McGowan T. Paragon names in the discourse of contemporary American mass-media: cognitive and functional aspects

This thesis is a comprehensive study of formal, cognitive, and functional aspects of paragon names employed by American mass-media. Formally, paragon names share characteristics of both proper and common names. Cognitively, paragon names result from a succession of metonymic shifts in the referential semantics of a proper name, which are accompanied by the processes of categorization and analogical or metaphorical mappings. Metonymic shifts expose salience of a referent's property, make it the prototype of a conceptual category, and provide, via comparison, substitution of other members of this category by its prototype. Key words: paragon names, cognitive foundations, semantic classification, naming potential, functions in discourse, mass-media.