Information about the author:

Abstract:

The object of the study is selected features of urban names that determine their functional effectiveness. The ergonymic components of the onomasticon in the capital city of the Republic of Bashkortostan are characterized; models of spontaneous informal nomination related to the citizens’ communicative needs are described; factors violating the ecology of the onomastic space of Ufa are identified. The similarity of the toponymy of the large cities of Bashkiria to the urbanonymy of other Russian cities is noted. The sources of emergence of equivalents of official names in the citizens’ colloquial speech are determined. These colloquial equivalents emerged out of the need to distinguish objects with the same names or functions, to simplify the complicated structure of an official name, or to bring some expressiveness and language game into the everyday communication of citizens. The texts of the signboards and advertisement are interesting from a scientific point of view because they represent changes in the social, economic and political life of the city, reflecting the linguistic and national-cultural specifics of the republic’s capital. Signage forms the linguistic and cultural space of a modern city, so its analysis is relevant to the linguistic ecology and language policy. Finally, criteria for environmental friendliness of an urban name are proposed.

Keywords: communicative confrontation, ecological criteria for urban names, linguistic ecology, onymic city space, toponymic situation, language space of the city