Blending in English Charactoons

Abstract

This article deals with both the word-formation mechanism of blending and the creative process involved in providing characters with proper names in cartoons or TV series for children in English. The study addresses the nature and features of proper and common names, two apparently well-distinguished categories, as well as, and basically fictional proper names, by suggesting differences between fictional proper names and other types of proper and common names. Furthermore, it discusses the presence of blending in fiction and in fictional proper names, with special reference to charactonyms. The main focus of this work is on blended charactonyms in cartoons addressed to children, which for the purposes of this study will be called cartoonyms or charactoons. Questions such as the following are addressed: the formation or creation of cartoonyms or charactoons from pre-existing material; the semantic motivations behind their formation; their resulting structural complexity; their particularly descriptive, expressive and meaningful nature; as well as how suitable they are to the genre in which they are used.

Notes

¹Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (emphasis added).

²See e.g. Bauer, English Word-Formation.

³See section 4.2.1.

⁴See Berrey, 3; Pound; Soudek.

⁵Thurner, viii.

⁶See Bryant or Cannon.

⁷This seems to agree with Aronoff, Schultink, Uhlenbeck and van Marle, among others, who do not consider blending to be productive, or with the low numbers provided by Simonini, 752.

⁸Chung.

⁹Chung, 17.

¹⁰Section 4.2.2.

¹¹See e.g. Ashley.

¹²See Crystal, 112.

¹³For a detailed discussion, see Marmaridou.

¹⁴ Webster.

¹⁵Matthews, 300.

¹⁶See e.g. Bertills, 19; Gardiner, 7; Ullmann.

¹⁷Bertills, 19.

¹⁸Predelli, 626.

¹⁹Blomqvist, 9 (emphasis added).

²⁰See e.g. Adams and Dietrich; Adams, Fuller and Stecker; Caplan, Empty Names and Creatures; Fitch; Hofweber; Reimer; Taylor.

²¹“Complex” is here understood as created by means of word-formation processes from already existing elements or words (e.g. Woody Woodpecker), as opposed to simplex (e.g. Brain).

²²See e.g. Mill.

²³Franco, La traducción, 58.

²⁴Hermans, 12.

²⁵See e.g. Alexander; Braun; Moraru; Thomasson, Fiction and Metaphysics and Fictional Characters; Thundy; van Inwagen.

²⁶See e.g. Aaltonen; Ballard; Balteiro; Bantas; Bantas and Manea; Bernárdez Sanchís; Cuéllar Lázaro; Hermans.

²⁷Bertills, 45.

²⁸Bertills, 46.

²⁹See Marmaridou.

³⁰Docherty, 43–5.

³¹On this, see Barthes; Chatman; Docherty; Nikolajeva, Children's Literature and The Rhetoric of Character; Rimmon-Kenan.

³²Jackson, 458.

³³Barthes, 105.

³⁴See also Chatman, 115; Docherty; Lehtonen, 11.

³⁵Bertills, 54.

³⁶Hermans.

³⁷Franco, La traducción, 59.

³⁸See also Boëthius; Nikolajeva, Children's Literature and The Rhetoric of Character.

³⁹Stephens, 12.

⁴⁰For further explanations on this, see Embledon, 175 or Manini, 165.

⁴¹Franco, La traducción, 58.

⁴²On audiences' identification with characters, see Igartua.

⁴³Brdar-Szabó and Brdar.

⁴⁴See Scalise.

⁴⁵See Dressler.

⁴⁶See López Rúa or Spencer.

⁴⁷van Marle, 102.

⁴⁸On the notion of splinter see e.g. Adams or Bauer, “Splinters”.

⁴⁹For a complete account see e.g. Algeo, “Blends” and “Taxonomy of Word Making”.

⁵⁰See e.g. Algeo, “Blends”, 48; Gries, 639.

⁵¹Bauer, English Word-Formation, 235.

⁵²Cannon, 739.

⁵³Pound, 1.

⁵⁴Chung, 17.

⁵⁵Lehrer, “Blendalicious”, 115.

⁵⁶Lehrer, “Understanding Trendy Neologisms”, 370.

⁵⁷Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass.

⁵⁸Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass.

⁵⁹Carroll, Hunting of the Snark.

⁶⁰Dickens.

⁶¹Danks.

⁶²Balteiro, 45.

⁶³See also section 1 and Appendix.

⁶⁴The cartoonyms or charactoons that we have studied very rarely appear in their written forms, except for cartoon titles, if the character's name and the cartoon title coincide, and in merchandising material.

⁶⁵Algeo, “Blends”, 49.

⁶⁶As seen in section 4.3.2.

⁶⁷Gardiner, 21–3.

⁶⁸In the case of Muppets (The), however, the semantic association between the two source words facilitates their formal recognizability and identification. However, note that Jim Henson said:It was really just a term we made up. For a long time I would tell people it was a combination of marionettes and puppets but, basically, it was really just a word that we coined. We have done very few things connected with marionettes.However, if this is indeed the case, and the reinterpretation through the blend is an after-the-fact phenomenon, the fact that the author offered this handy explanation and the readiness with which fans accepted it is in itself indicative of the semantic power of blending.

⁶⁹Section 4.3.3.

⁷⁰Pound, 6.

⁷¹Algeo, “Blends”, 61.

⁷²Algeo, “ Taxonomy of Word Making”.