Regional production brands in context of “Belt and Road” in intercultural communication (using the example of local automobile brands in Guangxi, China)

INTRODUCTION. As part of the “Belt and Road” Initiative, which promotes cultural and industrial exchange between China, Russia and the CIS countries, automobile brands from Guangxi use regional cultural characteristics to enter the Russian-speaking market. The aim is to examine linguistic and cultural differences that have become the main obstacle to the accurate and clear translation of car brand names (autonyms) into Russian as an object of brand identity, culture and image of the region in the context of global competition and cultural distance. MATERIALS AND METHODS. The research material includes the names of well-known brands of Chinese cars (autonyms), removed from scientific, popular science and advertising Chinese and Russian publications. In the course of the research, methods of continuous sampling, classification and interpretation were used, the main method is descriptive, aimed at synchronous description of automobile nominations. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Three main linguistic and cultural problems that nominees face when creating brand identity are identified: “Russian semantic deviations in Guangxi automotive cultural terminology”, “intercultural barriers to regional automotive symbols”, and “misuse of local automotive concepts in the Russian context”. CONCLUSION. The conclusions obtained in the course of this study can be used to further study the identity of an automobile brand correlated with unique regional autonyms.