Onomastic strategies: A pragmatic approach to the use of personal names among the Kabye of northern Togo

• Atoma Batoma ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

     University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

     Township of Cunningham, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Sociolinguistic Studies, ISSN 1750-8649, Vol. 13, Nº. 2-4, 2019 (Ejemplar dedicado a: African anthroponyms: Sociolinguistic currents and anthropological reflections), págs. 193-208
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In this article I propose to analyze three verbal strategies underlying the use of personal names by the Kabye of northern Togo. Such strategies fulfill a variety of purposes, including attempts to influence the behavior of a name-bearer in the context of interpersonal or social relationships. They are often implemented with the intent to help name-bearers live up to their name. Among these strategies I examine (1) the choice of a name, (2) its intonation and (3) its amplification. All three strategies fall within the scope of the socio-pragmatic approach to naming (the giving of names as well as their use) defined here as essentially an act of interpellation.