Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study sought to examine independent clause Sesotho personal names as authentic social discourse using the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory. It sought to analyze their structure and map them to social functions to demonstrate that they are enacted messages in socio-cultural context of Basotho. It used a form-meaning approach to interpret Sesotho names in socio-cultural contexts of use (cf. Halliday 1994, 2001, Eggins, 1996, 2004 and Martin & Rose 2007) as an alternative to the current formalist approach to onomastica interpretation. The SFL analysis was compared and contrasted mainly with the formalist syntactic specific and semantic specific analyses currently in use by Guma, Sesotho Academy and subsequent authors of Sesotho grammar and other linguists. The purpose of displaying these names as texts in social context enfolded the intent to reflect a systemic interface of lexico-grammar and social activity. The study used the clause-text-culture paradigm to explore Sesotho names as texts or semantic units. The idea was to access their ‘meanings beyond the clause’ (Martin & Rose 2007). Data was collected from national examinations pass lists, admission and employment roll lists from Public, Private, Tertiary, Orphanage institutions. Other data was identified in Telephone directories and Media. The purely linguistic lexico-grammatic analysis of the structure of names was supplemented by interview data from real interpretations from families, owners and senior citizens who have social and cultural knowledge of the meanings of some names. The study has established that Sesotho personal names can present as an independent clause feature. Sesotho personal names can also be described as lexico-grammatical properties and are meaningful in social contexts. They are used to exchange information as statements, demands and commands, and as questions and as exclamations. This means that these names can be categorized according to Halliday’s Mood types which make them function as declaratives, imperatives, interrogatives and exclamatives depending on the awarder’s evaluation. The study also finds that in negotiating attitudes, modality is highly incorporated. The study concludes that Sesotho names conform to the logical structures of the nominal group and the verbal group and these groups reciprocate in use. The verbal group is the core constituent in these names and it serves as a foundation for the nominal and verbal groups particularly because they function as reciprocating propositions. This includes the names with the sub-modification features. This extends the formalist description of Sesotho independent clause in that the identified sub-modifications which are opague and taken for granted by formalist analysts of Sesotho, are explicated as essential elements embedded in the formmeaning relation in SFL. The main contribution is that this is the only study on SFL and onomastica. There is no study that has been conducted using SFL to describe African names. It presents that Sesotho personal names are texts that have been negotiated in socio-cultural contexts. It provides a major departure from most studies that have used the Chomskian formulations or other sociolinguistic theories to describe the naming systems. It displays the art and importance of language use based on experience and culture in the naming system. The study also contributes to fields such as education, history, and others. Lastly, the study has established a new relation of onomastica and SFL theory and onomastica can now be added to the areas “being recognized as providing a very useful descriptive and interpretive framework for viewing language as a strategic, meaning-making resource.” (Eggins 1996:1).

The aim of this study is to evaluate whether the ‘richness’ of the marking on personal names is an adequate indirect measure of a language’s case usage. The method uses parallel texts to identify, and group by lemma, names in over a thousand languages. These groupings are compared with data for case usage from a typological database for those languages for which it is available. This material is then used to test a method for assessing whether a language uses case or not. Results indicate that the maximum number of word types a proprial lemma is attested with in a text is a useful tool for inferring case usage. However, it only yielded clear results for a subset of the languages tested. It was not particularly useful for inferring the absence of case usage. Estimation of number of case categories was also performed. An entropy measure based on word types that a personal name lemma is attested with and the occurrences of these word types was used. It was found to be a fair indicator of number of case categories for languages, if somewhat inaccurate. Markings on languages which had no case were investigated. They were found to be of several types: pragmatic markers, non-case grammatical markers and case-like markers. Two languages with few markings on personal names and with case were investigated. They were found to not use any case marking on their personal names, but still use such markers on common nouns. This contrasts with a tentative generalization that this study is based on: ‘No languages have case marking exclusively in the domain of [personal names] or [common nouns].’ (Handschuh, 2017). / Denna studies syfte är att utvärdera om ’formrikedomen’ hos personnamnslexem är ett fungerande indirekt sätt att undersöka språks kasussystem. Parallella texter användes för att namnen hitta personnamn och gruppera dem efter lexem i över ett tusen språk. För den delmängd av språken där data om deras kasussystem fanns tillgänglig så jämfördes denna med grupperingarna. Resultaten indikerar att det maximala antalet ordformstyper som ett namnlemma observerades i är ett användbart verktyg för att hitta språk som använder kasus, men bara för en delmängd av testade språk. Det var däremot sämre på att hitta språk som inte använder kasus. En entropiuppskattning som var baserat på antalet ordformstyper ett personnamnslemma hittades med och antalet förekomster av dessa ordformstyper användes. Det var en okej indikator för antalet kasuskategorier, dock med något bristande träffsäkerhet. Personnamnsmarkeringar på språk utan kasus undersöktes. De funna typerna av markeringar var pragmatiska, kasuslika, och grammatiska icke-kasus. Två språk med kasus, men med få personnamns, undersöktes. De använder inte kasusmarkering på personnamn, men på sina substantiv, vilket bröt mot en hypotetisk generalisering som denna studie baserades på: Att inga språk har kasusmarkeringar endast på personnamn eller endast på substantiv.

This thesis addresses the pronunciation of proper names in simultaneous interpreting from French into Czech. It consists of 2 parts: the 1st, theoretical part discusses the definitions, categorization and functions of proper names as described in the relevant literature. The work then focuses on adoption of loanwords in Czech and on the specific situation of proper names in simultaneous interpreting. The empirical part analyses 600 personal names from speeches interpreted at plenary sessions of the European Parliament. The aim of the research is to describe the adaptation principles in pronunciation of proper names interpreted into Czech; the intelligibility of the used equivalents; and the frequency of use of female forms of surnames in the European Parliament. The results show that the prevailing adaptation principle is phonological approximation, which corresponds to the rules set by the codified pronunciation standard. Other common principles are retention of the original pronunciation and spelling pronunciation. Original pronunciation is more frequent in names of French origin, whereas spelling pronunciation is found mostly in English and German names. Most of the used translation equivalents are comprehensible: the number of incomprehensible equivalents amounts to 7-11%. Surprisingly, most of...

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to examine how parents in Sweden at the beginning of the twenty-first century use the process of naming as a resource to contribute to the creation of various identities for both themselves and their child. It is based on a two-component study — a postal survey and qualitative group interviews, both conducted in the city of Göteborg, Sweden — and includes parents with children born during 2007 and 2008. By combining different sources (names, surveys and interviews) and different methods (quantitative and qualitative), this study attempts to elucidate how first names and choices of first names can be given various social meanings. In contrast to previous socio-onomastic studies, this study considers not only whether naming contains any social variation, but also how and why such variation arises. The theoretical framework is a combination of onomastic, sociolinguistic, identity-theoretical and interactional theories. The results demonstrate that parents’ choice of first names for their children is an important social act. Through name choices and discussions of these choices, parents create what is known as social positioning, which in turn contributes to the creation of certain identities both for themselves and their child. A number of resources are identified which are used by parents to create different social positionings. This study also demonstrates how both macro-societal structures and interactional aspects influence this social positioning. Finally, this study argues that the observed social variation is best explained by the parents’ desire to identify with and contribute to the creation of different models for society, in which varying social values and attributes are important.

The thesis focuses on the group of deities with solar aspects in the period of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2592-2118+25 BC). For this research, five gods were selected: Atum, Shu, Kheprer, Nefertum and Weneg. They were either linked to the sun cycle and light (Atum and Kheprer, evening and morning sun respectively, Shu), or to some particular plants (Nefertum to water lily and Weneg to the so-called wng-plant). Some of the deities under survey also represented a part of the so- called Heliopolitan cosmogony and cosmology. A number of Old Kingdom sources (Pyramid Texts, tomb decoration and burial equipment with special focus on the funerary domains and offering formulae, royal names and epithets, personal names, royal annals and administrative sources, namely seals and sealings, papyri from Wadi el-Jarf, Gebelein and Abusir, and titles) are analysed, taking into consideration the attestations for the individual gods and the information concerning the links of the deities to the sun and their solar aspects. Likewise, the roles and functions of these divinities, and their relation to other divine beings are studied. Further research questions are in which social spheres these gods appeared and where they were venerated, if exclusively in Heliopolis and its vicinity, or if there were diverse sanctuaries...

Ausgehend von einem sozialkonstruktivistischen, pragmatisch-kognitiven Verständnis von Namen untersucht die Studie die diskriminierenden Wahrnehmungen, die über Personen-namen in Deutschland und Schweden aufgerufen werden. Durch Anwendung der kritischen Theorien und Zugänge der Black Feminist, Postcolonial, Postmigrant, Trans und Disability Studies auf Namensdiskurse werden gegenwärtige sowie historische hegemoniale Normen dekonstruiert. Mit Hilfe des durch intersektionale Machtverhältnisse konstituierten Dispositivmodells wird die Intelligibilität von Personennamen zur Diskussion gestellt. Vergewohnheitung (accustoming) als neues analytisches Konzept macht nachvollziehbar, wie hegemoniales Wissen zu Namensgebung auf strukturalistische und essentialisierende Weise erworben und internalisiert wird. Die Analyse administrativer und legislativer Diskurse zeigt, wie hegemoniale Namensnormen historisch und institutionell vergewohnheitet wurden. Dass ein Personenname institutionell auch durch individuelle Wahrnehmung bestimmt wird, illustriert die Analyse des ‚Kindeswohl‘, einem zentralen Argument für Namensentscheidungen auf Standesämtern. Ein weiteres Beispiel für die Rechtfertigung ent_wahrgenommener diskriminierender Namenspraktiken ist das Sprachgefühlkonzept, dessen Verwendung daraufhin untersucht wird, inwiefern es nationalistische Vorstellungen des Eigenen und des Anderen aufruft. Schließlich wird die An- und Aberkennung von Menschsein als Konsequenz diskriminierender Namenshandlungen adressiert. Eine Sammlung empowernder Interventionen in diskriminierende Namenspraktiken sowie Empfehlungen für eine kontra_diskriminierende, antistrukturalistische Wahrnehmung von Personennamen runden die Studie ab. Mit ihrem transdisziplinären Ansatz veranschaulicht die Arbeit, wie disziplinäre Grenzen überschritten und Diskursfelder und -materialien, die traditionellerweise in den Rechts-, Geschichts-, Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften analysiert werden, in die Genderforschung integriert werden können. / Based on a social constructivist, pragmatic cognitive understanding of naming, the study investigates the discriminatory hegemonic presuppositions and perceptions that are interpellated with personal names in Germany and Sweden. The critical lens of Black Feminist, Postcolonial, Postmigrant, Critical Trans and Disability Studies is applied in order to deconstruct current and past hegemonic naming norms. By regarding the un/intelligibility of names as constituted by intersecting power relations, racism_genderism_ableism_migratism_ classism, the dispositive model helps to identify what personal names and naming practices are made un/thinkable. Accustoming is introduced as an analytic tool to understand how hegemonic knowledge on naming is acquired and internalized in a structuralist and essentializing way. The analysis of administrative and legislative discourses demonstrates how hegemonic naming norms have been historically and institutionally accustomed. That a personal name is not only determined by institutional but also by individual decision-making is illustrated on the example of the child’s well-being, a commonly used argument for name decisions at registry offices. The feel for language as another norm to justify de_perceived name discrimination is analyzed against the background of how sprachgefühl as an emotive concept interpellates nationalist images of the self and the Other. The final chapter addresses the consequences of discriminatory naming practices: the definition and denial of personhood. The study concludes with a collection of empowering interventions in discriminatory naming practices and recommendations for a contra_ discriminatory anti-structuralist perception of personal names. By employing a transdisciplinary approach, the study illustrates how disciplinary boundaries are transgressed and how different discourse areas and material that traditionally are investigated in law, history, linguistics and literature is integrated in Gender Studies research.

The aim of this thesis is to describe surname patterns and changes of surname among the Sami of Sweden. It presents the results of three studies. The first is a survey of the present-day stock of surnames (family names) among the Sami community, based on the 2005 electoral register for the Swedish Sami Parliament. It investigates the proportions of names deriving from different languages, and the commonest names in each group. The same study was carried out for different areas, showing that the northernmost parts of Sweden have a Sami name stock significantly different from that of the majority population. Further south, the stock of names is less marked, but no area is without Sami elements. The second study, based on archival material, concerns changes of name by Swedish Sami to newly formed surnames, over the period 1920–2004. It examines not only the names adopted, but also the ones replaced; how the name stock has been affected by different patterns of name change; and, as far as possible, who the name changers were. The study shows that, for a long time, names derived from Sami and Finnish were replaced with names formed from Swedish. This may be largely because of the stigma once attached to Sami ethnicity. More recently, Sami-language names seem to have been retained to a greater extent, possibly owing to the improved status of the culture. The third study looks at name changes in favour of names marked as Sami in character. The data consist in part of archive materials, but above all of interviews with three Sami informants who have themselves adopted Sami-language surnames. This study presents the informants’ thoughts on ethnicity and changes of name. In addition to the author’s own studies, the thesis includes a review of earlier research on Sami surnames, hereditary and non-hereditary, and a list of individual surnames with literature references regarding their origins and meanings. In the thesis, name changes are studied as a single, overall process, with an emphasis on the role of names in society, in particular as ethnic markers.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - James Cook University, 2004. / Thesis submitted by Sally Marie Babidge, BA (Hons) UWA June 2004, for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Anthropology, Archaeology and Sociology, James Cook University. Bibliography: leaves 283-303.