Communicative and pragmatic functions of lexical blends in advertising discourse

Now, let's consider blends in German. In German, there are two main structural types: phonetic and graphic blending.

Phonetic blending is divided into three subtypes: fusion telescopy (overlay of stems A and B), sequential telescopy (no overlap of stems A and B), and integrated telescopy (inclusion of stem B in the structure of stem A).

Fusion telescopy is implemented in the following models (Friedrich, 2008):

1. without reduction of stems A and B (the final segment of stem A coincides with the initial segment of stem B): elefantastisch (Elefant + fantastisch), Frostsee (Frost + Ostsee);

2. with the reduction of stem A: AbentEuro (Abenteuer + Euro), akadдmlich (academic + dдmlich);

3. with the reduction of stem B: Bankfurt (Bank + Frankfurt), Fairkehr (fair + Verkehr);

4. with the reduction of both stems A and B: Birnane (Birne + Banane), brillig (Brille + billig).

In the case of sequential telescopy, the stems A and B do not overlap, but follow each other sequentially. There are also three models:

1. with the reduction of stem A: augenKlick (Augenblick + Klick), denglisch (deutsch + englisch);

2. with the reduction of stem B: bierologisch (Bier + biologisch), centsationell (Cent + sensationell);

3. with reduction of both stems A and B: Familotel (Familie + Hotel), Fanamik (FahrspaЯ + Dynamik).

Integrated telescopy, in contrast to fusion and sequential types, is much less common and involves the inclusion of stem B into stem A: BiRadlon (Biathlon + Rad), Psychartrie (Psychiatrie + art [Kunst]) (Fridrich, 2008).

L. Lipka's (1981) study on the functioning of blends proves that blending is also a productive way of word formation in the German language. The scientist divides the blends into the following thematic groups: food (Hellikatesse (hell + Delikatesse) - “a poster of Paulaner, which advertises light beer, which they consider a delicacy”); leisure and tourism (Urlaubдr (Urlaub + bдr) - “a water toy in the shape of a bear, which is often taken on vacations”); culture and art (Liebesmь'sique (Liebesmьhe + musique) - “the name of the program of one vocal ensemble, which sings about love torments in its songs”); sports (Beckingham Palast - Beckham + Buckingham Palace) - “the name of the house of Beckham and his wife, reminiscent of Buckingham Palace; science (Schiege (Schaf + Ziege) - “a hybrid of sheep and goats”; society (Цkolozismus (Цkologie + Katholizismus) - “an entity that combines ecology and Catholicism”); technology (BrakeMatic (brake + automatic) - “automatic brake device”), etc.

As for the mass media discourse, S. Kemmer (2003) found the presence of blends in various newspapers and magazines: ones about politics, youth, women, business, cars, travel. Some innovative mass media include blends in their names (AirLEBNISBLATT (Airport + Erlebnisblatt) - “an advertisement for the Airport disco, covering everything that happens there as bright events”; Vorsicht StuVe! (Vorsicht Stufe + StuVe!) (student meeting) is “the name of a newspaper published by a student meeting with a hint that it should not be underestimated”. Blends are often included in the headlines on magazine covers and captions to pictures in order to attract readers, arouse their interest and make them buy newspapers and magazines: AbentEuro (Abenteuer + Euro) - “the title of an article whose author has conflicting feelings about the euro introduction”; NACHTDENKEN (Nacht + nachdenken) (night reflection) - “a caption under the photo of Professor J. Searle in the university library, where he meditates at night alone”.

The scientists emphasize that the widespread use of blends in advertising is due to the fact that companies and manufacturers want their products to look original and attractive for customers. Such blends evoke associations with aesthetics, creativity and innovation and have a strong emotional impact on readers (O. Tielietov, 2015, K. Vashyst, 2020). The authors find the blends in advertising often to have a positive connotation and evoke pleasant associations, negatively colored blends are quite rare: (pfanntastisch (frying pan + fantastic) - advertising of excellent frying pans); (Sixt kдmpft gegen den Massenteurismus - Sixt (a company that sells and rents cars) is struggling with a massive rise in prices). The author notes that blends in advertising often perform appellate and phatic functions: VERABSCHWEDET EUCH (Verabredet euch + Schweden - announcement of the IKEA opening in one of the lands of Germany, where Germans are invited to come shopping in a Swedish store); Kaufwiedersehen! - Goodbye! Thank you for purchasing!

The analysis of the corpora under research proves that the use of blends is popular now not only in languages with analytical structure, this trend towards language economy and increasing semantic capacity of lexical units is becoming popular also in Slavic languages (which grammatical structure is synthetic), although there are much less examples of blends in the vocabulary of these languages. The search for empirical material for analysis led us to the streets of our native town, where once again we came across the dynamism of advertising discourse, which is full of innovation samples, Ukrainian lexical blends including.

For example, Мьяс'єм (Myasyem - “meat eating”) is a meat shop in Sumy (Northeastern Ukraine). Taking into account compounding rules violation, it is a typical blend, both in terms of structural elements combination and in terms of a combination of languages that are widely used within the territory of Northeastern Ukraine (Ukrainian and Russian). This is an example of not only pragma-linguistic, but also socio-linguistic significance. As a result, we have an original play of words, which in addition performs a commercial function, attracting the attention of a buyer.

СервелатІК (ServelatIK - “cervelat and the company”) is a known butcher shop in Sumy. As you know, cervelat is a kind of high-grade delicious smoked sausages made of veal, pork or rabbit, very popular in Soviet times, and a large number of today's citizens of Ukraine remember this brand. The blend creates positive impression of the company that produces high-quality products. Thus, the name of the company becomes a well-known brand, and, performing the pragma-linguistic function of influencing the recipient, it also implements the marketing goals of the company.

Ремвзуття (Remvzuttya - “shoe repair”) is a shoe repair factory. This example is not new in the lexicon of Ukrainians, but is interesting in terms of how in languages (in this case in word-formation) there are no precise boundaries: considering that the word ремонт (remont - “repair”) is of French origin (This word appeared to us in Peter's time (18th century) in a very special meaning: “replacement of old horses by young ones in the army”. Later, this word got the meaning "reconstruction", "adjustment", in the broadest sense of the word “repair of premises, buildings, and mechanisms”). Element -ont is a suffix, and the lexical unit rem-vzuttya should be considered a complex word, uniting two word- roots, but the long life of the word remont combined it with the Ukrainian language so much that even Ukrainian linguists consider remont to be an integral root unit having no suffix (at least of Ukrainian origin). Therefore, remvzuttya can be refered to the initial transitional moments in the processes of Ukrainian-language word-formation, from classical rules to the so-called telescopy or blending. This example implements the effect of saving and is understandable to an average Ukrainian due to the long period of use.

The next example refers to blends that use elements of foreign words, that is very typical for such lexical units. Президент (PreziDent) is a dental clinic in the town, its name is a combination of foreign words (of Latin origin) president and dentist, which are also used in the Ukrainian language; and non-standard structural merging of these words creates innovative semantics of a blending unit that attracts attention. In addition, the word president means “the head of the country, the first person in the country”. Therefore, this component is appropriate; it forms the recipient's opinion about the superiority and professionalism of the doctors of this dental clinic.

Nowadays, blends that are formed as a combination of parts of words from different European languages have become more common (enterprising Ukrainians, returning from Europe, open their shops with odd names in Motherland). BoNitka (“yarn shop”) is a combination of the Spanish word bonita, which means “beautiful”, and the Russian word nitka, which means “thread”, which is transliterated in Latin to maintain a single form and melodiousness, that also affects the positive perception of the overall image of the shop.

The next example is formed in a similar way: BEERloga is a well-known beer pub in our town, the name of which is a combination of the English word beer and transliteration of the old Russian word berloga, which means “den” (but initially the root ber- is taken from the German language, which means “bear”, only -log- is taken from Russian, that is, “den”, “lair”: “bear's den”). Therefore BEERloga hints that you may stay at this place to “hide” and “relax”.

Blending is a well-known phenomenon of English word-formation, which has long been spread to all European (Romano-Germanic) languages, including German, and is now becoming a popular phenomenon among Slavic languages, including Ukrainian, as it was shown by the analysis of the empirical material. Mass media, or rather advertising, discourse is the main source of lexical blends, because it tends to expressiveness, evaluability, and brevity of information, which helps to attract the attention of a reader or listener, thereby implementing the communicative-pragmatic function. The communicativeness of a lexical blend is in its ability to establish contact with the recipient through its expressiveness, its modernity, and its ability to reflect such things that other language means cannot do. The pragmatic aspect of using such units in an advertising text is that the speaker, creating his communication strategy, plans in advance and implements in the process of speech certain techniques aimed at achieving the communicative goal -- to convince the recipient to buy the advertised product. Prospects for further research of this paradigm are interesting within comparative analysis of blends functioning in different discourses of different European languages.

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