23rd National and International Onomastic Conference
On 19 October 2023, the three-day 23rd National and International Onomastic Conference began in the auditorium of the University of Opole. The event was opened by Professor Jolanta Nocoń, Director of the Institute of Linguistics at the UO, who recounted the history of the conference, which dates back to 1979.
The theme of the conference was Cultural Onomastics. In recent years, there has been a turn in onomastics towards interdisciplinary research, which sees language as a mirror of historical, political and cultural processes. Hence, the main research issues of the meeting were:
- the cultural turn in onomastic research; the methodology of cultural onomastic research; proper names in the light of ethnolinguistics, cultural and anthropological linguistics, and the linguistic image of the world;
- proper names in cultural, ethnic, linguistic, religious, geographical borderlands, names of specific designations in different cultures and languages;
- cognitive approach to onomastics: proper names as carriers of values, categorisation and classification of proper names, stereotypes and nomenclature;
- proper names in discourse; secondary functions of proper names: cultural, ludic, pragmatic, marketing, persuasive, among others.
“We are very pleased that in the year of the 30th anniversary of
the University of Opole and the 70th anniversary of our institution, such an
excellent conference is held. I would like to thank all the organisers for
taking on the effort of organising this event, especially at a time when online-only
conferences dominate,” said the UO Vice-Rector
for Development and Finance, Prof. Rafał Matwiejczuk.
“It is great to see so many scholars from different places in Poland and around the world. The Onomastic Department of the Committee on Linguistics of the Polish Academy of Sciences is very active and is one of the most enlightened places for the integration of the onomastic community, which is why the committee is trying to support your conference with great commitment, but also with moral, spiritual and scientific zeal,” added Professor Maciej Eder, Chairman of the Linguistics Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Dr Wojciech Włoskowicz, President of the Polish Onomastic Society, thanked the Opole-based academics for their efforts in organising the conference. “I am very pleased that Opole is marking its important place on the onomastic map of Poland in this way. I think that in a way we measure our scholarly path by successive conferences. We can define where we were in our academic development or adventure with onomastics.
The event was organised and hosted by the University of Opole, and co-organised by: Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish Onomastic Society and Opole Society of Friends of Science. The conference was held under the honorary patronage of the Rector of the University of Opole, Prof. Marek Masnyk, the Voivode of Opole, Sławomir Kłosowski, the Marshal of the Opole Voivodeship, Andrzej Buła, and the Mayor of the City of Opole, Arkadiusz Wiśniewski.
The project was co-financed from the state budget funds granted by the Minister of Education and Science within the framework of the "Excellent Science II" Programme, from financial sources within the scope of Popularisation and Promotion of Scientific Activity of the Polish Academy of Sciences and from funds received from the Self-Government of the Opole Voivodeship.
Media patronage over the event was provided by: Radio Opole, O!Polska and Czas na Opole.
The conference agenda is available HERE