Lexical and semantic nature of nicknames (based on the Italian language)

Артёмова Евгения Александровна,

кандидат филологических наук, Национальный педагогический университет им. М. П. Драгоманова

Лексическая и семантическая природа никнеймов (на материале итальянского языка)

В статье рассмотрены основные виды никнеймов - ономастических единиц интернет-дискурса, которыми пользуется виртуальная языковая личность. Описаны и раскрыты их лексические характеристики и семантическая природа. Автор сопоставляет понятия псевдоним, прозвище и никнейм, обращаясь к этимологии этих понятий. Также дается дефиниция терминов, учитывая толкования современных лингвистов. В исследовании акцентируется внимание на том, что изучение никнейма веб-личности в рамках виртуальной реальности как лингвокультурного феномена, является не только популярным, но и чрезвычайно актуальным для современной лингвистики. По мнению автора, никнейм представляет собой уникальное явление номинации, важное средство саморепрезентации и формирование образа интернет-личности. Фактическим материалом послужили виртуальные имена, которые были отобраны с аутентичных итальянских веб-форумов, интернет-чатов и социальных сетей. При этом возраст, социальный статус, профессия коммуникантов не учитывались.

Today, those researchers who are actively studying the Internet in all areas of linguistics offer a variety of classifications of internet-nicknames. We have already marked that in some ways, a virtual nickname is a pseudonym (Italian - soprannome), and it can be proved by the following: `...the word nickname is first recorded in the 15<sup>th</sup> century: `an eke name' (Old English eke, `also') was an extra or additional name used to express such attitudes as familiarity, affection, and ridicule. Nicknames are usually applied to people, but places and things can have them too. Personal nicknames are commonest among children, but any closely-knit group will generate nicknames (such as the members of a family, sports team, or army unit). People who tend to be nicknamed are special friends or enemies, those in authority (teachers, officers, politicians), and anyone who has achieved notoriety (especially criminals). It is an important index of intimacy when we feel comfortable in using someone's nickname to their face' [4, p. 152].

Every person, when using the Internet and interacting, becomes a virtual language personality. According to T. Germasheva, `the virtual language personality of a subject of a blog discourse includes a real language personality and possesses some special communicative competencies providing communication within a virtual environment - this personality realizes itself in a virtual discourse, forming a new dynamic image with a high degree of freedom. The behaviour of the virtual language personality is characterized by poly-identity, and the structure of self-representation includes such components as self-characterization and impact' [1, p. 42].

It is clear that the virtual language personality needs self-representation - an internet-name. There is a diversified synonymic row for such names today: a nickname, a web-name, an internet-name, a network name, a virtual nickname, etc., but the most suitable definition for these lexical units, in our opinion, is the following: `nickname is a conditional or fictitious name for identification on the network. An artistic image of symbols that is created by a user for communication and self-representation in chat rooms, social networks and similar resources' [5]. M. Chabanenko defines the nickname as `an informal personal name that is adopted by a speaker for the purpose of concealing the personality, which is the result of creativity, used in various spheres of mediated youth communication, made in writing' [3, p. 13].

In our opinion, the notion of a nickname is infused with the notion of a pseudonym. Any nickname, as well as any pseudonym, is selected by a person for some purpose. We absolutely agree with D. Crystal who emphasizes that `many people adopt a name other than their original name for a particular purpose - perhaps to convey an image of some kind, to avoid some unpleasant associations, to make their identity more memorable, to hide their identity, or simply to make their name more pronounceable or easier to spell. Terminology varies, but pseudonym, pen-name, nom de plume, stage-name, byname, alias, and allonym have all been used, with different nuances, to identify the practice' [4, p. 152].

By definition of V. Dmitriev, the pseudonym is `a common name for fictitious or modified names and surnames, those which replace a real name in signature' [2, p. 278].

The above definitions give us the grounds for an attempt to use the classification of some internet nicknames, proposed by D. Crystal and V. Dmitriev, for the distribution of the network names. The basis of V. Dmitriev's classification is the authors' principle of distribution of pseudonyms, primarily, according to their origin. From this perspective, one can distinguish between aliases associated with real names and unrelated ones. Pseudonyms of the first type hide a real name of an author by various means, but it can be found by deciphering the signature. Second type pseudonyms are quite diverse, they should be distinguished by functional meanings: some of them characterize the author on one side or the other; others represent it not as it is (so-called `mask name'); the third ones are only intended to provide incognito.

It is essential to highlight that modern linguists are doing great research concerning nicknames, the virtual language personality and the Internet on the whole. Among such scientists it is worth mentioning such names as O. Belinskaya, M. Chabanenko, L. Kom- pantseva, O. Lutovinova, G. Trofimova, A. Zhyckina and many others.

Since in our previous works we have already described some characteristics that are different or common in these lexical units (nickname and pseudonym), we consider it reasonable to use the classification of pseudonyms, proposed by V. Dmitriev to reveal the semantic nature of internet nicknames - this is the purpose and tasks of our present work. We consider our article to be relevant because analyzing nicknames based on the Italian language has been made for the first time, and it needs further detailed studying.

So, we have analyzed some Italian virtual nicknames, which we have categorized as follows:

- autonyms (Italian - autonimo): Emanuela Venturini, Ruggero Ballotta, Nicola DeFranco, Freddo Cavinato, Anna Pavarotti, Patrizia Primo, Karlo Giordano, Maria Ricci, Antonio Costa, Giueseppe Moretti.