Topic : Sound symbolism [Onomatpoeia]

Activity 1. SOUND SYMBOLISM

Another important use of the IPA is to help us understand any possible basis for sound symbolism. This is the process by which we use the different sounds produced by our speech organs to stand for some of the sounds around us in our environment. When we form these sounds into whole words that themselves stand for noises, like ‘bang’, ‘crash’, and ‘thud’, this is called onomatopoeia. This area is by no means clear cut, however.

Take, for example, the sound effects often seen in comics, as in Text: Comic ‘noises’. Are these really an accurate description of noises, or do we just interpret them as such because we are used to the convention of the words meaning specific things? Are they understandable outside the context of the page where they occurred, without all the picture and story cues to support comprehension? Would someone who had never read a comic understand them? And are they language-specific: would someone who isn’t an English speaker interpret them the same way, even though that person’s organs of speech produce all the same sounds as ours? (You might be interested to know that German cockerels go ‘kikeriki’, while the French for a dog’s ‘woof-woof’ is ‘oua-oua’; and that the Spanish for ‘bang’ or ‘crack’ is ‘pum’ or ‘paf’.)


TEXT: COMIC ‘NOISES’



Activity2
The aim of this activity is to look carefully at the relationship between the sounds we produce and the sound effects we try to achieve in texts.
Read the poetry extracts in Text: Sound effects. In each case, the language is highlighting certain types of sound, which have been underlined. Look back at the phonetic information given earlier, think about the way the sounds are produced physically and decide why the writers might have used them:


Text: Sound effects

Commentary

Examples 1 and 2 are plosives, 2 using more voiced sounds. Example 1 suggests the explosive force of bullets (compare this with the sounds in ‘rat-a-tat’); 2 tries to evoke the duller thud of drops on a hard surface.

Examples 3 and 4 use voiceless fricatives, suggesting the light friction of wind and breath.
Examples 5 and 6 use nasals, 5 suggesting the repeated and overlapping calls of doves and continuous hum of bees; 6 uses nasals in combination with fricatives and an affricate.
The humming of wasps is combined with the lighter hissing noises of smaller insects.