Abstract:

This paper develops an interdisciplinary perspective of teaching civilization of the Latin American world through personal names. It is common knowledge that a good command of a foreign language implies familiarity with the essential characteristics of the worldview inherent in the appropriate linguistic community. The designed course is based on the data from the Pantheon project developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which measures the global popularity of historical characters. For the purpose of our study, we have selected 40 famous people from the countries of the Pacific Alliance (Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile), top 10 per country, according to the project data. The selected list of names is analyzed further by various criteria (gender, profession, name structure etc.), which allows to identify the dominant features of Latin American worldview.

The analysis of the selected anthroponyms revealed the prevalence of masculinity as among 40 top famous persons there were only 6 women. The majority of famous people are known by their short names or pseudonyms. As for professions, the list is dominated by politicians followed by writers, and comprises both prominent and evil historical figures.

The proposed methodology used in a Hispanic civilization class is first and foremost useful with the view of making students familiar with the key figures in Latin American history. The second objective is to demonstrate students the key features of Latin American worldview and mentality. Thirdly, the disputable nature of the project results triggers debates and discussions in class with the view of refining and analyzing the research outcome. Such approach combines the achievements of the onomastics, history and geography.

Anthroponymic commentaries in the course of Latin American civilization enrich the understanding of their textual manifestations and aesthetics and become an effective tool in teaching Hispanic culture contributing to the development of students’ intellectual activity and professional skills.

Keywords:

Civilization studies, Latin American civilization, anthroponomastics, anthroponym.