The Study of Names

The Study of Names
Author: Frank Nuessel
Publisher: Greenwood
Total Pages: 184
Release: 1992-09-30
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN:

An introduction and research guide to onomastics, this book covers the major areas of name study in individual chapters on personal names, place names, acronyms, brand names and trade names. Every topic comprises a discussion of underlying principles as well as numerous illustrative examples.

The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming

The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming
Author: Carole Hough
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 801
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 019163042X

In this handbook, scholars from around the world offer an up-to-date account of the state of the art in different areas of onomastics, in a format that is both useful to specialists in related fields and accessible to the general reader. Since Ancient Greece, names have been regarded as central to the study of language, and this has continued to be a major theme of both philosophical and linguistic enquiry throughout the history of Western thought. The investigation of name origins is more recent, as is the study of names in literature. Relatively new is the study of names in society, which draws on techniques from sociolinguistics and has gradually been gathering momentum over the last few decades. The structure of this volume reflects the emergence of the main branches of name studies, in roughly chronological order. The first Part focuses on name theory and outlines key issues about the role of names in language, focusing on grammar, meaning, and discourse. Parts II and III deal with the study of place-names and personal names respectively, while Part IV outlines contrasting approaches to the study of names in literature, with case studies from different languages and time periods. Part V explores the field of socio-onomastics, with chapters relating to the names of people, places, and commercial products. Part VI then examines the interdisciplinary nature of name studies, before the concluding Part presents a selection of animate and inanimate referents ranging from aircraft to animals, and explains the naming strategies adopted for them.

Socio-onomastics

Socio-onomastics
Author: Terhi Ainiala
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-06-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027265690

The volume seeks to establish socio-onomastics as a field of linguistic inquiry not only within sociolinguistics, but also, and in particular, within pragmatics. The linguistic study of names has a very long history, but also a history sometimes fraught with skepticism, and thus often neglected by linguists in other fields. The volume takes on the challenge of instituting onomastic study into linguistics and pragmatics by focusing on recent trends within socio-onomastics, interactional onomastics, contact onomastics, folk onomastics, and linguistic landscape studies. The volume is an introduction to these fields – with the introductory chapter giving an overview of, and an update on, recent onomastic study – and in addition offers detailed in-depth analyses of place names, person names, street names and commercial names from different perspectives: historically, as well as from the point of view of the impact of globalization and glocalization. All the chapters focus on the use and function of names and naming, on changes in name usage, and on the reasons for, processes in, and results of names in contact.

Personal Names, Hitler, and the Holocaust

Personal Names, Hitler, and the Holocaust
Author: I. M. Nick
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 499
Release: 2019-05-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498525989

Personal Names, Hitler, and the Holocaust: A Socio-Onomastic Study of Genocide and Nazi Germany provides readers with an increased understanding of and sensitivity to the many powerful ways in which personal names are used by both perpetrators and victims during wartime. This book concentrates on one of the most terrifying and yet fascinating periods of modern history: the Holocaust. In particular, it examines the different ways in which personal names were used by Nationalist Socialists to hunt and destroy the victims of their genocidal ideology. Even before requiring Jewish residents to wear a yellow Star of David and have the letter “J” stamped on their passports, Nazi leaders had decreed that all Jewish women and men must add the names “Sara(h)” and “Israel” to their documentation. It did not take long for the perfidious logic behind this naming (onomastic) legislation to become frighteningly clear: it made it that much easier to pinpoint Jewish residents for discrimination, marginalization, relocation, deportation, and ultimately extermination. Through compelling first-hand accounts from Holocaust survivors, in-depth interviews with descendants of Nazi war criminals, and a plethora of chilling cases extracted directly from the meticulous records kept by the National Socialists, this work presents a harrowing historical account of the way personal names were used during the Third Reich to achieve Hitler’s homicidal vision. Importantly, the use of personal names and naming to target and annihilate victims is not a historical anomaly of World War II but a widespread sociolinguistic practice that has been demonstrated in many modern-day acts of genocide. From Rwanda to Bosnia, Berlin to Washington, when governmental controls are abridged and ethical boundaries are crossed, very quickly, something as simple as a person’s name can determine who lives and who dies.

The Cognitive Psychology of Proper Names

The Cognitive Psychology of Proper Names
Author: Serge Bredart
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2002-01-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1134779569

It's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't remember her name." Lots of people have difficulty remembering people's names, even though they can easily recall other information about the person. As memory and retrieval processes are central to cognitive psychology and neuropsychology the study of proper names makes a fascinating and practical focus of study. Using an information processing approach, Valentine, Brennen and Bredart consider evidence from speech production, face recognition and word recognition to develop a new functional model of the production and recognition of people's names. This book will be valuable to all those studying cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology and linguistics. It makes a suitalbe text for higher level undergraduates and postgraduates and those engaged in research.

A Matter of Taste

A Matter of Taste
Author: Stanley Lieberson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780300083859

What accounts for our tastes? Why and how do they change over time? Stanley Lieberson analyzes children's first names to develop an original theory of fashion. He disputes the commonly-held notion that tastes in names (and other fashions) simply reflect societal shifts.

Theory and Typology of Proper Names

Theory and Typology of Proper Names
Author: Willy Van Langendonck
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2008-08-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110197855

This book proposes a new synthesis of the functions of proper names, from a semantic, pragmatic and syntactic perspective. Proper names are approached constructionally, distinguishing prototypical uses from more marked ones such as those in which names are used as common nouns. Since what is traditionally regarded as 'the' class of names turns out to be only one possible function of name-forms (though a prototypical one), the notion of 'proprial lemma' is introduced as the concept behind both proprial and appellative uses of such categories as place names and personal names. New formal arguments are adduced to distinguish proper name function from common noun or pronoun function. The special status of proper names is captured in a unified pragmatic-semantic-syntactic theory: a proper name denotes a unique entity at the level of langue to make it psychosocially salient within a given basic level category. The meaning of the name, if any, does not determine its denotation. An important formal reflection of this characterization of names is their ability to appear in such close appositional constructions as the poet Burns or Fido the dog. The neurolinguistic finding that proper names constitute a separate category is introduced and interpreted within a general linguistic frame of reference. The different kinds of meanings associated with names (categorical, associative, emotive, and grammatical) are shown to be presuppositional in nature. In addition, the book proposes an entirely new classification of proper names as forming a continuum ranging from prototypical (personal and place names) to nonprototypical categories (brand and language names) to citations and autonyms, and a new diachronic classification of family names and nicknames. This book fills an important gap in the current literature, because the most recent linguistic book in English on name theory dates back to 1973. It is explicitly interdisciplinary, taking into account linguistic, philosophical, neurolinguistic, sociolinguistic and dialect geographical aspects of proper names.

Names for Things

Names for Things
Author: John Macnamara
Publisher: Bradford Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1982
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780262630924

The book is concerned with the child's acquisition of names (by which is meant words that refer to objects - including proper names, common nouns in some uses, and pronouns in some uses). Four chapters in the book's first section, Matters Mainly Psychological, describe empirical observations that explore how a child copes with the fact that many different name-like words can be applied to a single object. A second major section, Matters Mainly Linguistic, contains chapters on phonology, the learning of grammatical categories, the definite and indefinite articles, and the plural. A third section, Matters Mainly Philosophical, focuses entirely on the complex issues of reference and meaning. A final chapter reflects on the implications of the book for developmental psychology.An MIT Press/Bradford Book.

Names and Naming in Young Adult Literature

Names and Naming in Young Adult Literature
Author: Alleen Pace Nilsen
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2007-07-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0810866854

This book shows how authors of young adult literature use the creation of names for people, places, events, inventions, animals, and imaginary concepts as one of their most important literary techniques. Chapters address how authors use names to stretch readers' emotions, to reveal ethnic values and differences, to create 'other worlds,' and to establish tone. Other chapters focus on how authors use names to help readers remember who is who, such as J. K. Rowling in the Harry Potter books, or to communicate separate messages to adults and to young readers, as exemplified by Richard Handler in the Lemony Snicket books. Names and Naming in Young Adult Literature equips readers with the interest and the skill to make similar observations about names and naming when they read other books. Looking at the names an author has chosen to use is a wonderful first step in introducing readers to the concept of literary criticism as something to help readers get more pleasure and information from their reading. Public and school librarians, college instructors of young adult literature, teachers of creative writing, high school English teachers, and anyone else who is interested in young adult literature will find this book extremely interesting.