The proper names ‘Assad’, ‘ISIL’, ‘ISIS’, ‘Daesh’ and ‘European’ as metonymic blends in political discourse

Abstract The study investigated metonymic uses of the anthroponym ‘Assad’, the acronyms ‘ISIL’, ‘ISIS’, ‘Daesh’ and the toponymic adjective ‘European’ from a blending theory perspective. The corpus comprised British and American politicians’ speeches covering such topics as the activity of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the fight against ISIS, and Euromaidan. Analysis of the data revealed that the source domain of a metonymic expression which has certain cognitive salience in an utterance fuses with the target leading to the emergence of a blend. It was also found that the construction of a metonymic blend in proper names often requires activation of world knowledge which forms part of the conceptual structure of the source or target domains of a proper name.