Privatize your name

Symbolic work in a post-Soviet linguistic market

Bibliographic Data

ID3660887
AuthorsAlexei Yurchak (University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume4
Issue3
Pages406-434
Publication date2000-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Sociolinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1360-6441 • E-ISSN: 1467-9841
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9481.00122
OpenAlexW1982247073
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited21

This paper analyzes the new names given to Russian private businesses that have appeared after the collapse of the Soviet State in 1991. By naming new private ventures their owners members of the new business class attempt to privatize public space not only legally but also symbolically and linguistically. They strive to construct their particular new version of social reality, to represent it as positive and meaningful, and to impose themselves publicly as legitimate authors, owners, and masters of this new reality. This paper proceeds on several distinct levels of analysis. First, it analyzes a number of discourses, representing various subcultures and periods of Soviet and Russian history, from which new business names draw their complex meanings. Second, it considers concrete linguistic and semiotic techniques that are employed by the new names in this process. Third, it examines the cultural and social implications of this process of nomination for post-Soviet developments in the Russian society

Construct (python library · Linguistics · Nomination · Political science · Semiotics · Sociology · State (computer science · Computer Science · Law · Soviet and Russian History · Translation Studies and Practices

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