Russian elements in the ergonymy of intra-urban objects in Moscow

Abstract

The article presents a fragment of a study examining the ergonymy of intra-urban objects in Moscow. The research focuses on ergonyms created on the basis of the Russian language. The study aims to find out what names of commercial enterprises are more attractive to city residents, which of them provoke positive, neutral, or negative emotions. The material for the study included the names of commercial enterprises in Moscow formed with the techniques of retrohybridisation, quasi-naming, anti-orthography, superimposition of words, and allusion. During the study, 2700 names of commercial enterprises located on the signs, bracket panels, and in the shop windows of establishments in the main streets of Moscow were collected. The selected ergonyms were classified according to their formation methods. A survey involving 90 respondents of different ages and educational backgrounds was conducted as well. The data obtained during the survey were processed using statistical analysis. Based on the experimental results, the study revealed that ergonyms with letters from the pre-revolutionary script had positive evaluations more often. Also, they were the most memorable. The largest number of negative evaluations was given to the names with a deliberate distortion of the Russian orthographic norm. Drawing on the data obtained, the paper formulates recommendations to those who create commercial enterprise names aimed at different age groups of consumers. The results of the work can be used in linguodidactics, for example, in the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language.