Zhuravleva N.S.

Onomastic space and its multifunctionality in I. A. Yefremov’s “cosmic” novels. Pp. 113–124.

UDC 821.161.1-31.09″19″

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2025.88.3.011

 

Abstract. The article is devoted to the literary onomastics of the “cosmic” novels written by the Soviet science fiction author I. A. Yefremov, who created his images of an ideal anthropomorphic civilization in the mid-20th century. To create an effect of unreality, this writer chose special methods of naming his characters and objects of imaginary reality. His preferred methods to describe the linguistic material were statistical, semantic-stylistic, and linguo-semantic. The linguistic material was selected from texts in the science fiction genre, where the plot centers on the motif of “cosmic” travel: Andromeda Nebula (1957), The Bull’s Hour (1968), and the novella The Heart of the Serpent (1958). The present research focuses on coined authorial onyms and their artistic functions, in particular nominative, informative, historical-cultural, local, pragmatic, evaluative, character selection and grouping, creation of an illusion of the real world, and perspectivization. The onomastic space is considered as part of the figurative system of works, primarily subordinate to the category of the “image of the author” as a scientist. The onomastic space includes the following types of onyms: anthroponyms, toponyms, cosmonyms and astronyms, poreionyms, phytonyms, ergonyms, and chrononyms. The authors highlight the individual characteristics of the use of onomastic space in creating an image of the future: the mixing of onyms of real and unreal objects, the variability of onyms, and diverse ways of naming objects. The novelty of this research is determined by still insufficient study of I. A. Yefremov’s language and the lack of a comprehensive systematic description of his idiolect. It is the interest in science fiction, especially in the Russians “conquest” of space, the natural-scientific picture of the world in literature, and literary onomastics that makes this article relevant.

 

Keywords: worldview, “cosmic” novels, nomination, image of the future, occasionalism, onym, onomastic space, functions of onyms, language of I. A. Yefremov.

 

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