1.1. From the etymology to a definition

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 marchio 1 , 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

1 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.

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: “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 others”. 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.