E305/505
Korean Language and Culture
Sound Symbolism
Onomatopoeic
expressions in Korean
1. Can you guess what the
following Korean expressions express?
Find an English equivalent.
2. The following are some
bird names in Korean. Can you guess what they are?
- kkamagwi 까마귀
- puôngi 부엉이
- ppôkkugi
뻐꾸기
- jjaekjjaegi 짹짹이
3. According to C. W. Kim
(1988: 556-557), the following words in Korean express the sound or the movements
of flowing water:
- downpour of rain
or water
- braking or slash
of ocean waves
- trickling of sweat
or tears
- outpouring of tears
or blood or overflowing of water
- drizzling rain
or ceaseless flowing of water in stream
- sweating freely
- dribbling of tears
or spit
- dropping of tears
or blood
- murmuring or purling
of a gentle brook
|
Can you identify which word
expresses which way of flowing water?
- jul-jul (줄줄): 5
- jol-jol (졸졸): 9
- jwal-jwal (좔좔): 1
- jjil-jjil (찔찔): 7
- chô-chôl (철철): 4
- chalssak-chalssak
or chôlssôk-chôlssôk (찰싹찰싹/철썩철썩): 2
- chullông-chullôngl
(출렁출렁):
- ppôl-ppôl (뻘뻘): 6
- ttuk-ttuk (뚝뚝): 8
4. The following expressions
are the expressions of laughing. Can you match the Korean expressions with the
descriptions of various kinds of laughing or smiling?
| haehae |
|
laughter of a monster
(insecure/sinister)
|
| hoho |
|
a child's laughter
(open/cheerful)
|
| hôhô |
|
female laughter (shy)
|
| hihi |
|
male laughter (deep/authoritative)
|
| haha |
|
a baby's smile
|
See more Korean
sound symbolic expressions.
Discussion
Questions on sound symbolism
Hinton, Nichols
& Ohala (1994) and Rhodes (1994):
- It is generally accepted
that the relation between sound and meaning is arbitrary. What does it mean?
What could be the opposite view?
Do you agree with the view of arbitrariness?
What is your argument for or against the arbitrariness view?
- How does sound symbolism
Hinton, Nichols & Ohala (1994) discuss fair with the above general assumption
about the relation between sound and meaning? [Note: Rhodes (1994) has different
classification of the relation between sound and meaning.]
- Hinton, Nichols &
Ohala (1994) discuss four types of sound symbolism. What are they, what are
the characteristics of each type, and what are the examples of them?
While Hinton, Nichols & Ohala (1994) give a nice typology of sound symbolism,
Rhodes provides actual examples of different kinds of sound symbolism. Get
yourself familiar with these examples.
What auditory image can you sense of the following?
| gl-: |
glitter,
glisten, glow, glimmer, glide |
| dr-:
|
drip,
drain, drop, drizzle |
| fl-:
|
flow,
flush, flood, fluid |
| -zzle:
|
drizzle,
sizzle, fizzle |
| sp-:
|
split,
spit, spat, spark, splash |
- Hinton, Nichols &
Ohala discuss other kinds of symbolism that may involve non-arbitrary relation
between sound and meaning. What are they?
- Do Hinton, Nichols &
Ohala (1994) find any kind of language universals in sound-symbolic form?
If any, what are those universals attributed to?
- What are the most typical
sound-symbolic forms?
- One type of the typical
sound-symbolic forms is the association of certain sound classes with certain
semantic fields. An example of this type is the use of vowels with high second
formants (e.g. /i/) for small size and the use of vowels with low second formants
(e.g. notably /u/, but non-high front vowels in general such as /�/, /a/, /�/,
etc. for large size. An interesting area that may illustrate this is deictic
system, that is, a system of demonstrative expressions such as �his� and �hat� where
the contrast is made in terms of proximity and distance. Specifically, /i/
vowel is associated with the proximity (small distance) and the other vowels
for the distance (large distance). Think about the deictic system of languages
you know of and check if this generalization can hold for your language.