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Article published In:
Applying Embodied Cognition and Cognitive Linguistics to language teaching
Edited by Paolo Della Putta and Ferran Suñer
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 21:1] 2023
► pp. 115–139
Regular articles

The proper names ‘Assad’, ‘ISIL’, ‘ISIS’, ‘Daesh’ and ‘European’ as metonymic blends in political discourse

ORCID logo | Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University named after R.E. Alekseev

The study investigated metonymic uses of the anthroponym ‘Assad’, the acronyms ‘ISIL’, ‘ISIS’, ‘Daesh’ and the toponymic adjective ‘European’ from a blending theory perspective. The corpus comprised British and American politicians’ speeches covering such topics as the activity of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the fight against ISIS, and Euromaidan. Analysis of the data revealed that the source domain of a metonymic expression which has certain cognitive salience in an utterance fuses with the target leading to the emergence of a blend. It was also found that the construction of a metonymic blend in proper names often requires activation of world knowledge which forms part of the conceptual structure of the source or target domains of a proper name.

Keywords: proper name, conceptual integration, metonymy, cognitive salience, blend
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Metonymy, cognitive salience and conceptual integration
  • 5.Conceptual integration in proper names
    • 5.1The anthroponym ‘Assad’ and the acronyms ‘ISIL’, ‘ISIS’ and ‘Daesh’
    • 5.2The toponymic adjective ‘European’
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Sources
Published online: 30 January 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00129.gol
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