Precedent name and its connotations

Abstract

This work gives special attention to examination of precedent name and its connotative meaning in mass media texts. Precedent name is viewed as a result of semantic condensation of the corresponding precedent text and/or precedent situation. The purpose of using precedent name in speech consists in giving a concise and brief characteristic to the subject of assessment through the system of meaningful standards, clichéd images that became an etalon of certain qualities of a person within the framework of the culture, as well as in expressing a subjective attitude that can be negative or positive. In the course of research, the author applies the method of contextual analysis, component analysis and comparative analysis. Precedent name, being the means for preservation of achievements of spiritual culture of the society and conveying ethical and aesthetical norms from generation to generation, simultaneously represents the way of expressing subjective assessment in the atypical context of application, which leads to the extension of its communicative functions and emergence of potential (and eventually realistic) secondary meanings, as well as reflects a dynamic situation of a cultural linguistic community.