Naming in a non-specific speech environment as a component of PR-activity

Abstract

Introduction. The relevance of researching the naming of confectionery under the «Lviv Handmade Chocolate» trademark is defined by the need to study effective methods used in the food industry to create attractive commercial offer in a competitive environment in order to associate a unique product with the manufacturer, as well as increase consumer demand and customer loyalty. Research methods. The objective of the research is reached using the descriptive and distributive methods, the method of linguostylistic abstraction, structural and component analysis, as well as the explanatory approach. Results. Due to the fact that the confectionery market is oversaturated with offers, enterprises that manufacture sweets using unique recipes try to create names that could help make their product stand out among other similar products in the industry. With this purpose «Lviv Handmade Chocolate» uses specific vocabulary of the West-Ukrainian dialect as a denotation. Since the enterprise is represented by a franchise across the entire territory of Ukraine, such naming helps to associate the products with the distinctive character of Western Ukraine and interest the customers with unknown names, thus increasing the appeal of the products in the mid- and high price range segment. This research offers a classification of the names of sweets: by the similarity in the name and the shape of sweets – metaphorical transfer; foreign loanwords; transfer of the name onto the taste of the product; indirect correlation of product name and ingredients; names-neologisms created by the manufacturer; traditional names. It is found that 72 % of «Lviv Handmade Chocolate» product names are created using metaphorical transfer based on the external look of the product. Conclusions. «Lviv Handmade Chocolate» uses unique confectionery names. Notably, dialectisms used in the naming do not correlate with the common literary language, thus attracting consumers’ attention. The peculiarities of the shape and ingredients of the sweets are mostly represented in metaphorical names. Thus, this method of creating names can be considered to be an effective PR-means that the enterprises can use to identify their products.