Non-memory of genre, memory of stereotype. Axiological conversion in proverbs

Abstract

The article attempts to show how the proverb Gdzie diabeł nie może, tam babę pośle, lit. ‘Where the devil does not dare, he’ll send a woman’ [When the going gets tough, the tough get going], functions in the intertextual space of contemporary Polish public discourse. The history of the proverb is presented, along with its explanations and the stereotypes of the devil and the woman. It is then shown what modal formulae and genological qualifiers are used with the proverb in order to increase its persuasive potential, what position it holds when it is used in argumentation, in implication or in opposition. Conclusions are more general: the functioning of the proverb in discourse illustrates the distancing of paremic derivatives from their bases, as a result of which they lose their constitutive paremic features and turn into examples. The case on hand also involves axiological conversion: the woman in the proverb was first evaluated negatively (she is worse than the devil in her harmful actions), now her image is positive (she does something good against the devil). The proverb functions as praise of someone who has defeated the devil in overcoming difficulties.