日本製大衆薬における商品名の一考察

Abstract

商品名基於兩種理由而有創造出非既有語彙之傾向。其一為與他者商品之差別化，另一則為商標登錄。而商品名與日常語言最為相異之特徵乃在於其是以商品販賣為目的之語言表現，是故才會追求非既有的新造語。因此，作為盡可能增加商品銷售的手段之一，便可觀察到各個廠商在命名上，針對如何讓商品名稱更加令人印象深刻煞費苦心。 本研究特別以現在日本製藥中，無須醫師開立處方箋便可購入之藥品，意即所謂非處方用藥為研究對象，聚焦於其商品名，並從語構成面進行考察。 而研究方法則為先鎖定日本國內排名前10名內的非處方用藥廠商，其後選取該前10名藥廠現階段尚有生產販賣之非處方用藥的品牌或系列名稱作為分析對象，試圖藉由以音韻構造及語構成要素觀點之分析找出隱藏於名稱中之規則性，以及更加明確其命名特徵。論其結果，除觀察到基於加深自家商品印象或商品名命名之特殊音素的獨特特徵外，更可窺見根據藥品種類別命名之特徵等。

Trade names tend to create non-existing vocabularies for two reasons. One is differentiation from other products, and the other is trademark registration. The primary difference between the usage of of commodity names versus everyday language is that they are expressed in language for the purpose of commodity sales, hence the pursuit of non-existing words. To increase the sales of products, it has been observed that various manufacturers have taken great pains to make the name of the product more impressive. This research focuses on drugs that can be purchased from pharmaceuticals in Japan without a requiring a doctor's prescription, namely, the over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. It focuses on their brand names and is based on its lexical composition. The research method is to first target the top ten OTC drug manufacturers in Japan, and then to select the brands or the names of the OTC drugs currently produced and sold by the top ten pharmaceutical manufacturers. From the analysis of the phonological structure and the constituents of the language, the regularity hidden in the name is found, and its naming characteristics are more clearly defined. In terms of the results, in addition to the unique features based on special phonemes that deepen the impression of their own products or the name of the product, we also see the features of naming according to the category of medicines.