Brand Names Theres More to A Name and StrawBerry is no BlackBerry

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Brand NamesTheres More to A Name and
StrawBerry is no BlackBerry

• November 28, 2006

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About the Mid-Term and Homework

• Ive finished marking the mid-term, but I havent
  finished marking the homework.
• I hope to return both of them to you in class
  next week.

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Schedule

• I havent yet typed up the schedule for the rest
  of the semester, but I will do it soon.
• Please write down the assignments for the next
  few weeks.

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• For Dec. 5 Pidgin English Advertising
• For Dec. 12 Compliments in Cross-Cultural
  Perspective
• For Dec. 19 Individual Differences and Study
  Abroad

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Brand NamesTheres More to A Name and
StrawBerry is no BlackBerry

• November 28, 2006

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• Well get to the Quiz Answers a bit later in the
  lecture.

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• For today, you read two articles on brand names
  and sound symbolism.

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• If you have studied linguistics before, you have
  probably heard about the arbitrary nature of
  language.
• Saussure, one of the founders of modern
  linguistics, emphasized the fact that there is no
  necessary link between the sound of a word and
  its meaning.

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• For example, all of the following mean dog
• inu (Japanese)
• hund (German)
• mbwa (Swahili)
• None of these words sounds more like the meaning
  of dog than others.

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• Similarly, the word big is (physically) not any
  bigger in sound or length than the word little.

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• So in general in linguistics, the arbitrariness
  of words is taken as basic part of theory.
• However, there are some kinds of words which
  dont seem to be totally arbitrary. They words
  seem to show some kind of sound symbolism.

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• When companies create a new word to name a
  product, they want a sound that is associated
  with some kind of meaning.

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• For example, they might want the name of a new
  car to sound fast, or to sound dependable, or to
  sound exciting (depending on who they plan to
  sell the car to).

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• Theres More to a Name describes the sound
  symbolism associated with certain consonant
  sounds in English.

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• It starts with the observation that obstruents
  are perceived as harder and more masculine,
  while sonorants are softer and more feminine.

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Obstruents

• These are sounds in which the flow of air is
  blocked to some extent.
• They include stops and fricatives.

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Stops

• Stops are consonants in which the flow of air is
  stopped completely. For example, /p/, /b/, /k/,
  and /t/ are all stops.
• What another example of a stop consonant (in
  English or in Japanese)?

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Fricatives

• Fricatives are consonants which have some
  friction. The air slow isnt stopped completely.
  Instead, it hisses through.
• Some fricatives include /s/ and /v/. What are
  some more?

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Taketa

• All the consonants in the word taketa are
  obstruents. In fact, they are stops.
• Taketa is felt to be the better name for the
  sharply-angled shape.

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Sonorants

• These are sounds in which the flow of air is not
  blocked, but instead flows.
• Sonorants include vowels, as well as consonants
  like /y/ and /r/.
• The also include nasal consonantsin these, the
  flow of air may be blocked in the mouth, but it
  continues through the nose /n/ and /m/.

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Naluma

• Most people consider naluma as the better name
  for the softly-curved shape.

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Some other useful definitions
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Voiced and voiceless

• With voiced consonants, the vocal chords vibrate.
  With voiceless consonants, they do not.

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• Put your hand on your throat and feel the
  difference between these
• aza asa
• ava afa
• aba apa
• (The first one in each set is voiced the second
  one is not.)

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• Dentals are consonants made with the tongue
  touching the ridge behind the teeth /t/ and /d/.

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• Labials are made using the lips /p/ and /b/

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Lexicon Naming

• The company Lexicon Naming creates new names for
  new products.
• They studied sound symbolism to find out which
  images people have when they hear particular new
  names.

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The Study

• You can see a sample of the questions on page
  193.
• The made-up names were chosen not to have any
  semantic value.
• That is, they dont include meaningful morphemes.
  

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• An example of a brand name that DOES have a
  semantic value is PowerBook, which is made up of
  two existing English words.

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• The pairs of names were chosen to show contrasts
  in the kind of sound used for the initial
  consonant.
• So Pavil (with a voiceless initial consonant) was
  contrasted with Bavil (with a voiced initial
  consonant).

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• Sarrant vs. Tarrant compares a fricative to a
  stop (both voiceless).
• Gamza vs. Damza compares a velar (a sound made
  far back in the mouth) to a dental.

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• By surveying 144 students from Stanford, and
  UC-Berkeley they reached the results shown on
  page 194.

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Discussion Questions

• What do you think about the questions on page
  193? Are your impressions the same as those of
  the Stanford students?
• Look at discussion questions 1, 4, and 5 on page
  195.

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Sound Symbolism in Japanese

• The Japanese language has a lot of sound
  symbolism, in gitaigo ???and giongo ???words.

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• In English, we call these onomatopoeic or
  mimetic words.
• These are words that imitate the sound of
  something or indicate other qualities of
  something through sound symbolism.

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Some examples of English onomatopoeic words

• chirp (sound of a small bird)
• caw (sound of a crow)
• pop (like the sound of a cork coming out of a
  champagne bottle)
• rumble (a low, continuous sound, like something
  heavy rolling along the ground)

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• For foreigners learning Japanese, gitaigo and
  giongo are sometimes difficult to learn and
  remember.
• There are some reference books which try to give
  general rules for Japanese gitaigo and giongo.

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Two from the SILS library

• Jazz Up Your Japanese with Onomatopoeia by Hiroko
  Fukuda.
• Nihongo Pera Pera by Susan Millington.
• If you are interested in this topic, you can
  check them out some time.

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Sound symbolism and Japanese vowels
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Fukuda gives the following explanation

• i refers to something small and quick
• a, u, and o refer to something larger and slower
• e often has a negative meaning

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Fukuda gives the following examples

• ???? doing something a little at a time
• ???? a small light source blinking repeatedly
• ???? complete exhaustion

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• She also says that when they contrast,
• a represents a clear sound,
• i represents a high-pitched sound, and
• o represents a low-pitched sound.

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She gives this example

• ???? the clear sound made by a small, hard object
  repeatedly striking the surface of an extremely
  hard, relative small object
• ???? a high-pitched, sharp, metallic sound
• ???? the low-pitched sound of a small, hard
  object striking a hard surface

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• Can you think of some more examples which show
  sound symbolism of vowels in Japanese?
• Lets write them on the board.

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Japanese consonants

• Prof. Fukuda says that words starting with ?
  indicate smallness or quickness, for example ????
  (an action that is done not all at one time, but
  repetitively and a little at a time).

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• Her book gives many more details about the
  symbolism of consonant sounds, so please consult
  it if you are interested.

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• Nihongo Pera Pera by Susan Millington gives a
  more concise description of sound symbolism in
  consonants in Japanese.
• Her summary follows.

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• g, z, d, and b are muddy sounds suggesting
  something big, heavy, or dirty
• ???? strongly built
• ???? large or fat

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• k,s,t, and h are clean sounds, suggesting
  something sharp, light, small, and pretty
• ???? clearly
• ???? light breeze

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• h is a dignified sound
• ?????? the call of the nightingale

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• p suggests something undignified
• ???? plop
• ???? gobble

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• k and t are hard
• ???? hard
• ?? pointed

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• s suggests a feeling of friction, of sliding or
  slipping along
• ??? slide
• n suggests a feeling of stickiness
• ???? sticky

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• h suggests lightness, b heaviness, p something
  in between
• ???? water streams soundlessly
• ???? rain down
• ???? sprinkle lightly

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• Can you think of more examples with these
  consonants in Japanese?

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Back to the reading assignments

• StrawBerry is no BlackBerry Building Brands
  Using Sound
• This article discusses the process of creating a
  new brand name.

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• It starts with BlackBerry, a successful product
  named by Lexicon Naming.
• Note While we are discussing this article, you
  might want to refer to the last page of the
  readings to find out more about some the products
  and companies.

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• Based on the appearance of the device, someone
  suggested strawberry, but the sound didnt seem
  right.

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• It wasnt the color that was the problem!
• straw sounded too slow.
• But they liked the berry because b was
  associated with reliability, and the e sound in
  berry sounds fast.

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• Also the meaning of berry suggested a small
  size.
• So they decided to change strawberry to
  blackberry.

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Brand names and semantic associations

• Naming consultants have traditionally focused on
  semantic associations

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Examples

• Qualcomm Quality Communications
• Intel Intelligent Electronics
• PeopleSoft

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• But with more and more brand names, its getting
  harder to find new combinations, so companies are
  creating new names based on sound alone.

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• Companies start with an image that they want to
  convey, and then choose sounds that are
  appropriate.
• E.g., s for elegance, a k sound to make people
  remember it.

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• By the way, the article refers to names spelled
  with a c but pronounced with a hard k, as in
  the car names Corvette and Camaro.

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• The c spelling is much more common in English
  with the vowels a, o, and u.
• Korvette and Corvette would both be pronounced
  the same, but the spelling with k looks more
  foreign.

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More about BlackBerry

• The b sound is judged to sound relaxing.
• Two short vowels sound crisp
• Alliteration (two word or syllables starting with
  the same sound) sounds light-hearted.
• The final sound, spelled -y, is pleasant and
  friendly.

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Viagra vs. Cialis

• These two names are for very similar drugs, but
  they aim for different psychological
  associations.
• See page 3.

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Emotions and sounds

• One researcher says that the sounds of l, s, and
  v are associated with pleasant feelings, and that
  r, p, t, d, and k are associated with unpleasant
  feelings.

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• Some researchers claim that these emotional
  associations are universals, found in all
  languages.
• The explanation is anatomycompare the vowel
  sounds in the words heat and hot.

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• The vowel sound in heat is made with the mouth
  more closed, and so it is associated with
  smallness.
• The vowel sound in hot is made with the mouth
  wide open, and so it is associated with
  largeness.

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Practice work with a partner

• Considering both sound symbolism and semantic
  associations, think up some brand names for the
  following products.
• In some cases, you might want to think up a name
  just for a particular country. The name for a
  product sold in Japan might be different from the
  name in the U.S., for example, because of
  different semantic associations.

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• A handheld, portable TV
• A motorcycle to be marketed to young women
• A healthy snack food that is crunchy like potato
  chips