ENGLISH NICKNAMES OF THE USA PRESIDENTS: SEMANTIC PECULIARITIES AND MOTIVES OF EMERGING

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of meanings and motives of emerging of English nicknames of American presidents. Notions of nickname and motive of their emerging are defined in the article. Peculiar features of nicknames and the reasons of the spread of nicknames of the US presidents in the English language and its different communicative spheres are revealed in it. Special attention is given in the article to the analysis of meanings of nicknames of American presidents and the motives of their emerging influencing the peculiarities of their meanings and forms. A nickname is a lexical nomination of a person, additional to his or her official name. The distinctive features of nicknames are their informality and recognizability. Nicknames function in any communicative sphere. As a means of creating an image of a politician these units perform evaluative and expressive functions in the sphere of political communication. Nicknames of US presidents are evaluative units. The nicknames of the founding fathers of America have only positive meanings. Such nicknames contain components revealing the role of the first American presidents in the creation of the USA. Negative nicknames of American presidents in English prevail in quantity over positive ones. The motive for the nickname emerging is understood in the article as a reason for verbalizing the speaker's intention to characterize a person or express an attitude towards him or her. The motives for nicknames can be differentiated into external and internal ones. The external motives for the emerging of nicknames of American presidents are extra-linguistic, determined by the facts and peculiarities of their professional activities, places associated with their lives and activities, their personal and professional qualities, ages, appearances, and religious affiliations. These factors are reflected in the semantics of the nicknames of American presidents. The internal motives for the emergence of the nicknames are related to the linguistic resources of their creation, i.e. the possibilities of changing the form of official means of presidential designations. This is reflected in the emerging of diminutive, abbreviated or intentionally distorted official means of nomination of American presidents with evaluative and expressive potential.