An Analysis On Lexical Features Of English Brand Names

With the rapid development of economy and China's entrance to the Word Trade Organization, various brand names have stepped into our daily life. As a new business, brand naming plays an increasingly important role in economic competition. Great emphasis is laid on the choice of brand names not only to attract the consumers'attention but also to realize its ultimate goal - to promote sale, because a successful brand name will bring more advantages for enterprises. The choice of brand names depends on various factors such as the properties of the product or service and market demand, etc. However, up to now, the study of language features of brand names is still at its initial stage, so the thesis aims at analyzing associations and differences between English brand names and English for general purposes by studying the lexical features of English brand names, in the hope that brand name designers and translators master the features of such a kind of English and design more excellent brand names.Using qualitative method, the thesis analyzes the word structures and semantic features of English brand names on the basis of lexicology, morphology, semantics and elicits distinctive features of English brand names which exhibit unique appearance and meaning and can leave a deep impression on consumers. Besides, an analysis of differences between English and Chinese brand names is explored from four perspectives - source, syllable, word structure and meaning.The conclusion is that English brand names have distinctive lexical features both in word structure and word meaning and are different from Chinese brand names in some aspects. Suggestions of using linguistic theories from different perspectives are provided for brand naming.