Brand names as loan words Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Brand names as loan words - Essay Example The interaction of cultures and races has presented the multinational companies and their marketing strategies with the challenge of utilising â€Å"loan words† as brand names and vice versa to capture greater market shares. This paper explores not only various examples in this regard but their underlying linguistic implications and explanations. Loan words which are used as brand names are borrowed from other languages in referring to foreign items of food, sports, and clothes.(Koslow 1994:575-585) There are many examples of the use of foreign words like kebab, sushi, pasta, Eu de toilette ,cologne which are all basically foreign brand names and †¦.and the list could go on running into thousands of pages. The question at hand gives an interesting example of the Omo washing powder itself. A similar example can be given about many other brand names.In the early nineties when washing powder was replacing washing soap in the South East Asian countries especially Pakistan and India, people increasingly used the term â€Å"Surf†(which was the original name of the brand) to refer to any washing powder.†Surf† was therefore a loan word.Another modern example is Google.Nowadays nobody wants to just search the â€Å"search engine†.In fact the term search engine has become obsolete eversince the term â€Å"to google† or â€Å"googled† was invented."to google" or "googled" was invented.Therefore there has been an increase in the situations where foreign brand names have infiltrated our local languages as well as where loan words used as brand names become common colloquialisms.(Luna.D 2001;284-295) Consider the term "xeroxing" for example which comes from t he Xerox brand photocopiers and "hovered"(meaning to use a vacuum machine) coming from the famous Hoover brand of Vacuum Cleaners. The mass media has become a leading source of new loanwords. In the new age we have the American advertisements asking Asian audiences to "do the dew" and almost every other cold drink bottle is called Pepsi or Coke, regardless of what the brand on top of the bottle says. News, programs, documentaries, game and quiz shows, sports, even dramas have all got a significant role to play in adding more and more foreign words and phrases to the local languages through clever advertising and catchy slogans.(Danesi 2004). The main reason for this may be because, "Copywriters believe that foreign words add class or mystique to their copy. It makes no difference that the average reader doesn't understand the message. They aren't supposed to. What does matter is that the text evokes an image and attaches prestige value to the products being advertised." (Douglas 2006) These strange usages can often become household names successfully yet they cause conceptual problems for learners faced with processing English as a second language along with their native languages. Academics have often argued that languages have an evolution history of their own and the usage of these languages is in a constant state of influx. Some languages die or get extinct, others get old yet