LEXICAL CREATIVITY IN THE NICKNAMES OF WORLD TENNIS PLAYERS

Abstract

The paper deals with recent nicknames of famous professional tennis players, which are the result of creative language processes applied in specific extralinguistic contexts. Nicknames of the top 100 players on the ATP tour, such as NOVAK ĐOKOVIĆ, RAFAEL NADAL, ROGER FEDERER, ANDY MURRAY and others, are analysed from several viewpoints, based on qualitative methods relying on the description and classification of examples. Following an introductory discussion on the nature and characteristics of nicknames, they are described and discussed at various levels of linguistic analysis. Structurally, as far as word formation is concerned, the most frequent processes, such as blending (at the same time the most creative one), clipping and, to a lesser extent, acronymy, compounding and reduplication, are discussed, based on examples such as Stanimal = STAN(ISLAS) + animal, or Dolgo, clipped from DOLGO[POLOV]. The selected nicknames, being phrases of various complexities, are also classified according to their morpho-syntactic structure. The analysis of content features (semantic, stylistic and pragmatic ones) primarily focuses on aspects of meaning such as connotation (e.g. ameliorative labels – The King of Clay, including hypocorisms, or pejorative – Nadull, both referring to RAFAEL NADAL). Special emphasis is placed on nicknames of players based on their physical and/or psychological characteristics, their style of play, as well as their behaviour on and off the tennis court. Through their nicknames, players are also seen as representatives of their countries and cultures (e.g. Japanese player KEI NISHIKORI’s nickname Project 45), while some of their nicknames have roots in high and popular culture (e.g. Tomić the Tank Engine for Australian player BERNARD TOMIĆ, based on the cartoon character Thomas the Tank Engine) or were created on certain occasions which accidentally gave rise to the formation of a nickname (e.g. The Marathon Man of Tennis for JOHN ISNER). In addition, lexical creativity is also exemplified at the phonological (rhyming, alliteration, assonance) and phono-orthographic levels (Malaise from MALISSE), as well as the graphemic-visual level (e.g. peRFect, referring to ROGER FEDERER). Finally, a section is devoted to the ameliorative and pejorative nicknames that foreign players have in the Serbian language (e.g. Kum for ANDY MURRAY). It is concluded that these are conditioned by how the players are perceived by the Serbian viewers, primarily based on their relationship with the best Serbian players, most notably with NOVAK ĐOKOVIĆ. The concluding section summarizes the results and emphasizes the fact that nicknames from the world of tennis, and sports in general, represent an inspiring source of linguistic data and inexhaustible material for applying and tracing creative language mechanisms at all levels of linguistic analysis.