As a sign system, shop names bear with them distinct features from other sign systems, and moreover, it performs an obvious pragmatic function as well. In fact, shop names are considered as brief and short advertisements, which intend to motivate the customers to purchase what the shops want to sell. Therefore, rhetorical methods have always been adopted to add some color to these advertisements.
3.1 Simile, Hyperbole, etc in Chinese Shop Names
Some rhetorical methods applied in naming shop names could make them attractive and vividly express their uniqueness. For example, The Barber’s, as a shop name, could specifically identify itself. But if it adopts a sort of rhetorical method, it will really make difference such as Golden Scissors, and some drugstores, like Shen Nong Drug Store (Shen Nong expresses something magical which specifically refers to a man with magical power), Hui Chun Tang (Hui Chun: go back to the state of well-being with Chun expressing best wishes for the patients), Le Ren Tang (Le Ren: happy and kind), Jiu Sheng Tang (Jiu Sheng: long life), and some spectacle shops, such as Kang Ming Yan Jing (Kang Ming: healthy and bright; Yan Jing: spectacles), and Jing Liang Yan Jing (Jing Liang: as bright as crystals), and some shoe shops, like Shuang Xing Shoes(Shuang Xing: double stars), Yuan Da Shoes(Yuan Da: reach as far as possible), and Shou Wang Shoes(Shou Wang: the king of animals).
The shop names mentioned above have applied the rhetorical methods of metaphor and hyperbole to specify the specialties of different industries and features of products so that the consumers’ association is stimulated by the safety, economy, practicality, originality, and magnificence implied by the shop names. As a result, the consumers and the merchants are well bridged.
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3.2 Modification of Nouns in Creating English Shop Names
The case is the same with English shop names. For example, the copy industry is so developed in America, and generally, Copy Shop or Copy Man is commonly used as shop names. However, these names only indicate the differences between industries, but fail to list the advantageous characteristics, so they have relatively less power upon the consumers. In the shop names with adjectives as modifiers that confine or describe the center words like nouns, if proper modifiers are applied, it will vividly show the nature of shops of any kind.
Some merchants would like to take full advantage of such a feature to name a copy shop as Quick Copy or Clean Copy to skillfully boast about the service that they could offer so that the consumers’ requirement for speed or quality can be well embodied.
It is said that some adjectives in English appear very frequently, among which the commonest are new, good/better/best, fine, big, great, free, fresh, special, sure, clean, safe and so on. They serve to describe any aspect of the products, like the size, shape, look, brilliance, color or the inner quality. Because such adjectives are capable of showing the best quality of products, and they are the most appealing to the consumers, so they are widely used in advertisement.
The adjectives in English shop names are very similar to those in advertisement in that the words used by the merchants aim to attract the consumers or to cater to their psychological needs, and examples are Good Year, Good Will, Pretty Good Café, Best Buy, Big Lots, Hot Lips, Payless Drugs and so on. Sometimes compounds composed of adjectives and nouns are used, like Supervalu, Safeway, Thrift Way and so on.
4 Cultural Elements with Originality
Various as English and Chinese shop names are, they all hold one goal—to grasp the consumers’ attention. From the psychological and linguistic perspective, original or fore grounded things will easily catch people’s eye, stimulate their curiosity, and then comes the behavior to meet the curiosity. [4]
4.1 The Originality in Chinese Shop Names
Usually, original things cause psychological reaction by stimulating sensory organs (especially the sight and the hearing). Take the Chinese shop name “Hao Lai Wu” for an example, its pronunciation could bring association of the American film and industry center Hollywood. Similar examples are Si Wei Te (a cake shop), Dao Kou (a stationary store) and Bu Ke Shu Wu (a book store) whose pronunciations are similar with sweet, document with docu. as its shortened form and book. Besides, such shop names as Lao Yu Tou (a restaurant, old fish head), Gou Bu Li (a baozi shop, with the meaning “the dogs take no interest”), Guang Gun Ji (the unmarried chicken), Yu Ren Shu Wu (the Fool’s book store), and Hu Tu Cha Guan (a tea house, Hu Tu means confusing) create novelty and originality by vivid and fantastic words.
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4.2 The Preference to Originality in English Shop Names
English shop names can display no less color of novelty than Chinese ones. Fish in Mr. Fish (a sea food store) acts as a pun with two possible meanings: one is a “surname”, and the other refers to an animal’s name. Mr. Submarine (a hot-dog shop) stimulates abundant associations by the idea that a submarine has a similar shape with a hot dog. The Gap (young persons’ clothing store) refers to the generation gap implying that the clothing style suits only the young. Similar instances are Gepettois (a pan cake shop, the puppet maker in the story of Pinnochio), Creature’s Family (pets’ clinic), From Head to Toes (a beauty shop), Hit or Miss (lady’s clothing store, hit or miss originally means “adventure”, here it reminds never to miss a good opportunity.)
Some shop names demonstrate the feature of phonetic similarities, like Bi-lo (a grocery with the association of “buy low”), Toys’ R Us aims to let people know “Toys are (for) us with the word “us” to bring the businessmen and consumers closer, and “for” in “Food-4-less” is similarly pronounced with “four”, so it could be understood as Food-4-less by which people can judge how cheap the food can be allowed to be. [5]