Self-Nominations with Function of Anthroponym in Runet

Abstract

Self-nominations with the function of an anthroponym (nicknames, yuzerniki, usernames) belonging to users of the Russian-speaking segment of Internet communication are analyzed. The material includes 5,000 examples with personal metadata of communicants and the results of more than 350surveys of informants. The sources are social networks (Vkontakte, Telegram, Professionals, LovePlanet), media hosting sites (Flickr, YouTube), news portals (RT, Vzglyad), an online game (World of Tanks) and a specialized forum (Сyberforum). Nominal, morphological, syntactic, spelling, phonetic, lexical, semantic properties of self-nominations are established. A descriptive analysis of the material demonstrates both the actual features of namecreation and general verbal changes in Runet. A tendency towards deanonymization has been proven: more than half of the self-nominations are of an autonymous origin. In pseudonymous self-names, the creative and playful functions of the language are realized, humorous and self-ironic connotations are found, the features of appearance, status, and political views are implicitly and explicitly imprinted. It is shown that the structure of virtual self-nominations tends to complicate, “burden” them with additional meanings, information. It is noted that the number of self-names with a complex syntactic structure in the form of phrases is growing. It has been established that graphic means and spelling deviations are losing their former significance and popularity. It is concluded that the stability of the expansion of the English language is fixed.