sound symbolism is the
linguistic concept that the
meaning of a
word derives from how it is spoken.
conventional theory would put forth that the
pronunciation of a word is
arbitrary, and doesn't substancially affect the meaning of a word.
one
argument against
sound symbolism might be: 'if the meaning of a word derived from its pronunciation, there shouldn't be such radically different sounds in various
languages for the same word:
english run,
spanish correr,
swedish löpa this is true, and although they all mean
to run, sound symbolism states that they all have different
connotations in the minds of their speakers due to their different pronunciations. maybe one run carries a slight
feeling of
haste, or of
endurance, or of
necessity.
multiple words following similar
consonant patterns can be placed into a
semantic group where a meaning seems to unify all words. for example, words that pretain to
roundness*:
bagel,
bale,
ball,
balloon,
bangle,
bead,
bell,
belly,
berry,
bladder,
blimp,
blip,
blister,
bloat,
blob,
blotch,
bobbin,
boulder,
bowl,
bulb,
bulge,
button. not only do all of these words start with a b, but the
majority of them contain a l either directly following the b, or somewhere in the word. lists like these can help solve many a puzzling linguistic
query,
aho!
though sound symbolism can aid in the study of word
mutations and meanings, sound symbolism's most
practical application would appear to be in the use of creating stronger
essays,
speeches, etc. the average
writer might arbitrarily choose from a list of
synonyms of a word to
communicate an
idea, though through sound symbolism, one would know the slight
connotative spin on each word, and choose more wisely. i think that
in theory, if words were chosen precisely enough, one could word a simple
little kid's
story in a way such that a feeling of..say, revelation, might be left in the
reader's head.
just a thought.
for more
reading, check < http://www.conknet.com/~mmagnus/ >
~
example taken from above
website.