Przemiany tytułów nabożeństwa drogi krzyżowej w XX wieku

Titles are regarded as part of the delimitation frame and, therefore, as part of the structural aspect of the genre of Stations of the Cross. The purpose of the paper is to describe changes that took place during the 20th century, which was a period of particularly turbulent changes in the religious discourse. The study is based on material of about 200 texts dealing with this religious service, published between the beginning of the 20th century and the present day. Throughout the last century, the most common title was the simple genological term ‘Stations of the Cross’. At the beginning of the analyzed period, however, also longer titles, extensively informing about the content of the text, were fairly frequent. At the same time, they were also persuasive titles, because of the use of explicitly valuating lexis. Those titles gradually gave way to the use of laconic genological names as titles. After the Second Vatican Council, there were many variants of the service adapted to different audiences and various communication situations, which was reflected in the titles. Recently a new type of titles has appeared, whose purpose is to attract attention of the recipient. They are often based on puzzles, contrast, allusions, etc. Consequently, the receiver gets satisfaction from deciphering a puzzle or finding the source of the given quote or allusion. These phenomena are well-known in studies on language of the press, fiction and advertising, but – at the same time – this overlaps with current trends in the so-called new evangelization. In the entire period studied, the titles played an informative and impressive (or more precisely: persuasive) function. Persuasiveness intensified particularly at the beginning and towards the end of the analyzed period.