The role of toponymic periphrasis in developing professional competence in learning Spanish

In this article the authors investigate the toponymical periphrasis, or toponymical metaphors of two Spanish speaking countries: Peru and Panama, and determine various aspects of their static and dynamic. The authors examine and systematise toponymical periphrases of Peru and Panama through the prism of the linguistic picture of the world consisting in linguistic-cultural analysis for the reconstruction and typology of stable associations of contemporary Peruvians and Panamanians reflected in the toponymy of their homelands. Approximately ninety place names of Peru and Panama and their periphrasis cited in this article were selected, due to their lingua-cultural, geographical, associative, and commemorative significance for Peruvian and Panamanian people. The historical, linguistic and onomastic approaches, proposed in this research, reveal different mechanisms of metaphorical naming and renaming. The authors evaluate the role of toponymical periphrases in forming professional competences of Russian university students studying Spanish and conclude that knowing toponymical metaphors enriches the professional competences of students in their lingvocreative manifestations and becomes an effective tool in teaching Spanish at Bachelor and Masters levels, contributing to students’ intellectual activities and forming aesthetic values, proper to modern teaching approach.