dc.description.abstract | The article presents the perception the city and its inhabitants in the imagination and
behaviour of the inhabitants of Iwkowa, a village in the Malopolska region, in the poviat of
Brzesko. The material underlying the research includes 122 short stories published in two
volumes under the titles Gawędy iwkowskie (Tales from Iwkowa) and Komedyje iwkowskie
(Comedies from Iwkowa). The examined short stories display a clear-cut division of the world
into orbis interior and orbis exterior, and thus also present the dichotomy ”familiar – foreign”.
The article shows not only the cultural conditioning, but also the dominating linguistic
behaviour, which is characterized by schematization, stereotype, and simplified evaluation of
the contact with ”the strangers” – the city people (e.g. by means of generic subjects, specific
derivational processes to denote the strangers, elements of grotesque, or animalistic similes).
Although at the turn of the 20th century certain ”warming” of the city – countryside relations
could be perceived, in the context of the analysed texts the dominating attitude to the city and
the city people is the negative stereotype. | en_EN |