Linguistic and Cultural Elements of English Fabric Names

The aim of the article is to explore structural, cognitive, semantic, and cultural characteristics of English fabric names formed by means of deonymic derivation. The material under analysis consists of simple and composite lexical units which are derivatives from proper nouns referring to some onomastic realia in Great Britain and Northern Ireland: e.g. oxford, paisley, kersey, tweed, corduroy, glen plaid, tattersall check, Albert cloth, etc. The authors compiled the corpus of deonymic fabric names from general and specialised dictionaries, as well as from websites of the UK textile companies. The research was designed as a multi-aspect study with the focus on (a) ways of word formation; (b) cognitive mechanisms and patterns of deonymic derivation; (c) structural-semantic features and etymology; (d) degree of arbitrariness of using proper nouns as fabric names. The authors further used the above-mentioned aspects for devising a multilevel classification of deonymic fabric names presented in the article. The research into meanings, etymology and cultural content of British fabric names showed that last names, as well as names of cities and towns, were among dominating sources of deonymic derivation. Moreover, this semantic derivation is mainly based on metonymy, which leads to polysemy of previously monoreferential anthroponyms and toponyms. An important outcome of the cognitive, linguistic and cultural analysis the authors conducted is that five metonymic cognitive models of deonymic derivation of English toponyms, anthroponyms, and ethno-nyms have been suggested. The constructed models reflect various types of contiguity and motivating features underlying the semantic transfer of proper names to appellatives, namely in accordance with (1) spatial relations: place of manufacture ^ fabric, (2) subjective genitive relations: production owner/creator ^ fabric, (3) subjective possessive relations: product owner/populariser ^ fabric, (4) subjective-spatial relations: owner of the place where product is used/popularised ^ fabric, (5) cultural and spatial relations: culture/society ^ fabric. The analysis of reality-conventionality of relations between proper names and their derivatives resulted in dividing the researched fabric names into two groups: motivated nominations and relatively conventional symbols. The former have become a part of the general English lexis and lost their expressiveness and imagery. The latter, however, being created by contemporary local manufacturers as trademarks, are expressive and imaginative. When choosing symbolic nominations, producers do not focus on real relations between fabric and onyms, but they are guided by the pragmatic goal of claiming regional identity while selecting geographical objects or people's names as naming components. Deonymic names are of linguistic and cultural value as they illustrate a creative function of language, interdependence of linguistic and sociocultural contexts, enabling communicators to trace, through a language sign, the country's history, its spiritual and material culture.

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