Page 361 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 361
the cowboys, the poets, the professor...
– antonomasia in croatian sports discourse 361
The last reason for the disproportion of antonomasias in the two media
could be found in the function of headlines in newspapers. The headline
has a key role as an entrance to the text, its function is “to lure” a reader
(Ivas, 2004: 10). Owing to its position and graphic design, the headline
will certainly attract attention; if it is figurative, this attraction is ampli-
fied. That is the main reason why journalists formulate headlines figura-
tively. Since antonomasia in sports discourse has an additional function
of identification (journalists use them because their recipients will sure-
ly recognize the substituted target), it does not come as a surprise that ex-
actly every fifth example of written antonomasias appeared in newspa-
per headlines. The cover pages of all the newspapers in our research pro-
fusely used antonomasia in the headlines and so we can conclude that
antonomasia certainly has a big emotional impact on sports readers, es-
pecially in attracting them to buy and read newspaper.
4. Conculsion
In our research we tried to answer three questions that concerned
the role of antonomasia in Croatian sports discourse. The primary tar-
gets of classical antonomasias are shown to be clubs, athletes and nation-
al teams (in that exact order). Two out of three headword antonomasias
were metonymic in origin, and the same ratio is kept in the tokens. Met-
aphor-based antonomasias are used more often than the combined type
because the economy of language favours the use of shorter expressions
and the combined type is necessarily a phrase. The other reason for the
more frequent use of metaphorical antonomasias can be found in their
realization of the general concept sport is conflict (using the names
of predators, war professions or aggressive entities). The source of met-
onymic antonomasias was in most cases the kit color, the emblem, the
name of the club or the name of the city the club comes from. The refer-
ential point is in most cases very obvious although there are some exam-
ples which require more sports or even cultural knowledge in detecting
the connection between the target and the source/vehicle.
We could not give a straightforward answer whether antonomasias
are used more in written or in spoken discourse – instead we tried to
point out possible reasons why there were so many newspaper tokens
when compared to those from TV. The general difference between the
two media obviously generates difference in the use of antonomasia. Tel-
evision reports require less linguistic material because they benefit from
the visual stimulus and they usually provide their recipients with basic
– antonomasia in croatian sports discourse 361
The last reason for the disproportion of antonomasias in the two media
could be found in the function of headlines in newspapers. The headline
has a key role as an entrance to the text, its function is “to lure” a reader
(Ivas, 2004: 10). Owing to its position and graphic design, the headline
will certainly attract attention; if it is figurative, this attraction is ampli-
fied. That is the main reason why journalists formulate headlines figura-
tively. Since antonomasia in sports discourse has an additional function
of identification (journalists use them because their recipients will sure-
ly recognize the substituted target), it does not come as a surprise that ex-
actly every fifth example of written antonomasias appeared in newspa-
per headlines. The cover pages of all the newspapers in our research pro-
fusely used antonomasia in the headlines and so we can conclude that
antonomasia certainly has a big emotional impact on sports readers, es-
pecially in attracting them to buy and read newspaper.
4. Conculsion
In our research we tried to answer three questions that concerned
the role of antonomasia in Croatian sports discourse. The primary tar-
gets of classical antonomasias are shown to be clubs, athletes and nation-
al teams (in that exact order). Two out of three headword antonomasias
were metonymic in origin, and the same ratio is kept in the tokens. Met-
aphor-based antonomasias are used more often than the combined type
because the economy of language favours the use of shorter expressions
and the combined type is necessarily a phrase. The other reason for the
more frequent use of metaphorical antonomasias can be found in their
realization of the general concept sport is conflict (using the names
of predators, war professions or aggressive entities). The source of met-
onymic antonomasias was in most cases the kit color, the emblem, the
name of the club or the name of the city the club comes from. The refer-
ential point is in most cases very obvious although there are some exam-
ples which require more sports or even cultural knowledge in detecting
the connection between the target and the source/vehicle.
We could not give a straightforward answer whether antonomasias
are used more in written or in spoken discourse – instead we tried to
point out possible reasons why there were so many newspaper tokens
when compared to those from TV. The general difference between the
two media obviously generates difference in the use of antonomasia. Tel-
evision reports require less linguistic material because they benefit from
the visual stimulus and they usually provide their recipients with basic
