Character Usage In The Store Names Of Macao

Store name" is the name of a store. [t contains information about a store, like names industrial category, product name(s), or content of services etc, to indicate the function of the store and differentiating it from others. The purpose of store names is to attract customers, thus aside from concise and comprehensive, store names should be refreshingly original, easy to read and remember in order to be attractive. Therefore, picking a store name is not a simple study, as it requires a close examination in choosing the words, expressions, and typeface. Although store names belong to the category of proper nouns, just like names of people and places, there are rather few researches and essays written about store names. The few essays are written mainly from the perspective of Social Linguistics and focus on the background of the Chinese culture. On the contrary, there are even fewer essays technically written from the perspective of linguistics. This observation motivated me to write this thesis, hoping more people will be attached to work on this topic. I have collected nearly 2600 modem store names of Macac (see Appendix II) during October to November 1999 in order to study and analyze them. The thesis mainly applied the static informational analysis. Aside from using charts and tables to indicate the collected information, I have also applied the inductive method to categorize the store names of Macac in order to illustrate the present situation of store names used in various industries. This essay first introduces the characteristics of traditional Chinese characters used in store names. Then explains the general status, expression, structure, and characteristics of the characters used in store names of various industries in present Macac. It also studies from the perspectives of shape, sound, and meaning in order to make a thorough description on the characters used in the store names of Macac. As a conclusion, this essay also analyses and gives recommendations on the standardization of characters applied in the store names of Macac.