NAMES OF FILM AND MUSIC FESTIVALS AND AWARDS

Abstract

The present paper analyses the main patterns used in naming the best-known film and music festivals and awards, following a comparative approach which involves reference to languages such as Romanian, English, French, Italian, and Spanish. Two approaches are proposed throughout the study: a socio-onomastic approach, which draws attention to the problematic status of this category of names that combine characteristics of scientific terms, proper names and common nouns (appellatives), on the one hand, and a linguistic approach, which is further developed from etymological, formal, lexical and semantic perspectives, on the other hand. The analysis proves an obvious preference of those languages towards using highly motivated signs, some of which can be twofold motivated: extra-linguistically, by the denomination pointing to the space where the respective film or music festival/award is held, and linguistically, by the derivational process that underlies the relationship between the denomination and the toponymic base. A series of patterns of naming have been identified, some of which are quite homogeneous and cross-cultural, whereas others tend to be culture-specific. Numerically, the names of film and music festivals and awards seem to prefer loan words (and more precisely, English/American words), followed by free adaptations, and internal means (especially compounds with a toponymic or anthroponymic base).