Onyms in English Scientific and Technical Discourse

The article is devoted to the analysis of the onym functional characteristics in English scientific and technical discourse.The analysis is made on the material of scientific articles and monographs written by the native speakers or the scientists who use the English language as the foreign one.The Internet articles devoted to some scientists, inventions and discoveries are examined.All the studied onyms are divided into three groups: anthroponyms, eponyms and toponyms.There is a special classification for each onym according to the structure followed by the examples from the texts of scientific and technical discourse.The classifications proposed by the scholars are taken as a basis and modified according to the analyzed type of the discourse.The functions performed individually by the onym (anthroponym, eponym or toponym) are singled out as well as the functions performed jointly by all the studied onyms.Among the first ones there are internal conventionality of article/monograph, ethiquettical, discursive, attention attraction, memorial and indexal.Among the last ones there are recongnitive, axiological, authorship priority recognition and information compression functions.All the functions are presented in the Table .The conclusions of onym frequency use in the axiological function are made.The most prevalent function is marked out.The support to the following conclusions is provided.