Czy zwierzęta mają duszę? Poprzez analizę językową do konceptualizacji zwierzęcej śmierci
Do animals have a soul? Through language analysis to conceptualisation of animal’s death

Summary/Abstract: The article answers the question: „Do animals have a soul?” The author analyses selected old and contemporary ways of language description of animal’s death and presents the language conceptualisation of animal’s death. The basis of the analysis constitute on one side system data from Polish dictionaries, local dialects as well as 19th and 20th century contexts of ethnographic literature presenting various usages of interesting lexemes and on the other side text data form one of the entries included in „the book of deceased’s memory” found online at the virtual animals’ cemetery „Rainbow Bridge”. The analysis of the material shows that contemporary ways of describing animal’s death are not accidental and according to many internet users evoke archaic ways of thinking about animals as creatures with soul which leaves the animal’s body after death. The continuity of certain motives allows to refer to folk and colloquial Polish language aswell as old, traditional and contemporary internet folklore.

• Details
• Contents