Motto jako przestrzeń interferencji obrazów świata. Dialogi podmiotów w obrębie ramy Szachinszacha i Wojny futbolowej

Abstract

The article brings analyses of semantics and functions of mottos in two documentary books by Ryszard Kapuściński: Shah of Shahs and The Soccer War. These are special kind of quotes because their subjects represent types of rationality, which are very different from the way of thinking about the world, which can be attributed to the reporter, who is the intellectualist from Europe, educated historian with historiosophical interests. The speakers in mottos in Shah of Shahs are small children, while The Soccer War is opened by a prayer of the leader of Girkua people from South Africa. Both of these types of actors involved – the children and the African – have something in common because in the traditional image of the world imbued in Polish they were associated with naivety and irrationality. Nevertheless children are also thought to be able to get a deeper, mystic insight into reality. The methodological basis of the study is the theory of linguistic picture of the world and the concept of relativity within language. The text also refers to psychological ideas about the role of narratives in individual identity. Using these analytical tools, the author shows how the metatextual frames enrich and universalize the expert, historiosophical interpretation of wars and revolutions.