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