Wartościowanie cech fizycznych człowieka przez wiejską wspólnotę językowo-kulturową (na przykładzie przezwisk mieszkańców gminy Babice w powiecie chrzanowskim .......... 525

EVALUATION OF AN INDIVIDUAL’S EXTERNAL APPEARANCE BY RURAL LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL COMMUNITY (USING THE EXAMPLE OF NICKNAMES OF THE RESIDENTS OF THE BABICE COMMUNE IN THE CHRZANOW DISTRICT)

This article aims to perform a linguistic and cultural analysis of nicknames which often convey additional information about the pragmatic aspects of an individual’s appearance, i.e. about those features which mirror the physical condition of an individual. Underlying the nominative acts of nickname forms are thus values such as health, vitality and naturalness. The study is based on a set of 830 nicknames collected between 2004 and 2023 across seven villages which comprise the commune of Babice in the Chrzanów district. As revealed by the analysis of empirical data, the evaluation of one’s appearance in pragmatic categories is most evident in nicknames which depreciate individuals based on their ‘non-prototypical’ corpulence. In rural cultural circles, obesity holds at most an ambivalent axiological status, while thinness is decidedly an undesirable condition in the countryside. Negative evaluation of thinness and obesity stems from the stereotypical perception of thin individuals as sickly and weak, and of obese ones as sluggish. Compared to excessive thinness, however, obesity occupies a higher axiological position, as it connotes prosperity and success while thinness indicates poverty and deprivation. Also complexion is evaluated in similar categories. Pallor is strongly negated because it connotes poor health. Vitality likewise ranks highly in the folk hierarchy of values. The positive axiologisation of this trait entails the stigmatization of frailty and sickliness. In rural communities, beauty is defined as a state of natural attractiveness, and consequently, women who undergo aesthetic medical procedures are subjected to intense criticism. In the rural cultural tradition, there exists a certain ‘base’ set of features that constitutes the image of the perfect look for a member of the rural community. Some aspects of appearance are evaluated independently of the sex factor, while others are dominant in the profile of either a woman or a man. The connotative framework of unofficial anthroponyms thus reflects the perceptual-mental mechanism of the older generation of rural residents who continue to perform evaluative acts on individuals’ appearance in the pragmatic dimension.