Resumo

GONZALEZ, María Elena. Nicknames in the Venezuelan teenagers’ lexicon. Letras [online]. 2010, vol.52, n.83, pp.133-172. ISSN 0459-1283.

The lexicon used by young people, specifically the creation of nicknames used by them, is the object of study in this work. Teenagers constitute a linguistic community with particular traits that identify them as a group. Creativity is thus manifested as an essential feature of language. Field research methodology of a qualitative type was followed. The instruments employed were an open-question interview and a language workshop designed for the compilation of the corpus. For the interpretation of the data, four categories were established: names, binominal compositions, adjectival compositions, and syntactic structures linked with prepositions. The following results emerged: the most frequently used category for the creation of nicknames is that referred to names. In such creation there is a motivation that emerges form surrounding reality, from which some meaningful features that constitute the semantic basis of the nickname are taken. Such semantic basis thus becomes a syntactic structure as two levels of language are interrelated: the semantic and the syntactic levels. Besides, teenagers foreground both physical and behavioral traits, from which the former are outstanding. Also, nicknames reflect some values present in our society, such as: machism, virginity and racism.

Palavras-chave : nicknames; lexicon; teenagers; linguistic devices.

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