Rhyming slang encoding trade names and brands in sociocultural setting

The article aims to examine the cases of encoding of advertising culturally-determined items (trademarks and brands) that name branded products and manufacturers producing branded products, based on rhyming slang material. The topic is explored through the examples of rhyming slang that reflect advertising items represented by pragmatonyms and ergonyms. The analyzed rhymes are based on company names and brands that are well known to the average British citizen and are included in the so-called “cultural literacy” of the speakers of English linguistic culture. The rhymes are borrowed from dictionaries of rhyming and general slang, as well as Internet sources, while the sociocultural information is provided from encyclopedic dictionaries and dictionaries of culture. advertising culturally-determined items have not yet been the subject of special analysis and undoubtedly deserve linguistic and sociocultural description. The article presents a sociocultural analysis of more than 40 rhymes that refer to pragmatonyms and ergonyms. As a result, it was revealed that among the rhymes correlated with the names of goods and manufacturing companies, the rhymes encoding beverages are the most representative, particularly various brands and types of beer, which justifies the statement that beer remains the most favorite drink of the inhabitants of Great Britain. Rhymes encoding restaurants and means of transport (car brands) are also popular. Reflecting culturally precedent phenomena – names, situations, and historical culturally-determined items within the context of cultural literacy, the rhymes analyzed in the article have linguocultural value. The results of the study may be useful and interesting to specialists developing topics in intercultural communication, linguistic and cultural studies, linguoculturology, contrastive linguistics of the English and Russian languages, speech culture and the practice of teaching English as a foreign language.