DOI 10.51955/2312-1327_2024_3_179

Ekaterina O. Tumanova

Abstract. Historical, cultural, political, economic and sporting events that are significant for a particular linguistic-cultural community are fixed in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers and are reflected in their lexical composition. The article is devoted to the description of semantic and stylistic peculiarities of German eonyms, i.e. lexical units whose semantics include allusions to the events in various spheres of life that gave rise to them. The research material is represented by “epithets of the year”, i.e. adjective names from the rating lists of the annual linguistic campaign of the German Language Society in Germany “Word of the Year” for the period from 1971 to 2023. The author has devoted his study to the description of the main characteristics of the selected units. The special stylistic features of eonyms-adjectives testify to their metaphorical character and the possibility of fulfilling the stylistic function of epithets. The article gives a general characterisation of eonyms-epithets in their diachronic aspect. The approach proposed by the author to the study of the linguistic reflection of historical events in German-language discourse is of interest to specialists in the field of linguistic-cultural studies.

Keywords: eonym, adjective, epithet, linguistic reflection, word of the year, the German language, key words of the current moment, linguistic-cultural studies.

Download article in PDF 383.1 kB