Specifics of Compound Company Names Perception on the Materials of Association Experiment

Abstract

The article describes the data of an association experiment on the perception of various structural and semantic groups of composites, i.e. typical representatives of the most productive traditional vs creative methods, graphic representation, techniques and models of composition. Differences were found in the association fields of ‘clear’ and ‘unclear’ names concerning the prevailing types of reactions, the composition and number of semantic zones; as well as their correlation (or lack of the latter) with information about the actual company's activities. Assessment reactions or reflections about the linguistic phenomena themselves (structure models and components) were revealed in each of the analyzed association fields. The poles of the assessment of each name range from positive to sharply negative and also emotional. Reflection in the perception of company names is also manifested in the dialogue mode of reactions for unclear names and significant number of reactions to the structure of derived comples company names formed by unusual models. The incomprehensibility and unusualness of new names manifest in reaction-explanations, when respondents give detailed interpretations, and, thus, try to comprehend the unusual combination of components, structure and content representation (borrowings, transliterations, metagraphic tools). For incomprehensible names, the field core is formed by lower-order echolalic reactions or phonetic reactions.