Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This study discusses toponomastic naming practices and the negotiation of place-identities in the Global South, in the example of so-called bateyes in the Dominican Republic, i.e. settlements with a historical connection to sugar cane production and transnational migration. Departing from multinymity as an empirical fact, we analyse the social dynamics of place-making through naming. In this context, we demonstrate that the speech act of naming bears significance for the perception of the material world and how societies imbue it with social relevance and value. Moreover, we demonstrate that the distinction between classificatory nouns and names is more gradual than absolute. Having uncovered a wide range of relations between names (and classificatory nouns), we propose a model inspired by usage-based, cognitive linguistics to describe structural and semantic properties of names, as stored in a linguistic repertoire.
Source: Namenkundliche Informationen
DOI: 10.58938/ni760
Authors: Raphael Dohardt, Julia Kieslinger
Language: English
Topic: Language and Culture
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
OpenAlex ID: W4410614498