What’s in a Name? Classification of Proper Names by Language

7. Discussion 
 
The central question in this chapter is: How should proper names be classified by 
language? In the above sections, arguments have been presented in favour of and 
against the view that proper names should be assigned to their language of origin. 
First, the function of using particular languages was discussed as well as the role of 
proper names in advertising and linguistic landscape. After that the classification of 
proper names by language was considered and finally a case study was presented. 
Since the 19th century the brand name features in advertisements (Crystal, 
2004). In multilingual advertising the product name is the element that is most 
frequently in a foreign language (Piller, 2003). Advertisers use particular languages in 
advertisements or shop signs to associate products or services with the corresponding 
social groups. As proper names such as shop names and brand names do not have the 
purpose of transmitting factual information, they can easily be written in a language 
that is not used or fully understood by the audience. 
The classification of proper names is not always straightforward. A name can 
be perceived as written in a particular language, or in any language. In a sample of 
more than 200 signs from Amsterdam’s main shopping street, almost 40% only 
consist of one or more names. It was found that proper names contribute greatly to the 
multilingual character of the linguistic landscape. Whether a researcher decides to 
consider a name to belong to a specific language or not has important implications for 
the coding of signs in linguistic landscape research. As the presented case study 
shows, both decisions lead to different results. 
Proper names in the linguistic landscape are frequently in a foreign language. 
Often the connotation of proper names seems to be more important than their 
denotation. The passer-by will not easily overlook these proper names because of the 
prominent place they have in the linguistic landscape. Ben-Rafael et al. (2006) 
observe that the linguistic landscape is perceived by passers-by as a gestalt of physical 
objects like shops, post-offices, and kiosks, which are marked by written words. The 
authors argue that although the linguistic landscape is shaped by a large variety of 
actors such as public institutions, associations, firms, and individuals that do not 
necessarily act coherently, the chaotic picture that it comes to compose is perceived as 
one structured space. A researcher who does not code proper names as foreign 
languages gets an incomplete picture of the linguistic landscape’s multilingual 
character. Moreover, the possibility of the translation of names, however limited, 
shows that names can sometimes be part of specific languages. Other linguistic 
landscape researchers, although they do not account for that choice, did assign proper 
names to their language of origin. 
An argument against assigning proper names to their original language is the 
observation that proper names can be part of any language, depending on the context 
in which they occur. Korzilius et al. (2006) distinguish between names that do and do 
not contain meaningful words, under the assumption that the latter are usually a given. 
Yet, it seems that both types of names can actually be a matter of choice, and the 
distinction between names that do and do not contain meaningful words seems quite 
subjective. 
Another - provisional - solution to the problem of the classification of proper 
names may be to assign every name to its original language and code for every sign 
whether it consists of

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1) proper name(s) 
2) other text, or 
3) both. 
This makes it possible to consider the different types of sign separately. 
Coding the names according to the language of the context would mean a loss 
of interesting information because of the special role names play in the linguistic 
landscape. It is interesting to see which languages are used to appeal to people’s 
emotions. 
It may be the case that the languages used for text other than proper names 
form a more accurate reflection of the languages that are spoken in an area than the 
languages used for all text including proper names. In fact, for Kalverstraat neither of 
the analyses produces a reflection of the languages spoken in Amsterdam since many 
immigrant languages are lacking in this central shopping street. 
The interest in linguistic landscapes among scholars from various disciplines 
is on the rise. To be able to make meaningful comparisons of results from different 
researchers and to be able to replicate linguistic landscape research in another social 
context, it is important that authors describe the applied methodology explicitly and in 
great detail. Developing a uniform methodology for this type of research would 
certainly be worthwhile. One aspect of methodology, namely the question how proper 
names should be classified by language, has been considered in this chapter. 
However, it appears difficult to arrive at an unequivocal solution.