Identity of virtual linguistic persona and linguistic creativity in digital lexicography

he article deals with the problem of self-presentation and self-nomination of a person taking part in virtual communication. New proper name (nickname) appears as a result of virtual linguistic persona creative activity. Nickname being a must for participating in virtual communication is a non-official secondary anthroponym coined to name and often to characterize a person who describes and assesses his/her peculiarities, and also identifies group belonging. The author analyzed nicknames coined by people who created and uploaded to the Urban Dictionary definitions of lexical units with morpheme cancel-. Virtual communication does not enable participants to verify the information, so they cannot say whether the nick is motivated or not. So, different interpretations of a name are possible. Nickname is the author’s mask, which conceals the speaker’s identity and thus ensures his/her safety in the discussion of a controversial social problem. The mask provides both anonymity and uniqueness. The author described the linguistic means used to coin nicknames as elements of identity and means of a virtual self-presentation in digital lexicography; created a classification of such nicknames. Nominal onyms are similar to self-identification utterances and name the person on the basis of his/her peculiarity, either the real or ascribed one. Nicks which are random sets of different signs (letters, numbers, etc.) are the most efficient in providing anonymity of a virtual linguistic persona. Assessment nicks embody positive or negative self-presentation. Communicative onyms are syntactically complete sentences written as a compound word. Both nominal and communicative nicknames contain the characteristics the virtual linguistic persona chooses as motivation elements in word building process.