The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the prevalent nicknaming
practices among the youth in Taiwan, with special focus on the nicknaming
strategies, the linguistic features of nicknames, the relationship between
lanugage and culture, and the comparison of the male and female subjects in
different ages in their use and conceptions of nicknames.
A total of 2188 nicknames, collected from 1590 subjects in 10 primary
and secondary schools, are classified by the nature of formation into
internal and external derivvations. The former refer to nicknames based on
personal names; the latter are those associated with physical or
personality traits of the persons referred.
The linguistic features of nicknames are discussed mainly in three
aspects: phonology (such as homonym, anagram, language switches, and
speech errors), morphology (such as clipping, reduplication, affixation,
and some distorted manipulation on the character), and semantics (such as
antonym, synonym, irony, simile and metaphor, word play between languages,
and references). In terms of the constituent parts of speech, most of the
nicknames are simple or compound nounss. Over 92% of the data are composed
of two or three characters, going in line with the disyllabic or
trisyllabic tendency of the Chinese language. The highly familiar terms
are more likely to be adopted as referents than the unfamiliar ones.
Mandarin and Taiwanese are the primary languages used by the nicknamers.
The incorporation of English and Japanese appears to increase in proportion
to the growth in age.
The data suggest some significant differences between male and female
nicknames. In terms of linguistic featuress, girls are more likely than the
boys to get and use affectionate nicknames, which are characterized by
reduplication, diminutive affixes, and single-character terms. Boys in
general use a more exaggerated way of speech. A proportionally greater
variety of nickname vocabulary is used by the boys than by the girls. In
nicknaming peers of either sex, the girls seem to soften their teasing
tones by the metaphorical or euphemistic use of language. The boys, on the
other hand, are more assertive, and ofter use explicit words to tease
people. Slang, swear words, or terms with sexual connotations are more
likely to be attached to male nicknames thna the female ones.
With respect ot nicknames of external derivations, some current sex
role stereotypes are reflected. Female nicknames have a higher percentage
of derivations from physical characteristics than the male ones, indication
that girls are more preoccupied with appearance. Male nicknames with good
connotations generally possess the features of being strong, daring,
clever, capable, and are more sports-oriented. Female nicknames, on the
other hand, are usually centered around striking physical features. The
derogatory nicknames also suggest some accepted norms among the youth:
males in general are assumed to be strong, daring, active, achieving,
independent, aggressive, and inexpressive of the emotions; females are
assumed to be attractive, tender, thoughtful, caring, and quiet.
Our data also suggest changes in the formation patterns of nicknames
at different ages. The dominant nicknaming strategy for young pupils is
internal derivations, most of which arise from hompnyms of personal names.
Quite a large number of the nicknames are simple nouns, in which few
innovative terms are adopted. At older ages, external derivations
predominate over the internal ones. More compounds, innovative terms and
metaphors are used. The data seem to exhibit the content progression with
age-- from the simple, concrete, general terms to the more complex,
abstract, specific ones.
With respect to the use of nicknames, males in general are more likely
than the females to be bestowed nicknames. There is a high correlation
between nicknaming density and group interaction: the more interaction a
group has, the higher intensity it possesses. As for the attitudes towards
nicknames, the more similar subjects are in age, the more similar their
ratings are. The vast majority of subjects state that they like or accept
their nicknames even though mony of them are derogatory in nature. It
implies that among the young studentts, a sense of peer closeness and
solidarity, expressed in the humor of nicknames,, is far more importatn
than the harm caused by the FTA.