Ergonyms of Educational and Cultural spheres in two of Baltic States cities

• Main Author: Solvita Pošeiko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Foundation Pro Scientia Publica 2014-09-01
• Series: Journal of Education Culture and Society
• Subjects: virtual linguistic landscape; ergonyms; proper names; linguistic means; semantic groups
• Online Access: http://nowadays.home.pl/JECS/data/documents/JECS=201=20=282014=29=20299-311.pdf
• ISSN: 2081-1640; 2081-1640

Daugavpils (Latvia) and Narva (Estonia) are cities in the Baltic States and significant cultural and economic centres of their respective countries. These cities are characterized by a minority of nationals (19.8% of residents of Daugavpils are Latvian, 4% of residents of Narva are Estonian) and a similar linguistic situation: there is a dominance of Russian in the press, television and radio, but the state language prevails in the urban language signs. The aim of the study is to analyse the linguistic and extralinguistic means used for the creation of ergonyms of educational and cultural spheres. The main criteria for the analysis are: language choice, grammatical structures, sources of precedent and semantic groups. The data for this study were collected in city websites. Some conclusions: 1) Mixed proper names (the direct name and symbolical name) prevail: in Daugavpils there are more mixed names in the field of education, while in Narva there are more mixed names in the culture sphere. Onymization of nomenclature names can be observed. 2) Ergonyms are mostly created in the official language. In Narva, there is explicit use of Russian (directly as the first/second or third language and indirectly – in transliteration). 3) In symbolical names, there are more lexemes representing or characterizing wildlife, while in Narva also the potential of mythology, literature and cinema is used. Denotative precedent is more often found in the names of informal educational institutions and the cultural sphere, connotative precedent – in the names of kindergartens. 4) In general, it must be concluded that the specific things characteristic to the local environment are used more often in Narva, while respecting the unique experience of minorities.