Svitlana Bronskih
Methods and
strategies for semantic-discursive analysis
of adjectives in trade names and trademarks
This study focuses on
emphasizing the meanings of adjectives
from the commercial space have, particularly from business names, shops, clubs,
and restaurants. The choice of adjectives as denominative elements for the
commercial area can be explained by the fact that the chromatic or qualitative
term is equally
enigmatic and easy to remember, and at the same
time it involves compelling marketing strategies. Therefore, the ambiguous and
intertextual discursive techniques that are used in this process are emphasized; the same term aims at different
aspects in different contexts, and the client is the one that gives it meaning.
The adjective becomes a mark of quality for the customer.
Trade onomastics is characterized by various morphological,
syntactic and especially semantics variety. This class includes brand, company
name (or name of shops, clubs, which can be different from the firm’s name) and
the name of the product . All three categories subject to a set of stylistic
rules peculiarities in the establishment of the name. The choice of the name is
not a simple process; it includes the totality of rules of economic legal and
social restrictions. Advertising firms, sites and specialized Internet forums
offer suggestions on marketing strategy that the owner should take in account
at the moment of choosing a name. First of all the name should be distinctive
but not descriptive as it is used for the purposes of economic, individualising
and defining the owner, as well as providing services, in addition, it should
not be repeated and should not be the same for the two companies in the same
region. Therefore, proper names have two main functions: it reflects the
personality and a special character (1. P. 289-296), it individualizes and
differs society commercial competition. In these conditions, the sign language is
an economic sign having three clearly defined functions:
a) to
discern good services from others;
b) to
identify their source;
c) to
represent their quality (1. P. 289-296).
A trade name in discourse gives verbal and non-verbal
information, and implies a constant convincing
interaction between the transmitter (in
our opinion, the owner – the denominator)
and the client (the interlocutor). It is
difficult to determine if the name of commercial company is persuading for the client request in
order to manipulate him, this can
only be achieved after discussions with consumers. To persuade a client means: „to influence the interlocutor,
through diverting attention to
certain issues and involvement of other persons in order to define a single behavioral changes induced by the
partner, and that is profitable for him” (2. P. 87), without deceiving the client. Manipulation, however means the misleading of the
interlocutor, so the transmitter is not
honest with the receptor (2. P. 87).
Therefore the adjective is a tool for persuading a person to choose the commercial company which in his opinion can satisfy his quality
needs. Often the name indicates
the high quality deniing the right quality of offered
services or products. We can
manipulate the consumer using the names which do not correspond to reality. Seduction, persuading or
processing can occur through a number of argumentative strategies. (5. P. 241-248 ). In trade onomastics prevails the metaphor. It is used as an
argumentative strategy, accenting on the conotative manipulation, because it brings connotations that the client interprets depending on his expectations.
Let's remind some examples: Blue Dream, Best Cows,
Blue Elephant, Giant Ear, Little Ear, So Supreme, Reliable. In this case the process of conotation is metaphoric. This wordplay contributes to strengthening
the name in the client's memory, stimulating the imagination which has the right to create his own picture of the company according tj his personal experience. There
are also wordplays based
on the phonetic similarity (Save
& Safe) or based on the association of the same terms in the same fields (Jeune et Jolie, Almost and Useful,
Perfeto it Pronto).
Personifications complete the range of figures in
the style found in trade onomastics. First of all we mean epithet personification. (Living
Water, Stylish Design, Ecology Pure,
Happy Plast, Happy Hill).
Talking about trademarks names, we can say that their grammatical prescriptions seem at first sight
worse than just insane, because at one point they're self-contradictory. But
one can make some sense of it all. Let explain, here are some quotes, with comments following each:
§
Never use a trademark as a noun. Always
use a trademark as an adjective modifying a noun: LEGO toy blocks Amstel
beer
Never modify a trademark to the plural form. Instead, change the generic word
from singular to plural: tic tac candies, NOT tic tac; OREO
cookies, NOT OREOS.
Now,
to begin with, they cannot possibly mean that you should never use a trademark
as a noun. Of course you are not misusing a trademark if you say or write that
your kid is crazy about Lego, or that your favorite beer is Amstel. One only has to look at the practice in advertising campaign slogans:
·
I coulda had a V8! for the V8 brand of vegetable juice (a V8 is a
noun phrase in which a is the indefinite article and V8 is the
head noun);
·
Have you driven a Ford
lately? for the Ford motor company (again, a
is the indefinite article and Ford is the head noun);
·
Pardon me, do you have
any Grey Poupon? for Grey Poupon mustard
(any is a determinative functioning as determiner of the nominal Grey
Poupon, which is a proper name with a structure comprising an attributive
adjective modifying a proper noun);
·
This is not your
father's Oldsmobile in a campaign to
rejuvenate the image of Oldsmobile — an unsuccessful one, since the very last
car under the name was produced on April 29, 2004 (your father's is a
genitive noun phrase functioning as determiner and Oldsmobile is the
head noun);
·
Don't squeeze the
Charmin in a campaign that showed women in
supermarkets ecstatically squeezing packages of a super-soft toilet tissue (the
is the definite article, Charmin is the head noun);
It is incorrect
to use trademarks as nouns, given that millions of dollars are committed to the
details of big advertising campaigns and the company controls every line and
every word of the copy used. The answer: even quite educated people
today know so little about grammar that often they aren't really sure what's a noun and what's not, what's a tense and what's not, what's a passive and what's not etc.
A trademark
must always be used as an adjective. What they mean actually has nothing
to do with adjectives. Adjective are words like good, big, soft,
reddish, etc. They are often used as attributive modifiers of nouns: good
reasons, a big company, etc. But other things can be used as
attributive modifiers. Proper nouns can: when we talk about London fog, we are
using London (a proper noun) as an attributive modifier of the noun fog.
That doesn't mean London is an adjective. It isn't. It's the name of a
city. Adjectives never name cities. And adjectives are virtually never
trademarked. When we use the expression a London Fog raincoat, we use London
Fog (a trademark, with the form of a nominal construction, consisting of a
proper noun attributive modifier and a common noun) as an attributive modifier
of the noun raincoat. What INTA is saying is that it wants you to always
use trademarks as attributive modifiers. (4. P. 57-72)
But
what the INTA people mean is more subtle than they know how to say, so they get
it all wrong. The enemy they are laying defenses against is the danger that a
trademark might fall into the public domain. For fear of this (and it
can happen), they want to forestall the conversion of certain proper noun
trademarks into common count nouns. The worry is that the next stage
after writing "Tic Tacs" will be writing "tictacs", and
soon people will be referring to some other company's little white mints as
tictacs, and soon the trademark might become unprotectable and its value be
lost. It would just be a two-syllable word in the dictionary, with a small t,
meaning little hard white mint candy. (3. P. 77-82)
But
notice, none of this is relevant to other products, for example, cars: Porsche
is surely very happy for you to praise Porsches as much as you like, calling
them Porsches. INTA's intent is clear, but what is actually stated about
grammar on their website and in their brochure is nothing like what it is trying to say.
If in the spoken language,
adjective, which provides qualitative, quantitative or categorial characteristic
directed to objects called nouns, in the trade sphere it aimes marketing strategies stimulating
client’s creativity
and influencing his choise.
At the moment of name creation the owners direct their attention to the adjectives because they have higher conotative and creative value but they
are less connected with the
reality. Neologic adjectives are mysterious and
difficult to decipher, but equally extent
stimulates consumer’s curiosity.
Bibliography:
1.
Angekica Bergien,
Globaland regional consideration in the formation of company names. I nomini
nel tempo e nello spazio. Atti del XXII congresso internationale di scienze
onomastice, Pisa, 28 agosto – 4 septembre 2005, II p. 289-296.
2.
Dorina Chish, Nume de firmă, nume de
marcă, nume de produs. Cateva observaţii. In cultură si
comunicare. com, anul I. 2007 – http:
culturăşicomunicare.com/pdf/2007/chis.pdf.
3.
A.H. Gardnier, The
theory of proper names.A contraversal essay, Londo (2008): 77-82,:
Oxford University Press.
4.
Jørgen
Schrack, Distinctive names: constraints on brand name creation in Onoma 43 (2008):
57-72, Upsala.
5.
Valerica
Sporiş, Epitetul cromatic adjectival ĭn Annales Universitates
Apulensis. Series Philologica. Alba Iulia, tom. 1 (2007): 241-248.