Idee kulturowe w nazwach własnych. Nazewnictwo przychodni, poradni i gabinetów lekarskich a współczesna kultura medyczna
Cultural ideas in proper names. Contemporary medical culture and the naming of clinics, dispensaries and doctors’ surgeries

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to reconstruct contemporary medical culture and its most important features based on the observation of collected naming material. The basis for analysis and interpretation are the names of clinics, outpatient clinics and doctor’s offices that function in three large Polish cities: Krakow, Poznan and Olsztyn. The main assumption of this study is that proper names, as peculiar texts, reflect the features of the culture that produced them. The author calls this research strategy a symptomatology of culture. The studied proper names showed how modern medicine defines itself and its activities and how it describes the body, health and illness. The conclusions drawn from the onomastic analysis seem to be largely consistent with the findings of the sociology of medicine. The naming of clinics, dispensaries and doctor’s offices reflects the characteristic features of medicalisation and healthism. The studied proper names, read in the perspective of cultural symptomatology, reveal the largely ‘regime-like’, interfering and controlling character of modern medicine. The study proves the cognitive value of incorporating onomastic reflection into cultural studies considerations.

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