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Onomatopoeia in Spoken and Written English : Corpus- and Usage-Based Analysis

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Onomatopoeia in Spoken and Written English : Corpus- and Usage-Based Analysis Title Onomatopoeia in Spoken and Written English : Corpus- and Usage-based Analysis Author(s) Sugahara, Takashi Citation 北海道大学. 博士(文学) 甲第9777号 Issue Date 2011-03-24 DOI 10.14943/doctoral.k9777 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/45138 Type theses (doctoral) File Information Dissertation by Takashi SUGAHARA.pdf Instructions for use Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers : HUSCAP Onomatopoeia in Spoken and Written English: Corpus- and Usage-based Analysis （英語の話し言葉・書き言葉におけるオノマトペ：コーパスと用法に基づく分析） A Dissertation Presented to The Graduate School of Letters Hokkaido University In Partial Satisfaction Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Linguistics by Takashi SUGAHARA 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures......................................................................................................................iv List of Tables........................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................v 1. Introduction......................................................................................................................1 1. 1 Aims and Scope….………………………….………………………,………………………..1 1. 2 Method and Data...………………………………………………….………………………...3 1. 3 The Structure of the Dissertation……………………………………………………..…....9 1. 4 Main Findings................................................................................................................9 2. Previous Studies.………………………………………………………………………………13 2. 1 Kloe (1977), Kaida et al. (1985) and Taylor (2006)……………………………………13 2. 2 Schourup (1993)……………………………………………………………………………..14 2. 3 Tamori and Schourup (1999)……………………………………………………………….15 2. 3. 1 Nouns or Verbs as General Grammatical Classes of English Onomatopoeia....17 2. 3. 2 Onomatopoeic Nouns as Verbs………………………………………………………21 2. 3. 3 Mimeticity.............................................................................................................25 2. 4 Inadequacies with Previous Studies………………………………………………………32 3. Onomatopoeic Words in the OED……………………………………………………………34 3. 1 Method of Making a List of Onomatopoeic Words………………………………………34 3. 2 Classification of Onomatopoeic Words……………………………………………………36 i 3. 3 The Number of Grammatical Classes of Onomatopoeic Words….……………………43 3. 4 Summary……………………………………………………………………………………...63 4. Onomatopoeic Words in Spoken English…………………………………………………...64 4. 1 Selection of the Most Frequent and Most Onomatopoeic Words in Spoken Corpus.....................................................64 4. 2 Detailed Descriptions of the Most Onomatopoeic Words……………………………....68 4. 2. 1 Pop……………………………………………………………………………………….70 4. 2. 2 Bash………………………………………………………………………………………77 4. 2. 3 Bounce……………………………………………………………………………………82 4. 2. 4 Tick………………………………………………………………………………………87 4. 2. 5 Clash..……………………………………………………………………………………92 4. 2. 6 Crash……………………………………………………………………………………..95 4. 2. 7 Dash……………………………………………………………………………………...98 4. 2. 8 Pat………………………………………………………………………………………101 4. 2. 9 Bump……………………………………………………………………………………105 4. 2. 10 Clatter……………………………………………………………………………...…108 4. 2. 11 Chatter………………………………………………………………………………..112 4. 2. 12 Crisp.…………………………………………………………………………………..114 4. 2. 13 Flap.…………………………………………………………………………………...117 4. 2. 14 Jabber ………………………………………………………………………………...119 4. 3 Summary…………………………………………………………………………………….121 Notes to Chapter 4............................................................................................................124 ii 5. Onomatopoeic Words in Written English…………………………………………………126 5. 1 Selection of the Most Frequent and Most Onomatopoeic Words in Written Corpus..................................................126 5. 2 Detailed Descriptions of the Most Onomatopoeic Words……………………………..129 5. 2. 1 Murmur………………………………………………………………………………...129 5. 2. 2 Flap……………………………………………………………………………………..136 5. 2. 3 Mutter.………………………………………………………………………………….144 5. 2. 4 Crash……………………………………………………………………………………149 5. 2. 5 Dash…………………………………………………………………………………….157 5. 2. 6 Clash……………………………………………………………………………………163 5. 2. 7 Fumble………………………………………………………………………………….169 5. 2. 8 Quiver…………………………………………………………………………………..173 5. 2. 9 Chatter…………………………………………………………………………………178 5. 2. 10 Lash…………………………………………………………………………………...183 5. 2. 11 Bump………………………………………………………………………………….186 5. 2. 12 Pop…………………………………………………………………………………….191 5. 2. 13 Puff…………………………………………………………………………………….195 5. 3 Summary…………………………………………………………………………………….199 6. Comparison between Spoken and Written Registers………………………………….204 7. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..206 References.........................................................................................................................210 Data Sources.....................................................................................................................211 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Pop and Crash as Labels in Comics..................................................................13 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: A Result of Measuring Mimeticity of Some Words..............................................31 Table 2: The List of Onomatopoeic Words in the OED......................................................36 Table 3: Grammatical Classes of Onomatopoeia in English.............................................37 Table 4: Combination Patterns of Grammatical Classes..................................................44 Table 5: 30 Most Frequent Onomatopoeic Words in LLC.................................................65 Table 6: Both Most Frequent and Most Onomatopoeic Words in LLC.............................67 Table 7: Most Frequent but Not Very Onomatopoeic Words in LLC................................68 Table 8: Characteristics of the Most Frequent and Most Onomatopoeic Words in Spoken Corpus....................................122 Table 9: 30 Most Frequent Onomatopoeic Words in LOB...............................................127 Table 10: Both Most Frequent and Most Onomatopoeic Words in LOB.........................128 Table 11: Most Frequent but Not Very Onomatopoeic Words in LOB............................129 Table 12: Characteristics of the Most Frequent and Most Onomatopoeic Words in Written Corpus..................................200 Table 13: Top Five Most Frequent and Most Onomatopoeic Words across the Two Registers.....................204 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It goes without saying that many people provided academic, physical, and mental help with the completion of the present thesis. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my dissertation advisor, Hidemitsu Takahashi, who has provided continual and devoted guidance in my academic life at Hokkaido University for the past ten years. He has been a patient and encouraging advisor, putting a tremendous amount of time and energy into reading and critiquing earlier versions of this dissertation. I am grateful to him for instilling in me a deep respect for the data, for sharing his wisdom, and for making me realize the attractiveness of studying languages and linguistics. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Masuhiro Nomura for his encouragement, guidance, and help as I worked on this dissertation. His invaluable comments and suggestions have profoundly influenced this work. Moreover, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend his exciting, inspiring, and enjoyable seminars, which led to a better understanding of cognitive and functional linguistics. His seminars also taught me careful and thoughtful reading of scientific works. I am also grateful to the staff and my fellow students in the course of Linguistics and Western Languages at Hokkaido University. My thanks especially go to Emi Yokomura, Keisuke Sanada, Nina Petrishceva, Yasuhiro Tsushima, Yayoi Miyashita, and Yuko Mizuno. I had many fruitful discussions and conversations on both linguistics and non-linguistics issues with each of them. v I am also grateful to my colleagues at Gifu National College of Technology for their kind support. I would like to thank Randy L. Evans and Jeremy Scott for helping me to write this thesis by suggesting stylistic improvements. Any remaining errors or confusions are mine alone. Last but not least, I want to thank my parents, Ken and Yoko Sugahara, and my sister Akiko. They allowed me to study as much as I like. vi Chapter 1. Introduction 1. 1 Aims and Scope Onomatopoeia is a special language expression because its phonological form appears to be more directly associated with its meaning. Onomatopoeic words can convey imaginative, animated, and picturesque meanings that ordinary (i.e. non-onomatopoeic) words do not indicate. Unfortunately, onomatopoeia (especially in English) is one of the most undeveloped fields at the present day (Tamori and Schourup 1999: 1). In fact, onomatopoeia has been regarded as a “peripheral, immature, unnecessary, or less-linguistic” (Schourup 1993: 52; my translation) phenomenon in Europe and the United States, and little attention has been given to it. This tendency can date back to the argument by Saussure that onomatopoeia is not an element of language systems, and the number of onomatopoeic words is very small (Saussure 1972: 102). It is interesting to note, however, that while some languages (like English) possess a relatively small number of onomatopoeic words, other languages possess a great deal of them. For instance, Japanese is said to have approximately 2000 to 4500
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