The Fragrance of Flowers, or Metaphoric and Metonymic Pseudonyms

ABSTRACT

Drawing on frame semantics as a framework, the current article studies metaphoric and metonymic pseudonyms. The corpus is made up of 128 pseudonyms produced by Saudis over mass and social media. The argument runs as follows: Pseudonym Bearers use metaphor and/or metonymy as an Instrument to construct a pseudonymous frame to mask their identity. Sociocultural reality, which is called the Trigger of the frame, is the motivation behind conceptualizing the self via a pseudonym. The Goal of the pseudonym is to change the Trigger and Benefit psychologically from this change. To measure this change of reality, the researchers submit the pseudonyms under study to Lakoff and Turner’s Great Chain of Being Metaphor. The findings of the article point to a scaling of the Bearer down the Chain, thus re-categorizing the self as less than human. These findings will be shown to occasion possible theoretical implications for the contemporary theory of metaphor.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Raymond Gibbs for his insightful comments on a first draft of this article, which greatly improved its quality. The authors also express their gratitude to Majid Alhumaidi for reading and commenting on a first draft, and to Bandar Alhamdan and Oudah Eleneizi for contributing a screen shot of their Twitter followers and for giving their time and patience to sample pseudonyms from their own accounts. Obviously, responsibility for the contents is incumbent on the authors.

Funding

The authors extend their sincere appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University for its funding of this research through the Metaphor and its Applications Research Group no. RGP-VPP-328.

Notes

¹ http://chrishateswriting.com/post/76431353368/the-anonymity-i-know

² Josh Halliday, “SXSW 2011: 4Chan founder Christopher Poole on anonymity and creativity, The Guardian, Sunday March, 13, 2011 (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/13/christopher-poole-4chan-sxsw-keynote-speech).

³ An exhaustive list of metaphoric pseudonyms can be found in Appendix A while an exhaustive list of metonymic pseudonyms can be found in Appendix B.

⁴ The pseudonyms in the current article are actually used in Arabic, and the researchers have translated them literally to keep the spirit of the originals.

⁵ Throughout the article, “the self” is used as a neutral pronoun instead of herself or himself to avoid identifying the Bearer as female or male, respectively. In very rare cases where the Bearer is transparently identifiable, the corresponding pronoun is used.

⁶ An exhaustive list of metonymies in this article can be found in Appendix B.

⁷ This pseudonym is the title of a lyric song by the Lebanese singer, Elyssa.

⁸ Ahlawi is relative to the Ahli football club in Saudi Arabia.

⁹ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgGHV6Kinrw&sns=em

Additional information

Funding

The authors extend their sincere appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University for its funding of this research through the Metaphor and its Applications Research Group no. RGP-VPP-328.