Quaderni di Symbolon Rivista annuale del centro universitario per lo studio del tema Simbolo Letteratura Scienze umane
Milella Lecce
n. 4 nuova serie • 2019 Direttore Carlo Alberto Augieri. Consiglio direttivo Angela Borghesi, Marco Gaetani, Francesca Petrocchi, Paolo Proietti, Francesca Seaman, Angela Ida Villa, Fabio Vittorini. Comitato scientifico Federico Bertoni (Università di Bologna), Enza Biagini (Università di Firenze), Giovanni Bottiroli (Università di Bergamo), Stefano Calabrese (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Assumpta Camps (Università di Barcellona), Gian Paolo Caprettini (Università di Torino), Michele Cometa (Università di Palermo), Edoardo Esposito (Università di Milano), Giulio Ferroni (Università di Roma, ‛La Sapienza’), Massimo Fusillo (Università dell’Aquila), Rosalba Galvagno (Università di Catania), Pietro Gibellini (Università di Venezia), Paolo Leoncini (Università di Venezia), Giovanni Manetti (Università di Siena), Raul Mordenti (Università di Roma, ‛Tor Vergata’), Giuseppe Nava (Università di Siena), Frank Nuessel (University of Louisville), Ernestina Pellegrini (Università di Firenze), Augusto Ponzio (Università di Bari), Antonio Prete (Università di Siena), Valter Leonardo Puccetti (Università del Salento), Giovanni Puglisi (IULM, Milano), Michele Rak (Università di Siena), Federica Santini (Kennesaw State University), Jeffrey Schnapp (Università di Harvard), Antony Julian Tamburi (Queens College, City University of New York), Stefano Tani (Università di Verona). Redazione Università di Firenze: Federico Fastelli - Valentina Fiume - Sandro Piazzesi - Diego Salvadori Università di Perugia: Michela Mancini - Laura Diafani - Claudio Brancaleoni - Fabrizio Scrivano. Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’: Daniele Silvi. Università degli Studi del Salento: Cosimo Caputo - Francesco Minetti - Luca Nolasco - Mimmo Pesare. Università degli Studi di Siena: Marianna Marrucci - Francesca Vannucchi. Università della Tuscia - Viterbo: Francesca Petrocchi - Cristina Benicchi. Università di Verona: Donatella Boni - Massimo Scotti. Redazione Internazionale Riccardo Barontini (Université Paris-Sorbonne). Loreta De Stasio - José Maria Nadal (Università dei Paesi Baschi). Rivista con classificazione “A” da parte dell’Agenzia Nazionale di Valutazione del Sistema Universitario e della Ricerca (ANVUR). L’accettazione degli articoli è subordinata al parere di esperti anonimi esterni Per contatti: carlo.augieri@unisalento.it; gaetani@unisi.it Copertina ed impaginazione: Yukiko Tanaka, Emanuele Augieri. Edizioni Milella - Lecce Viale De Pietro, 13 - 73100 Lecce - Tel. 0832/406062 Sito internet: www.milellalecce.it email: edizionimilellalecce@gmail.com Costo di ogni copia € 30,00; numero doppio € 50,00. ISBN: 978-88-3329-069-0
One thousand and one ways of reading a brand Maria CatricalĂ with a foreward of Vincenzo Orioles and a Milan Expo brands collection edited by Giorgia Gazzelloni
INDICE
Prefazione di Vincenzo Orioles
9
Introduction
17
I. What is a brand?
23
1.1. From the etymology to a definition 1.2. A multifarious perspective of study 1.3. The Italian point of view 1.4. The Italian Brands Archive
25 27 31 32
II. The brand as a linguistic object of research 37 2.1. A complex text 2.2. Graphic and grammatical aspects 2.3. The lexical approach 2.4. The semantic and the rhetorical perspective
39 41 48 50
III. The lector “in brand�
55
3.1. Functions and textual perspectives 3.2. The parameters of readability 3.3. Classifications in comparison 3.4. A stratified classification
57 61 69 73
IV. Methods of analysis and case studies 95 4.1. The semasiological and the onomasiological approaches 97 4.2. The mail orders catalogues: the first repositories of brands 98 4.3. The strange cases of the Fashion Brands 107 4.4. Brands, wine and other short messages in a bottle 119 4.5. Are brand names a type of linguistic constructions? 125 V. The wonderful sixty plus one brands of Expo Milan: a journey through life, food and sustainability by Giorgia Gazzelloni 139 5.1. London 1851-Milan 2015: the common thread of Expo 141 5.2. The Collection of The Expo 2015 brands 145 5.3. Linguistic analysis: from key-words to multilingual payoff 175 5.4. The results: a comparison of visual and discursive strategies 185 VI. One thousand and one conclusions by Maria CatricalĂ
189
VII. Bibliographical References
197
Prefazione Vincenzo Orioles
Prefazione
Nei contesti globali contemporanei un indicatore di vitalità molto importante per un idioma è il cosiddetto linguistic landscape, che, per rifarsi alla caratterizzazione degli stessi studiosi che hanno coniato il tecnicismo, chiama in causa “the visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region” (Landry - Bourhis, 1997, p. 23). Tra le entità che popolano i nostri paesaggi urbani indubbiamente un posto di primo piano lo occupano i cosiddetti marchionimi che hanno acquisito pieno diritto di cittadinanza come oggetto di ricerca trasversale da parte di una pluralità di campi disciplinari, dalla giurisprudenza (il marchio o brand è innanzitutto un testo avente rilevanza giuridica) all’economia, dalla comunicazione in senso lato alla semiologia, dalla retorica alla linguistica nei suoi multiformi aspetti e sottoinsiemi. In seguito alla costante crescita dell’industrializzazione, alla moltiplicazione dei beni prodotti e delle imprese, s’impose la necessità di differenziare in misura maggiore che nel passato le merci per correlarle con gli apparati produttivi che le mettevano in circolo. Fu nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento (per l’Italia si parte dal 1864) che alcuni produttori cominciarono ad adottare la nuova e radicale strategia di assegnare dei nomi alle loro creazioni, con enormi vantaggi: • il prodotto acquista così una funzione identificativa, che consente ai consumatori di nominare tutto ciò che desiderano acquistare; • ci si riferisce a un determinato prodotto in quanto dotato di una caratteristica o qualità distintiva;
11
Vincenzo Orioles
• il prodotto con un nome, in quanto voce lessicale, ha la capacità di sedimentarsi nella memoria (è più facile infatti ricordarsi le ‘cose’ attraverso le loro etichette che come cose in sé); • il nome trasporta il prodotto nel dominio della significazione, ove si collega a una costellazione di significati culturalmente specifici che gli sono associati. A rendere conto dell’insieme di queste implicazioni risponde ora pienamente questa importante pubblicazione, coordinata con finezza di analisi da Maria Catricalà, che già nel titolo (One thousand and one ways of reading a brand) racchiude una eloquente valenza programmatica. Dopo una sezione introduttiva (Cap. 1: What is a brand?) dedicata ad una accurata caratterizzazione e ricostruzione storica e alla definizione tecnica del concetto stesso di marchio e di marchionimo (ingl. rispettivamente brand e Brand names), complete della ricognizione di tutti i risvolti interdisciplinari che vi sono correlati, lo studio entra nel vivo della pertinenza linguistica (Cap. 2: The brand as a linguistic object). È in questa sezione che vengono evocate tutte le angolazioni e i livelli di analisi dai quali si può guardare ai marchionimi: accorgimenti grafici, fonosimbolismi, dispositivi morfologici e formativi (sono all’ordine del giorno, come era prevedibile, gli acronimi, le cosiddette forme portmanteau), la neologia lessicale endogena ed esogena, l’ampiezza dello spettro semantico, le strategie connotative e retoriche, il tutto sempre in una prospettiva aperta al plurilinguismo e alle corrispondenze interlinguistiche. I corpora che arricchiscono l’opera e che rendono disponibile una ampia e articolata casistica trovano spazio nei capitoli 4 (The Methods of analysis and case studies) e 5 (The wonderful sixty plus one brands of Expo Milan: a journey through life, food and sustainability) affidato quest’ultimo alle cure di una giovane studiosa, Giorgia Gazzelloni, che ha il merito di aver individuato un corpus omogeneo per il fatto di riferirsi ai brands circolati in occasione di un singolo evento, l’Expo di Milano 2015. A coronamento dell’opera le conclusioni (One thousand and one conclusions: a new formula of readability) in cui l’Autrice ritorna 12
Prefazione
sulla nozione chiave della readability, affrontata come focus specifico nel § 3.2 ma che in realtà attraversa trasversalmente l’intera opera. Cosa si intenda per readability emerge innanzitutto dalla puntuale definizione del costrutto, interpretato “as ability of understanding the meaning of an articulated structure of coherent and cohesive words, are related to many quantitative and qualitative parameters”. Ma la readability di un marchionimo va disaggregata nelle sue complesse e multiformi componenti: per rispondere all’interrogativo What makes a trademark readable? occorre una felice sintesi della grafica, degli elementi iconico-visuali, del payoff aziendale, studiato per catturare l’attenzione e rendere così competitivo il prodotto. In ogni caso l’enfasi sulla leggibilità si lascia apprezzare perché sposta il focus ‘dalla parte del ricevente’ dando rilievo a quella dimensione della comprensione spesso passata sotto silenzio e per la cui valorizzazione molto dobbiamo alla lezione di Tullio De Mauro. Vorrei chiudere queste considerazioni esprimendo una forte condivisione per l’apertura metodologica del presente lavoro guardando al quale possiamo rivendicare al linguista, ammesso che ce ne fosse ancora bisogno, non solo il diritto ma anche l’utilità di misurarsi con la totalità dei problemi concernenti il linguaggio: il motto jakobsoniano Linguista sum: linguistici nihil a me alienum puto trova nel volume di Maria Catricalà e del suo gruppo di ricerca una esemplare applicazione. Vincenzo Orioles
13
Molte case commerciali sogliono usare delle intestazioni speciali o delle figure determinate per ogni forma di réclame. Il loro scopo è quello di imprimere nella mente del pubblico la decorazione caratteristica della casa. Girolamo Bevinetto, La pubblicità commerciale, 1920, 134
La marque confère une valeur imaginaire (“je lave plus belle”). Jaques Séguéla Le pouvoir dans la peau, 2011, 10
Introduction
Introduction
The title of this book clearly explains the fundamental idea of my research activity and it can be considered a sort of key-word of the specific methodology of analysis, that I developed in the Universities La Sapienza and Roma Tre. Indeed, it highlights that the brand is a text difficult to understand and that it is impossible to reduce all its facets, as well as every single aspect of its various elements and functions, in a single definition. It is better “reading” it and observing its specific characteristics from different points of view, as those historical or anthropological, psychological or communicative and, of course linguistic. It is just the linguistic perspective that is considered primary, even if not exclusive, in this book, that aims to describe and to explain the unbelievable richness of denominations and forms of the trademarks. The reasons of the vast heterogeneity of this important sector of our onomasiological activity are linked to the constraints of originality, established by national laws and international agreements, but many other aspects are connected to single histories or to the prevalent trends of an age, to a series of accidents or to a particular individual or collective desire. In general consumers (i.e. the primary receivers of the brands and the messages on the brands) do not know the reason for which an abbreviation has been preferred to a compound, a single grapheme to whole sentences or to a series of original blends. In the same way, they ignore why an Old Greek or Latin word form has been chosen or replaced by an exotic loanword. In many cases the options have a motivation: as shown by Bluemelhuber-Carter-Lambe (2007), for example, the exotic element is frequently linked to a marketing strategy and to the opportunity of adding the traits “natural” and “genuine” and a positive evaluation 19
Maria CatricalĂ
to the western products, that appear adulterated in the collective imagery. Vice versa, for the eastern or local products, an Italian or English noun can represent a positive connotation and a quality stamp, being considered as a factor of internationalization and vector in the global market. Nevertheless, a trend of this kind and its perception can rapidly change, as other matters of tastes, influenced by mass media and social networks, and so the first cause of a naming preference remains obscure as other aspects. What about the visual aspects, for example, its color, its elements or style? It is well known, instead, that besides being multilingual, the brands are marked by other kinds of hybridism, as that iconic and verbal. In many cases the boundaries between figurative code and linguistic elements are totally reconfigured and defined through original amalgams and shapes, in which the combination of designatum and disegnatum sets up unexpected expressive solutions. The difficulty in reading and understanding a brand is all due to these aspects and they are the principal focus of this book, that is divided in four parts. The first is a short description of the brand’s different definitions and the various approaches of analysis, necessary to show its social and legal functions (Franceschelli 1960; Sirotti Gaudenzi 2012). In the second chapter, the brand is studied as a linguistic object, with its grammar and specific rules. In the third part, I explain the ways used to gather the data, to create a motivated and representative corpus and to study it, considering some specific examples (i.e., brands of departments stores, fashion and wine), and those of the Italy Expo, collected and described by Giorgia Gazzelloni, in the subsequent chapter. In the last but not least chapter, a new suggestion of analysis and of readability evaluation of the brands is described in the light of two linguistic parameters, that can be adopted for every kind of text and semiotic process. In particular, considering that the number of invisible information communicated by a brand is always higher, than that of its perceptible elements, ratio between data and their respective units is assumed as primary parameter. The index of synthesis and fusion are measurable and both of them can 20
Introduction
explain the reason of the different levels of comprehension, as well as in every code without a sequential and compositional structure. From the fil rouge of our discourse, it is evident that every trademark tells a story, and it does this using a code that we can define syncretic and sincratic. The term syncretic has its roots in an ancient alliance. In Old Greek, indeed, the word synkrētismos (from syn-‘together’, and Krēt) means ‘federation of Cretan cities’. In many contexts (as in the cases of syncretic religions, syncretic societies, or syncretic music) the adjective is adopted for describing things influenced by two or more theories, styles or traditions. In linguistics, the word has a specified technical sense, and it refers to a series of distinct functional occurrences of the same word, or morpheme. For example, the pronoun you is identical for subject and direct/ indirect complement, while for other persons (i.e. I, she, he, they) the forms change. In many cases, the brand names are common nouns (as lancia ‘spear’), that can be, at the same time, proper nouns, that become something else. But in this book, as in the semiotic theory of Greimas and Courtés (1986) the term also refers to the fusion of different forms of communicative codes, as those visual and verbal. The narration of this fusion is a feature common to every corpus or kind of brands, and this is the reason for which I have chosen a title that evokes one of the most famous universal literacy works. At the same time, brandnames often are blends of different codes, languages and discoursive levels, and in this sense they also are idiosyncratic (from the Greek syn, “with” and krasis, “government”), namely different kinds of combinations, mixings and contractions. My suggestion is that the readability of these anomalous words, or better pseudo-words, is closely linked to their different index of fusion and synthesis. As mentioned, my idea is the result of many years of research and didactic activity. For this reason I acknowledge my collaborators and my students: for me they and their enthusiasm for this topic belong to a chapter of the history of the brands, but also to that of our collaboration, a series of events that, for obvious reasons, I cannot illustrate here, although they are very interesting. 21
Maria Catricalà
In the end and in conclusions the textual perspective and a design theory are presented as a new possible schema for brands evaluation, not based on data as the frequency of a trademark into the Internet interactions and the social media power. These parameters are prevalent in the marketing models, but we are convinced that there is a previous level, interfaced with our cognitive device, our perceptions and ways of conceptualizing, that is important for understanding the elaboration and decoding of the trademarks. Centre of gravity in this semantic process are the words, «un système de ressemblances qui exigent un signature, car nulle d’entre elles ne poutrait être remarquée si elle n’était lisiblement marquèe» (Foucault 1967).
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I What is a brand?
What is a brand?
1.1. From the etymology to a definition The English term brand (< Old Norse brandr ‘to burn’), recalling the practice of producers burning their mark onto their products, indicates basically (Danesi 2011) a name, a symbol, or other elements that distinguishes one service or product, or also a series of objects produced by a unique company, from those of others. It corresponds to the Italian marchio1, of which the origin is uncertain. Maybe it derives from the Gothic marka, Ancient German marc, marcha (modern mark), that mean ‘limit, border’. Both the voices are connected to the Celtic and Cimbrian marc, and to the Breton marz ‘sign’, that come from the root mar ‘to finish, to terminate’ and also ‘to delineate’. It is likely that the word has a Romanic origin too, and in particular it could be linked to the Provençal marc, to the Ancient French marc or merc ‘bearing’ or to the Latin marculus, ‘small hammer’. In the last case the root would be the verb marcare (*marculare) ‘to etch’, but we cannot exclude the possibility of a fusion of different traditions (REW; FEW; GRADIT; DELI), in which the idea of limit and that of the tools used to label it engendered a new blend. Brand and its variants are linked and complementary to many others, as stamp, label, imprint, mark, punch, symbol, seal, lettering, blason, sign, trace, stencil, coat of arms, emblem. It shares The form mark is so common that it represents an Internationalism. It is significant that it is used as well as in French marque, Spanish and Portuguese marca, Romanian, marca, semn or pecete, and it is present in many other languages: English trademark or brand; German markenzeichen, marke; Danish varemærke, brand, brandmaerke; Finnish merkki, tavaramerkki, brandi; Norwegian varemerke; Dutch merk, Swede varumärke; Basco marka; Esperanto marko; Turkish marka; Japanese torādomāku /burandu, etc. 1
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with them many aspects and in particular the semiotic nature and the requirements of every element useful for representing and communicating a social, territorial and cultural identity (Bourdieau 1979; Bluemerhuber-Carter-Lambe 2007). Nevertheless, it is the only sign which has a further specific function and this function is clear in its legal definition: â&#x20AC;&#x153;the brand indicates any sign that can be graphically composed, as well as words, personal and common names, drawings, sketches, acronyms, initialisms, figures and numbers, any sound and shape of an object or its packaging, color and chromatic combinations, providing that they are adequate to distinguish a product or a service of a company from those of othersâ&#x20AC;?. Thus the brand can be considered a sort of identity-card of firms, companies and institutions, a particular kind of DNA of the contemporary variegated world of articles and services. As object of research, in turn, the brand is very complex to be analysed for many reasons. The first is that we can consider it from different points of view, from the linguistic one, to the semiotic and iconic, from the perspective of the anthropological studies to the psychological one, in the light of the sociological and historical events, or of the graphic and artistic design trends. Secondly, because the nature of these objects is hybrid and the alphabetic writing is only one of the components that characterises their structure and contributes to construct them. Concerning this second aspect, we will analyse, in the next chapter, the brand in the light of different semantic theories and different typologies of signs and symbols, that are very important in the languages for special purposes and in marketing strategies (Scarpa 2002; Kuhn 2006). With regard to the first aspect, we would just synthesize some information and describe some specific relevant features, those that can be useful to answer to the Five Ws of every kind of a basic story.
26
What is a brand?
1.2. A multifarious perspective of study From the historical point of view, we have to consider that many signs have been used in every age and in many different places, for indicating the ownership and distinguishing products of diverse companies. Bricks and pottery, for example, made by the Egyptians and Assyrians as early as 6000 b. C., bore commercial labels, as well as the Chinese potters did in 3000 b.c. In the Old Egypt also the wine merchants and the doctors were using to inscribe, respectively, their jugs and their bamboo containers for medicines. In the ancient Greece the slaves were marked with a hot iron, called stigma, on account of punishment, and many other people marked animals for identifying them. Around the middle of the first century b. c., during the Empire age, Roman brick makers began using unique identifying stamps, that became more and more complex. They included a proper name and, sometimes, that of the brickyard in which the product was been prepared, that of the origin of the clay, and even the name of the consul. Then, the sigilli represent a sort of small boxes containing traces and clues very useful for the modern observers, interested in the economic history and work organization of the past. Over time, in the Medieval Age, merchants attached graphic labels to their products, and packages for aiding the illiterate workers to send them to correct destination. In the eighteenth century, labels were recognized as legal documents and in that subsiquently a new use appeared, with the commerce of liquor and tobacco, and changed their function (Malaval 2012, 2-4). For the first time, the label became a selling device and its promotional value became attractive for the buyersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; attention, useful for distinguishing the competitors and for passing down a lot of information about every kind of company. Beyond the basic data relating to the side of production or the different sorts of material or ingredients, the marks and the labels started to communicate the identity of the enterprises, their style and modus operandi. Therefore it is clear that the diverse roles and shapes of the brands are relevant traces of â&#x20AC;&#x153;documentsâ&#x20AC;?, referring to several economic and 27
Maria CatricalĂ
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