Naming Practices in Dominican Bateyes: Toponymy from Below

Abstract

This study discusses toponomastic naming practices and the negotiation of place-identities in the Global South, in the example of so-called bateyes in the Dominican Republic, i.e. settlements with a historical connection to sugar cane production and transnational migration. Departing from multinymity as an empirical fact, we analyse the social dynamics of place-making through naming. In this context, we demonstrate that the speech act of naming bears significance for the perception of the material world and how societies imbue it with social relevance and value. Moreover, we demonstrate that the distinction between clas­sificatory nouns and names is more gradual than absolute. Having uncovered a wide range of relations between names (and classificatory nouns), we propose a model inspired by usage-based, cognitive linguistics to describe structural and semantic properties of names, as stored in a linguistic repertoire.