Anthroposemiotics of Trade Names in the City: The presence of the other in trade names as an expression of ideological hegemony

In: Chinese Semiotic Studies, Band 13, Heft 2, S. 203-218

Abstract

Abstract
From an anthroposemiotic perspective, this article discusses the presence of trade names written in a language other than Spanish in Venezuela. The notion of identity formulated by García Gavidia and by Andacht is used, as well as notions of violence and symbolic efficacy by Bourdieu and the semiotics of culture by Lotman. An approach was made from the rationalist-deductive epistemological perspective, using the hypothetico-deductive method to analyze a corpus representing foreign trade names observed in Venezuela, which, however, merely served as an empirical control mechanism of deduction. Results reveal that such names are an expression of identity/otherness conflict; at the same time, they can be considered as a cultural text that bursts violently into another established text, by acting within the scope of a semiosphere that transform them into a device with cultural memory expressing an ideological hegemony.