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 Ling 131: Language & Style
 

Topic 1 (session B) - Levels of language: Linguistic levels, style & meaning > Levels of language & pop group names > The Beatles

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Levels of language & pop group names

Analysis of the popgroup name, The Beatles

The beatlesThis is arguably the name of the most famous pop group ever.

The grammatical construction of the name is pretty ordinary, a noun phrase consisting of the definite article modifying a single head noun . The prototypical pop group name consists of a noun phrase beginning with 'the' (e.g. 'The Four Tops', 'The Shadows'). The first pop group names often had the name of the lead singer first, with the group name co-ordinated to it (e.g. 'Bill Haley and the Comets', 'Buddy Holly and the Crickets', 'Gerry and the Pacemakers', 'Diana Ross and the Supremes').

'The Beatles' is more interesting lexically, as it is an invented word which did not exist in the language prior to the group. It thus arrested the attention when it was first used. The head noun is homophonous (has the same phonemes, or distinctive sounds) with the word 'beetles' but it is interesting that these days few of us make the association between the words. This is probably because most people think favourably of the Beatles and so blot out the possible negative associations.

It is the graphology which leads to the lexical invention. The head noun consists of the morpheme 'beat' (a noun derived from a verb indicating strong physical action which is semantically appropriate because in their early days at least the Beatles were a beat group), with a plural '-le' ending. The ending does not quite have morphemic status (that is, it is not a fully meaningful sub-part of a word), but verbs ending in '-le' are often associated with iterative (repeated) movement (cf. 'mumble, grumble, trickle, rattle), and again that is appropriate for a group who played and sang songs with a heavy rhythmic beat. The head noun of the noun phrase is capitalised, which will remind readers of proper names and the titles of books etc.

Overall, then, 'The Beatles' is an inventive name, designed to catch the attention and also be structurally appropriate to the kind of music the group played.

 


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