La hispanización de los apodos como elemento motivacional e identificador en el aprendizaje universitario de ELE
Hispanization of nicknames as a motivational and identifying element in the university learning of Spanish as a foreign language

Summary/Abstract: A nickname is a name that people give themselves or receive from others because of how they are or what they do. It describes people better than their surnames and names since it is oriented to qualify them physically or morally. The fact that students of a foreign language give themselves nicknames in this language can be considered a motivational element in their learning, as well as denoting an inclusive attitude towards the target culture. 181 Spanish students out of a total of 563 respondents allow us to demonstrate this in the Ivorian context. Hispanized nicknames are constructed according to five linguistic techniques: translation, apocopate, apheresis, parody, and correspondence, and they refer to a physical or moral description, to football or Latin American soap operas, to an activity practised by the person, or to family, school, or religious experience. Nicknames created by oneself motivate more than those that come from others, unless these are due to the good performance of the person in Spanish. Nicknames that establish an implicit comparison of the person with concrete people in the target culture have a greater power of identification with it than nicknames based on abstract concepts. By having a positive connotation, if they are used in class for certain activities, the hispanized nicknames of the students can contribute to making the environments of our classrooms less artificial than they are in a non-immersion context. Because, where they are used to call people or address them, hispanized nicknames necessarily hispanize something in the communication situation.

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