary euphemisms, because they help avoid the taboos associated with the prohibition of using unpleasant, incorrect or undesirable words. Their persuasive function is though equally important: influencing the assessment of things and phenomena described and the change of people’s attitudes (the fight using names is particularly evident in discussions about spalarnia‘incinerator’ and krematorium ‘crematory’, or about being a person with no partner: osoba samotna ‘lonely person’, stary kawaler ‘confirmed bachelor’, stara panna ‘old maid’, singiel, singielka ‘single person’). Such forms were created not only to give a choice (existence of alternative), but most of all to intentionally replace the existing words or connections, e.g. in many contexts, the expression osoba niepełnosprawna ‘disabled person’ has replaced the words kaleka or inwalida ‘crippled person'.