PRAGMA-DISCURSIVE SPACES OF IDIOM GENERATION: CARAGIALE’ S PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

In an article published in 1893, in the form of a report presenting an imaginary “Romanian Co-operation Congress" (Congresul cooperativ rom‚n), I. L. Caragiale discovers, in an empirical way, the influence of different socioprofessional backgrounds on the semantic (figurative) evolution of a number of words belonging to the general lexicon. The writer creates some thematic micro anthologies of Romanian idiomatic constructions which are derived by means of metaphorization, starting from technical constructions of different professions from the Romanian urban environment (merchants of various categories, tailors, bakers etc.). The study aims at investigating the strategies of the playwright in order to include the respective semantic and stylistic phenomena in the oratorical interventions of the so-called participants in the congress. With a special linguistic intuition, I. L. Caragiale illustrates a principle of sociolinguistics formulated by Fernao de Oliveira in the following themes: “Cada um falo como quem é” and “Os homens falam do que fazem” (Gramatica da Lingoagem Portuguesa, 1536).