An approach to unorthodox spellings in trademarks

The purpose of this study is to explain some English and Turkish trademark spellings within a theoretical approach. Contrary to the generally accepted orthography, we observe some words obtaining new forms by language-external interventions. Deliberately, some trade names are made orthographically notable by having been deviate from the standard spelling. Despite the fact that these words usually retain their meaning and pronunciation, they have remarkably new orthographic forms due to the use of alternative spellings. The need for distinctiveness in a highly commercialized world results in the use of a great number of irregularly spelled words in trademarks. Such economically motivated interventions, which do not often stem from language-internal motivations, bring about deviant spellings by breaking down the rules of standardized orthography. Even if this is an unacceptable anarchy by conventional writing standards, the motivation behind this deviation needs to be explained from a theoretical perspective. Therefore, this study is not an attempt to justify the deviant spellings in trade names but to understand why and how they occur.

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Unorthodox spelling ,

Trademarks ,

Defamiliarization ,