Abstract:Nicknames are another saying of things, in other words, the original name of things. In recent years some researchers study the nicknames of flowers, persons, tourists and cities. They used different kinds of methods to give good explanations to it. The nicknames of those places is belong to the historical linguistic study, in this theses they will be combined each other to studying on the nicknames of American cities in lights of metaphor and metonymy. In America every cities have its nicknames, one, two, four or more. Some nicknames are derived from the historical persons, some are derived from the natural geographical features and products, other are from other languages or legend. As the language and culture are related each other, the study about the origins of those nicknames of American cities will give better understanding about the background ,history ,geography ,even values.

Key words: metaphor, metonymy, city’s nickname, cognitive language, culture

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 .Introduction-3

2. Literature review-3

2.1 Review of related theories-3

2.1.2 A brief introduction to metonymy-4

2.2. Review of related studies at home and abroad-4

3. Methodology and data analysis-5

3.1 Methodology-5

3.2. Data analysis-5

3.2.1 Nicknames according to the geographical natures-5

3.2.2 According to the history-7

3.2.3 According to culture-8

3.2.4 According to historical person-11

3.2.5According to society-11

3.3 Discussion about the findings-11

4. Conclusion-11

Reference-12

Acknowledgement17