Business Naming Practices in Turkey: The Foreign Effect
Emrah GörgülüThis paper investigates the ongoing influence of foreign lexical elements and Englishization on the practice of naming businesses in Turkey. It is argued that the impact of foreignization and the English language on this business naming continues to increase and is manifested in various creative ways. The effect of foreignization and English on the Turkish business context, especially in shopnaming, has been widely discussed in previous researches. The consensus was that non-Turkish elements used in shop-naming could be classified into three major categories namely, foreign signs, hybrid signs and Englishized Turkish signs. In this paper, I demonstrate that in addition to the existing practices, there is a recent novel business naming practice in the country. This new strategy, which I call “consonant duplication” in this work, copies the consonant in the middle of the word and is sometimes accompanied by an English functional element. Interestingly, this has some important linguistic consequences because it changes both the syllable structure and the pronunciation of the word it applies to. Further research will reveal whether the practice will have certain long-term effects on the language.
Türkiye’de İş Yeri Adlandırma Uygulamaları: Yabancı Etkisi
Emrah GörgülüBu makalede, dilde yabancılaşmanın Türkiye’de iş yerleri adlandırma uygulamalarındaki etkisi araştırılmaktadır. Çalışmada yabancılaşmanın ve özellikle İngilizceleşmenin ülkedeki iş yeri adlandırma üzerindeki etkisinin artarak devam ettiği ve çeşitli yenilikçi ve yaratıcı yollarla kendini gösterdiği ortaya konmaktadır. Önceki çalışmalarda iş yeri adlandırmasında kullanılan yabancı unsurlar üç ana kategoride toplanmıştır: (i) İngilizce veya İngilizce olmayan (örn. Almanca ve Fransızca) yabancı sözcükler, (ii) Türkçe ve yabancı sözcük içeren hibrid unsurlar, (iii) İngilizce yazım kuralları kullanılarak yapay olarak yaratılan Türkçe sözcükler. Bu çalışmada ise mevcut uygulamalardan farklı olarak, ülkede yeni bir iş yeri adlandırma uygulaması olduğu gösterilmektedir. Ünsüz ikizleşmesi olarak adlandırılabilecek bu yeni uygulama, iş yeri adı olan sözcüğün ortasındaki ünsüzü kopyalamaktadır. Yeni oluşan sözcüğe bazen de İngilizce bir sözcük eklenmektedir. Bu yeni uygulama sözcüğün hem hece yapısını hem de telaffuzunu değiştirdiği için önemli dilbilimsel sonuçlar doğurmaktadır. Bu konuda yapılacak araştırmalar uygulamanın Türk dili üzerinde uzun vadeli etkileri olup olmayacağını saptamada faydalı olacaktır.
This paper investigates the ongoing influence of foreign lexical elements and Englishization on the practice of naming businesses in Turkey. It is argued that the impact of foreignization and the English language on this business naming continues to increase and manifests itself in various creative ways. It is well-attested that nonnative lexical items are generally used in the process of store-naming across countries. The effect of foreignization and Englishization on the Turkish business context, especially in the practice of business naming, has also been extensively discussed in previous researches. The consensus was that non-Turkish elements used in business naming could be classified into three major categories: (i) foreign lexical items that could either be English or non-English; (ii) hybrid signs that include a combination of elements from Turkish and a foreign language; and (iii) Englishized Turkish signs that are artificially created and use the orthography of English. On the basis of the data gathered using both online research and observation, in this paper, I show that in addition to the existing practices, a new business naming practice has recently emerged in the country. This new strategy, which I call “consonant duplication” in this work, simply duplicates the consonant in the middle of the word and is sometimes accompanied by an English functional word such as a determiner or a pronoun. As a result, the business name bears various foreign elements and looks less native. The analysis indicated that this practice is used in actual shop signs as well as online businesses. Furthermore, it should be noted that the new strategy has some important linguistic consequences because it changes both the syllable structure and the pronunciation of the word to which it applies. In that sense, it dramatically differs from earlier practices that employed foreignization and Englishization in business naming. Further research will shed more light on whether or not the new practice will have certain long-term effects in terms of spelling and pronunciation on the language.
