UDC: 811.111’42:821.111(73)-1.П1/7.08

Daria Tkachuk

Kamianets-Podilsky Ivan Ohienko National University

Scientific supervisor: O. V. Halaibida, Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE CONCEPT OF ONOMATOPOEIA

The World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary defines onomatopoeia as

1) the formation of a name or word by imitating the sound associated with the thing designated;

2) a word or phrase so formed;

3) the adaptation of the sound to the sense for rhetorical effect [10, 1353].

It is a Greek word in origin, formed from anoma, meaning "name” and poiein "to make or to coin”. It came into English through Latin.

The researches who studied onomatopoeia show remarkable convergence in their thoughts as for this phenomenon. Some deny it completely, others admit its existence and some even feel the significant importance of it in the structure of the language.

The term sound symbolism is often used as a synonym of onomatopoeia.

Sound symbolism is not a very satisfactory term but it is a familiar one to cover the phenomenon that has been noted and studied over very many years, i.e. the apparent appropriateness of the sound-structures of many individual words for their meanings. A better description for this might be "natural expressiveness”.

 F. de Saussure denied onomatopoeia (and all other natural expressiveness of words) other than as marginal, and treated even apparent onomatopoeic words as no more than conventional forms [9, 84]. Other influential linguists concurred; J. R. Firth, warned students to beware of sound symbolism, saying that the sounds of words in themselves paint nothing [2, 107].

This certainty on the part of F. de Saussure and his followers is all the more surprising and apparently perverse in the face of the exceptionally long history of evidence to the contrary, presented by equally perceptive and equally authoritative writers, and in the face of what has in this century become the large body of scientifically planned experiment establishing the reality of sound symbolism. The debate started with Plato: "Everything has a right name of its own, which comes by nature. A name is not whatever people call a thing by agreement, just a piece of their own voice applied to the thing, but there is a kind of inherent correctness which is the same for all men, both Greeks and foreigners" [8, 418]. Similarly Lucretius, a thoughtful and pragmatic investigator, rejected the arbitrariness of the origin of words.

The tradition that words symbolize their meanings has continued over the centuries. In the 19th century the reality of the expressiveness of words was championed by W. von Humboldt in Germany, and later by A. Grammont in France. W. Humboldt was certain that a connection between the sound of a word and its meaning exists; he distinguished between onomatopoeia and sound symbolism. The sound was not, in his view, a directly imitative sign but a sign which indicated a quality which the sign and the object have in common; to designate objects, language se­lected sounds which partly independently and partly in comparison with others produce an impression which to the ear is similar to that which the object makes upon the mind [5, 236]. W. Humboldt said that this kind of sign process had undoubtedly exercised a prevailing, perhaps even exclusive, influence on primitive word formation resulting in a certain likeness of word-formation throughout all lan­guages [5, 251].

Otto Jespersen discussed the evidence for onomatopoeia and concluded that it should be seen not simply as a force that influenced the ini­tial formation of language but as one operating continually to make the words used more appropriate to their sense, that is, onomatopoeia is a reality in the modern use and development of language. He directly criticized  F. Saussure's approach: "De Saussure gives as one of the main principles of our science that the tie between sound and sense is arbitrary and rather motiveless... and to those that would object that onomatopoeic words are not arbitrary, he says that 'they are never organic elements of a linguistic system' ... Here we see one of the characteristics of modern linguistic science; it is so preoccupied with etymology that it pays much more attention to what words have come from than to what they have come to be ... Though some echo words may be very old, the great majority are not ... In the course of time, languages grow richer and richer in symbolic words ... Sound symbolism, we may say, makes some words much more fit to survive ... Echoism and related phenomena — these forces are vital to languages as we observe them day by day" [6, 408-411].

H. Hormann, a more recent german writer on psycholinguistics, quotes Stenzel who emphasized "the belief, deeply rooted in our natural feeling for language, that meaning lies directly in the sound of words; this belief is sustained by a peculiar feeling that it is self-evident, which certainly constitutes a very important experience in the mother-tongue and in any other language of which we have a reason­able understanding” [4, 215].

For this 'important experience in the mother-tongue', the results of Piagetian research seem relevant. Jean Piaget and his assistants found that young children uniformly say that words are derived directly from the objects to which they relate. These findings were in agreement with what Piaget termed 'well-known theories' according to which to a child's eye every object seems to pos­sess a necessary and absolute name, a part of the object's very nature; children believe that they are not taught words for common things — the words originate within the child itself. Children's ideas of this kind were, J. Piaget thought, evidence of their lack of insight and understanding; they go on taking this sort of view until they have had several years of formal schooling and reach the age of about eleven when they come to accept that words are arbitrary and conventional. Piaget, of course, accepted the linguistic orthodoxy unquestioningly; he did not seek further for an explanation of the surprising uniformity with which children perceive a natural link between word and meaning, merely commenting: "This inability to dissociate names from things is very curious” [7, 83]. Perhaps it is more than curious. 'Out of the mouths of babes' there may be something which linguists ought to consider.

There has been extensive consideration of onomatopoeia, the natural expressiveness of word-sounds, in relation to the major European languages. The fact that words are felt to be naturally appropriate to their meaning is also well-established for German, French and Spanish as it is for English. The disagreement has been over how the feeling of the natural suitability of words for their meanings is to be explained. In relation to the English language, even linguists such as L. Bloomfield and J. R. Firth who proclaim the arbitrariness of language and deny the existence of onomatopoeia, recognize that particular feelings of appropriateness are associated with particular words. Other authorities strongly sup­port the reality of sound-symbolism in the English language. O. Jespersen said that there was no denying that there are words which we feel instinctively to be adequate to express the ideas they stand for. Roger Brown, who dealt com­prehensively with the issue of sound symbolism, concluded that speakers of a given language have similar notions of the semantic implications of various pho­netic sequences [3, 293].

This symbolism of sounds, the suggestive power of various combinations of vowels and consonants has never been very carefully studied, but certain associations or suggestions can be briefly stated. It is obvious, for instance, that long vowels suggest a slower movement than the short vowels, open vowels convey the idea of more massive objects, while narrow ones suggest slighter movements or smaller objects. More subtle are the suggestions provided by consonants.

Thus for some reason there are a number of words beginning with / kw / which express the idea of shaking or trembling, such as quiver, quaver, quagmire.

The combination / bl / suggests impetus and generally denotes the sounds formed in the process of breathing:

e.g. blow, blast, blab, blubber.

/ fl / symbolizes some kind of clumsy movement, as in flounder, flop, flup.

From / scr / we get a number of words expressing the sound of loud cry, as in scream, screech, screek etc.

Consonants / k /, / p / at the end of words suggest a sound or movement abruptly stopped, e.g. clip, whip, clap, rap, slap, flap etc., while / ⌠ / in the same place describes a sound or action that does not end abruptly, but is broken down into a mingled mass of smashing or rustling sounds, as in dash, splash, smash, mash, etc.

The simplest case of onomatopoeia is the direct imitation of the sounds: clink... splash ... bleat... snort... grunt... But as our speech organs are not capa­ble of giving a perfect imitation of all 'unarticulated' sounds, the choice of speech-sounds is to a certain extent accidental and different nations have chosen different combinations, more or less conventionalized, for the same sounds.

All onomatopoeic units belong to motivated signs. This is a kind of external motivation. As a result of common natural environment a particular phoneme in certain phonetic context is given distinctive characteristic features and great affective suggestiveness:

- short vowels in English usually suggest quick movements or sharp sounds:

e. g. kick, clop, gulp, bud, chuck;

- long close vowels /i:/, /u:/ in open syllable denote soft prolonged sound:

e.g.  coo, moo;

-      back open long vowels /a:/, /o:/ usually denote loud, sharp sound pro­duced mainly by tigers, dogs, etc.:

e. g. roar, snarl, gnarl, gnaw;

-      the word that contains a short vowel and ends in stopped consonant suggests a sound or movement abruptly stopped:

e. g. clap, kick;

-      sibilants in the final position usually denote the sound or action that is broken down into a mingled mess of hissing and rustling sounds:

e.g. hiss;

- sound combinations / skr /, / skw / in the initial position suggest loud, shrill, sharp cry:

e. g.            screak, screech, scream, schriek, squall, squawk, squeal;

- the sound / f / in final position usually denotes the process of breathing;

e. g. snuff, snuffle, puff;

- initial / fl / suggests the sound made by the wings of a bird;

e.g.             flop, flurr, flush, flutter.

In conclusion we can say that the sound of most words taken separately will have little or no aesthetic value. It is in combination with other words in the text that a word may acquire a desired phonetic effect.

Abstract: This article deals with onomatopoeia as a phenomenon and gives short theoretical outline of it. It also accounts for points of view of different scholars concerning this problem. The investigation is mainly focused on the discovery of the nature of onomatopoeic units and their functions in the present-day English. The interest to the chosen topic lies in the assumption that it has not been fully explored yet and evokes a great interest among scholars.

References

1. Bloomfleld L. Language / L. Bloomfield— London: Alien and Unwin, 1973. — 391 p.

2. Firth J. R. Tongues of Men / J. R. Firth — London: Oxford University Press, 1964. — 205 p.

3. Graham J. F. Onomatopoetics. Theory of language and literature / J. F. Graham — Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. — 316 p.

4. Hormann H. Psycholinguistics / H. Hormann — Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1971. — 267 p.

5. Humboldt W. Über die Kawisprache auf Jawa / W. Humboldt — Berlin: Wieslag, 1966. — 301 p.

6. Jespersen O. Language: Its nature, Development and origin / O. Jespersen — London: Allen and Unwin, 1962. — 407 p.

7. Piaget J. The Child's Conception of the World / J. Piaget — St. Albans: Paladin, 1973. — 118 p.

8. Plato Dialogues: Vol. IV. — London: Heinemann, 1966. — 498 p.

9. Saussure F. Course in general linguistics / F. Saussure — NY: McGraw-Hill, 1975. — 189 p.

10. World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary — Chicago, Illinois: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1965. — 2437 p.