The Taj Mahal Tandoori Restaurant – Takeaway
Tasty Chick Inn – Chicken Takeaway
Burger Off – Fast-Food Restaurant
Fill Me Up Scotty – Snack Shop
Get Stuffed – All-You-Can-Eat Restaurant
Thai-Chi Takeaway – Thai Takeaway
Methodology:
I collected this data randomly through an Internet search engine. I chose to collect it in this manner so that there was a large sampling frame (the internet), to give a much wider selection of data, which therefore makes the data much more representative of names of this genre as a whole. I originally planned to collect the data systematically, but I found that the data I found was organized into alphabetical order, making it difficult to choose a fair selection. This is why I therefore decided to select my data randomly, to make it fairer.
Analysis:
Phonology: The data shows that a lot of phonological devices have been used as a tool in naming Restaurants and Fast-food shops. Alliteration has been used, e.g. “Pizza Parlour” and “Bombay Balti”, this is pleasing to the ear and helps to emphasize the words in which it occurs, making them much more memorable. This makes it especially well-used as a tool for naming shops. Another phonological device that has been used is rhyme: “Curry in a Hurry”. This makes the names sound much more fun and once again memorable.
Lexis: The language used is generally informal, being short and simple, e.g. “Pizza Hut”. This is very suited for the use in naming simple food places such as fast-food restaurants. The names used reflect the needs of their target-audiences; who want a fast-food restaurant to be simple, fast, cheap, easy, etc, and bringing simple and informal naming into play reflects just that. This would hopefully entice the target audience into the store and then therefore to purchase something; making a successful business. The words that have been made use of also reflect the stores in which they are naming: “Taste of India”, “Abra-kebab-ra”, etc. This also helps to make it obvious to the fact of what the shop actually is, so that it is easily recognizable to the target audience who are looking for a store of that kind, also once again reflecting the simple, straight-to-the-point fun of a store of that genre (what the target audience are looking for). Repetition has also been made use of, e.g. “China China”; this makes the name more memorable and noticeable to passers by and visiters. Therefore, it means that it is more noticeable if passers-by are looking to visit a store of that kind, and also may mean that the store is easily remembered for another occasion, etc.
Semantics: A large number of the collected data make use of some form of semantics. There are a lot of examples that make use of puns, e.g. “Wok This Way”, “Battersea Cods Home”, “The Codfather”, “Fill Me up Scotty, “Burger off”, etc. This has been used for comic effect, attracting the attention of passers by, who would then hopefully visit the store or talk about it among others (promoting the business). The comic effect also helps to reflect the store itself as a fun and enjoyable place to visit, once again, enticing in their target audiences.
Conclusions:
From looking at my collected data, I have found numerous linguistic features used in the naming of Fast-food stores and Takeaways. The tools that I found were most frequently used were those for comic effect, such as the use of puns. I found that the store names weren’t trying to be anything more than they were; simple, fun, fast, easy, average, etc. This is because the target audiences of this genre don’t tend to look for anything more, as that is what this genre of store is viewed as being like. I think that the names used in my data are very well chosen, reflecting the wants of the target audience and promoting themselves as a company, whilst fitting all that in a very short, simple, and fun name.
Evaluation:
I feel that given my resources and time-scale, this investigation has been quite fair and reflective. To improve it, a much more systematic approach to the data collection could have been used, as random sampling has room for a lot of errors, and could still be seen as bringing up unrepresentative results. The fact that the names used were also from my own culture make the data very unrepresentative, it reflects my own cultures view of this genre, and so maybe, looking at the names given to similar stores from different areas and cultures may bring up some differing forms and ways of naming. However, I feel that generally this has been a successful investigation.
