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Socio-onomastics: The pragmatics of names
Edited by Terhi Ainiala and Jan-Ola Östman
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 275] 2017
► pp. 165–181

Chapter 8
Attitudes towards globalized company names

| Institute for the Languages of Finland | Institute for Language and Folklore, Uppsala, Sweden
The study applies general sociolinguistic and pragmatic methods of attitude analysis onto analyses of attitudes towards English elements in company names found in the countryside of Swedish-language Finland. The method used is discourse analysis of focus group discussions about names. The distinction between explicit opinions, implicit (i.e., subconscious) attitudes and socioconscious attitudes that have been found important in explicating speakers’ views on globalized elements in the local language generally, is found not to be of major importance in discussions of attitudes towards globalized names. This tallies with the general view that names (proper nouns) and appellatives (common nouns) are interactively viewed as, processed as, and culturally seen as different kinds of elements. The study furthermore shows that foreign elements are more readily accepted in company names than in the language generally, but because of this, such foreign elements in names can become a back door for the admittance of more foreign elements in the language generally.
Keywords: attitudes, commercial names, implicitness, language contact
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Swedish-language Finland
    • 1.2Globalization and glocalization
  • 2.Attitudes towards the impact of English on Swedish among Swedish-language Finns
  • 3.Global influence in company names
    • 3.1Earlier studies
    • 3.2Case study: The onomastic landscape in Närpes
  • 4.Opinions and attitudes towards linguistic interference in company names
    • 4.1Explicit opinions
    • 4.2Implicit attitudes
  • 5.Theoretical and methodological implications
  • References
Published online: 9 June 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.275.08mat
References (17)
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