식품 상품명의 언어적 특징과 사회문화적 의미

Abstract

The aim of this study is to comprehend the structural and semantic characteristics of the food product names that are on the market today as well as to examine the sociocultural meaning they convey. Because the language reflects the culture and diet of those who compose a given society, analyzing food product names thus helps to understand the demand and the sociocultural trends that take place in that society. This paper investigates a total of 622 Korean food product brand names of 7 kinds of food products (sauce, noodles, oil, seasoning sauce, meat and fish product, kimchi, rice) marketed by 5 food companies in order to analyze their structural, semantic, and sociocultural features. From a morph-syntactic perspective, a large number of these brands, which are essentially written in Korean alphabet, are made up of many syllables and present a variety of compound structures. From a semantic point of view, most either reflect the flavor and the texture of the product, or designate its place of origin or its locality, or disclose its ingredients, or reveal its use and function. The results of this analysis show a number of relevant sociocultural characteristics. First, Koreans pursue a healthy lifestyle by consuming products that contain safe ingredients and follow traditional recipes. Second, the diversified demand of consumers has led to the diversification of brand names as well as its segmentation. Third, changes in lifestyle such as urbanization, nuclearization of family, and increase in female employment, contribute to a growing tendency towards easy-cooking food. Finally, if among all tastes hot spicy flavor is a favorite, we can consider this as an answer to the stress caused by the recent economic crisis.