2012/09/01 by Candice Melzow · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Rhetoric and Communication Studies #Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies #Gothic Literature and Media Analysis
paper · doi:10.1093/isle/iss084
openalex publication_date 2012/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The act of identifying plants and animals by names in both everyday language and scientific nomenclature plays an important role in human beings' interactions with nature. According to speech act theorists such as John L. Austin and John R. Searle, naming in itself is an illocutionary expression equivalent to action—by saying something, we do something. Onomastic theorists, or those who study the uses and origins of proper names, claim that bestowing a name is an act that indicates power because the individual being named, as in the case of a child or a pet, is placed in a subject position and is often perceived as being of an inferior status to the one bestowing the name (Nuessel 3). If we think of the practice that children have of bestowing unfavorable nicknames on their socially challenged peers, this idea becomes even more plausible. This association of name-giving with dominion over a subject, particularly animals and plants, has ties all the way back to the Bible in Genesis where Adam is appointed to use his linguistic capabilities to bestow names upon all of the creatures. Due to its associations with power and oppression, the practice of naming has gained an unfavorable reputation in some literary circles. For example, in Ursula Le Guin's short story “She Unnames Them,” it is only after all of the animals have “returned” the names given to them by Adam that a new relationship emerges with human beings, and in “Body Politics in American Nature Writing,” Gretchen Legler associates the process of naming with “exerting control over both non-human and human bodies” (73).1