Multiculturalism reflected in nicknames given to Romanian politicians

Abstract

: Politicians are, probably more than other public figures, under the critical eye of the media and of their political opponents. These entities condemn politicians’ behaviour, language or decisions by giving them various nicknames. The newly coined nicknames sometimes include terms from other languages, thereby enhancing the mocking character of the names. Our approach will focus on identifying the linguistic motivation of the nicknames containing terms borrowed from other languages, as well as the social and contextual factors that triggered their coinage. The theoretical perspective proposed is interdisciplinary, supported by functional linguistics, pragmatics and anthroponymy.