A Cognitive Approach To Nicknames

The nickname is a descriptive name added to or replacing the actual name of a person, which is created on the basis of the person's appearance, character, specialty, hobby, occupation, region, special experience, etc. Although nicknames have much relationship with our daily life and also appear in many literary works, the study on them is still not a mainstream in today's linguistics field. Actually, not enough in-depth researches have been done at home and abroad on nicknames.The writer chooses to analyze Chinese and English nicknames from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. To begin with, the thesis reviews the previous researches on nicknames and evaluates them briefly. Next, Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Metonymy Theory are expatiated so as to construct the theoretical framework for the following analysis. Subsequently, based on the foregoing researches, the detailed analysis of Chinese and English nicknames from the perspective of cognitive linguistics is carried out. Lastly, after a careful analysis of the data collected from various sources, the writer draws a conclusion that the use of nicknames is not only a phenomenon of language, but cognition and culture. On the one hand, cognitive models like metaphor and metonymy have greatly contributed to the nicknames'formation and interpretation both in Chinese and English. On the other hand, nicknames have a long history and the process of their formation and development is unavoidably influenced by specific national culture to some degree. Hence, as for the choice of source domain in metaphorical mapping as well as the proximity and contiguity of two entities in metonymic mapping, cultural patterns must be taken into consideration. In a word, the emergence of nicknames is the result of the mutual effect of cognitive models and cultural patterns.