Cheery Littlebottom, Here'n'now and Mrs Slipdry

Terry Pratchett: A Literary Onomastician

A reader who enters Ankh-Morpork meets a plethora of inspiring characters’ proper names. The author in whose mind this city has its origins has been awarded a great number of literary awards, honorary doctorates and a knighthood. However, the onomasticon of his novels has attracted little attention of onomasticians. Now, Sir Terry is no longer with us in person. Let this project on literary onomastics (not dissimilar to Gaspode) be also a tribute to one of the most highly onomastically aware author of our times.

The topic of the project
The functions of characters’ proper names in the City Watch series by Terry Pratchett in its original version and some of its translation.

Aim:
A comprehensive analysis of functions of characters’ proper names in a series of novels (not an intuitive one, but one actually based on a scientific method) and in chosen translations of this series. Resulting overview of functions preserved, changed, lost. An insight into the (conceptual) nature of every function a character’s proper name in a novel can serve. A database enabling further research on methods of preserving the functions in question in literary translation – thus, the creation of a new onomastic discipline: literary translation onomastics.

Methodology:
The theory of two acts proposed by the author of this project in the doctoral dissertation “The functions of characters’ proper names in a novel. A theoretical approach and its application”.

Material:
1. The City Watch series by Terry Pratchett.
2. The Polish translation of the City Watch series by Terry Pratchett.
3. The …* translation of the City Watch series by Terry Pratchett.
4. The …* translation of the City Watch series by Terry Pratchett.
5. The …* translation of the City Watch series by Terry Pratchett.
6. The …* translation of the City Watch series by Terry Pratchett.
.
.
.


* Please fill this gap with the name of any language that is not English or Polish.

"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence."

― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man