Political nicknames among the Basotho: An ostensible influence of trending events

Abstract

This article reflects on the function and the role of nicknames given to political parties in Lesotho, especially the Revolution for Prosperity political party (RFP), the Democratic Congress (DC), the All Basotho Convention (ABC), the Basotho Action Party (BAP), and the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD). It suggests that nicknames are a result of trending events that people experience. It resorts to a Functionalist Onomastic approach and also secondary data accessed on social media and radio stations in Lesotho. From a functionalist Onomastic point of view, nicknames will be interpreted to understand the role played by the nicknames to the political parties. The analysis will merge both content and text analysis to achieve the research objectives. It concludes that nicknames are both positive and negative and positive nicknames promote the political party while the negative nicknames demote it. It therefore recommends that positive nicknames that political parties bear should be encouraged and the negatives discouraged to benefit society.