Transanthroponimisation As a Productive Way of Self-nomination on the Internet

Abstract

The article is devoted to one of the popular methods of self-nomination in the Internetspace— transanthroponimisation. Creating a virtual persona each user needs own name, the socalled nickname. A study of 10000 nicknames and related accounts of German-speaking users of various Internet-services (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, World of Tanks, World of Warcraft, etc.) reveals that almost one fifth of users name themselves in virtual space using “strange†or precedent anthroponyms. This transfer of proper names from one denotatum to another one—transanthroponimisation—is today in demand and has a number of linguistic and extralinguistic features described in the present article. To implement this type of nominal transposition, both multiple and single (precedent) anthroponyms are used: names, surnames, pseudonyms of musicians, athletes, politicians, heroes and characters of books, films, etc. The main motive for transanthroponimisation between the two denotata is their similarity or proximity. Selfnominations created in this way have significant illocutionary content, diverse connotations, and give direct or indirect characterization to their owners.