viii ABSTRACT
Fridayani, Septiana Citra. (2015). An Analysis on Sound Symbolism Found in Lullabies and Play Songs. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.
Since infancy, children are actually ready for a long-term learning process. The evidence is when children, including infants and toddlers, learn language. Their limited range of verbal knowledge encourages them to learn from their environment. However, since children are still in the concrete level of thinking, they can learn more easily concrete vocabulary whose sounds describe their meaning. Such vocabulary is also known as sound symbolism. Sound symbolism can be easily found in daily life, including in English children songs such as lullabies and play songs. Based on this background, this research was conducted to analyze the existence of sound symbolism in lullabies and play songs in English language.
This research was conducted to meet its purpose by formulating two research problems. They were to classify (a) sound symbolic words found in lullabies, and (b) sound symbolic words found in play songs.
In nature, this study was qualitative research, the method of which was content analysis. There were 15 lullabies and 45 play songs in English language selected from various children-content websites on the internet as the research subjects. The theories to answer the research problems were taken from Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala (1994), explaining that there are four categories of sound symbolism – corporeal, imitative, synesthetic, and conventional sound symbolism. The last category covered a big number of phonesthemic sounds and their meaning, so that the researcher provided three supporting theories.
The results showed that there were 15 sound symbolic words found in 15 lullabies consisting of 6 conventional sound symbolic words, 6 sound symbolic words of combined categories, and 3 imitative sound symbolic words. Meanwhile, there were 116 sound symbolic words found in 45 play songs consisting of 55 imitative sound symbolic words, 27 sounds symbolic words of combined categories, 22 conventional sound symbolic words, 10 corporeal sound symbolic words, and 2 synesthetic sound symbolic words.
ix ABSTRAK
Fridayani, Septiana Citra. (2015). An Analysis on Sound Symbolism Found in Lullabies and Play Songs. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Sejak lahir, anak-anak telah siap mengalami proses pembelajaran jangka waktu panjang. Buktinya ialah saat anak-anak, termasuk bayi dan balita, belajar bahasa. Keterbatasan lingkup pengetahuan yang mereka miliki secara verbal mendorong mereka untuk belajar dari lingkungan di sekitarnya. Namun, karena masih terbatas pada pemikiran akan hal-hal konkret, anak-anak akan lebih mudah belajar kosakata konkret yang bunyinya menggambarkan arti yang terkandung di dalamnya, atau sering juga dikenal sebagai sound symbolism. Sound symbolism dapat dengan mudah dijumpai dalam kehidupan sehari-hari, termasuk dalam lagu anak-anak dalam bahasa Inggris seperti lagu pengantar tidur dan lagu bermain anak-anak. Berdasarkan latar belakang tersebut, tujuan diadakannya penelitian ini yaitu untuk menganalisa keberadaan sound symbolism dalam lagu pengantar tidur dan lagu bermain anak-anak dalam bahasa Inggris.
Guna mencapai tujuan tersebut, disusunlah dua rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini, yakni untuk mengklasifikasikan (a) kata-kata yang mengandung sound symbolism yang muncul dalam lagu pengantar tidur anak-anak, dan (b) kata-kata yang mengandung sound symbolism yang muncul dalam lagu bermain anak-anak.
Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif yang menggunakan metode content analysis. Adapun subjek penelitian ini ialah 15 lagu pengantar tidur dan 45 lagu bermain anak-anak dalam bahasa Inggris yang didapat dari berbagai situs tentang anak-anak. Teori yang digunakan untuk menjawab kedua rumusan masalah tersebut ialah teori yang dikemukakan oleh Hinton, Nichols, dan Ohala (1994). Terdapat empat kategori sound symbolism berdasarkan teori tersebut, yaitu corporeal, imitative, synesthetic, dan conventional sound symbolism. Kategori terakhir memiliki cakupan phonesthemic sounds beserta maknanya yang cukup luas sehingga peneliti menyediakan tiga teori pendukung.
Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terdapat 15 kata yang mengandung sound symbolism dalam 15 lagu pengantar tidur anak-anak, yang terdiri dari 6 kata yang mengandung conventional sound symbolism, 6 kata yang mengandung sound symbolism dari kategori gabungan, dan 3 kata yang mengandung imitative sound symbolism. Sementara itu, terdapat 116 kata yang mengandung sound symbolism, dalam 45 lagu bermain anak-anak, yang terdiri dari 55 kata yang mengandung imitative sound symbolism, 27 kata yang mengandung sound symbolism dari kategori gabungan, 22 kata yang mengandung conventional sound symbolism, 10 kata yang mengandung corporeal sound symbolism, dan 2 kata yang mengandung synesthetic sound symbolism.
AN ANALYSIS ON SOUND SYMBOLISM
FOUND IN LULLABIES AND PLAY SONGS
A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By
Septiana Citra Fridayani Student Number: 091214016
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
i
AN ANALYSIS ON SOUND SYMBOLISM
FOUND IN LULLABIES AND PLAY SONGS
A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By
Septiana Citra Fridayani Student Number: 091214016
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
iv
From the beginning, He knew I had only little power.
But, He strengthens me so that I can do all things
through Him. And He teaches me, in quietness and
trust, I find my power coming from my Fortress.
v
this thesis is especially dedicated to
the Trinity
and
vi
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY
I honestly declare that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.
Yogyakarta, 12 August 2015
The Writer
vii
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama : Septiana Citra Fridayani Nomor Mahasiswa : 091214016
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
AN ANALYSIS ON SOUND SYMBOLISM
FOUND IN LULLABIES AND PLAY SONGS
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal: 12 Agustus 2015
Yang menyatakan
viii ABSTRACT
Fridayani, Septiana Citra. (2015). An Analysis on Sound Symbolism Found in Lullabies and Play Songs. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.
Since infancy, children are actually ready for a long-term learning process. The evidence is when children, including infants and toddlers, learn language. Their limited range of verbal knowledge encourages them to learn from their environment. However, since children are still in the concrete level of thinking, they can learn more easily concrete vocabulary whose sounds describe their meaning. Such vocabulary is also known as sound symbolism. Sound symbolism can be easily found in daily life, including in English children songs such as lullabies and play songs. Based on this background, this research was conducted to analyze the existence of sound symbolism in lullabies and play songs in English language.
This research was conducted to meet its purpose by formulating two research problems. They were to classify (a) sound symbolic words found in lullabies, and (b) sound symbolic words found in play songs.
In nature, this study was qualitative research, the method of which was content analysis. There were 15 lullabies and 45 play songs in English language selected from various children-content websites on the internet as the research subjects. The theories to answer the research problems were taken from Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala (1994), explaining that there are four categories of sound symbolism – corporeal, imitative, synesthetic, and conventional sound symbolism. The last category covered a big number of phonesthemic sounds and their meaning, so that the researcher provided three supporting theories.
The results showed that there were 15 sound symbolic words found in 15 lullabies consisting of 6 conventional sound symbolic words, 6 sound symbolic words of combined categories, and 3 imitative sound symbolic words. Meanwhile, there were 116 sound symbolic words found in 45 play songs consisting of 55 imitative sound symbolic words, 27 sounds symbolic words of combined categories, 22 conventional sound symbolic words, 10 corporeal sound symbolic words, and 2 synesthetic sound symbolic words.
ix ABSTRAK
Fridayani, Septiana Citra. (2015). An Analysis on Sound Symbolism Found in Lullabies and Play Songs. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Sejak lahir, anak-anak telah siap mengalami proses pembelajaran jangka waktu panjang. Buktinya ialah saat anak-anak, termasuk bayi dan balita, belajar bahasa. Keterbatasan lingkup pengetahuan yang mereka miliki secara verbal mendorong mereka untuk belajar dari lingkungan di sekitarnya. Namun, karena masih terbatas pada pemikiran akan hal-hal konkret, anak-anak akan lebih mudah belajar kosakata konkret yang bunyinya menggambarkan arti yang terkandung di dalamnya, atau sering juga dikenal sebagai sound symbolism. Sound symbolism dapat dengan mudah dijumpai dalam kehidupan sehari-hari, termasuk dalam lagu anak-anak dalam bahasa Inggris seperti lagu pengantar tidur dan lagu bermain anak-anak. Berdasarkan latar belakang tersebut, tujuan diadakannya penelitian ini yaitu untuk menganalisa keberadaan sound symbolism dalam lagu pengantar tidur dan lagu bermain anak-anak dalam bahasa Inggris.
Guna mencapai tujuan tersebut, disusunlah dua rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini, yakni untuk mengklasifikasikan (a) kata-kata yang mengandung sound symbolism yang muncul dalam lagu pengantar tidur anak-anak, dan (b) kata-kata yang mengandung sound symbolism yang muncul dalam lagu bermain anak-anak.
Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif yang menggunakan metode content analysis. Adapun subjek penelitian ini ialah 15 lagu pengantar tidur dan 45 lagu bermain anak-anak dalam bahasa Inggris yang didapat dari berbagai situs tentang anak-anak. Teori yang digunakan untuk menjawab kedua rumusan masalah tersebut ialah teori yang dikemukakan oleh Hinton, Nichols, dan Ohala (1994). Terdapat empat kategori sound symbolism berdasarkan teori tersebut, yaitu corporeal, imitative, synesthetic, dan conventional sound symbolism. Kategori terakhir memiliki cakupan phonesthemic sounds beserta maknanya yang cukup luas sehingga peneliti menyediakan tiga teori pendukung.
Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terdapat 15 kata yang mengandung sound symbolism dalam 15 lagu pengantar tidur anak-anak, yang terdiri dari 6 kata yang mengandung conventional sound symbolism, 6 kata yang mengandung sound symbolism dari kategori gabungan, dan 3 kata yang mengandung imitative sound symbolism. Sementara itu, terdapat 116 kata yang mengandung sound symbolism, dalam 45 lagu bermain anak-anak, yang terdiri dari 55 kata yang mengandung imitative sound symbolism, 27 kata yang mengandung sound symbolism dari kategori gabungan, 22 kata yang mengandung conventional sound symbolism, 10 kata yang mengandung corporeal sound symbolism, dan 2 kata yang mengandung synesthetic sound symbolism.
x
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My very first and biggest gratitude goes to the one and only Master of my
life, Jesus Christ. His presence allows me to face the ups and downs happening during writing this thesis. He makes me realize that finishing this thesis is not
merely to gain my bachelor degree, but it is much more important as a life stage of
forming me to be a more responsible and committed person.
My endless thanks I would like to express to my merciful thesis advisor,
Carla Sih Prabandari, S.Pd., M.Hum., for patiently supporting me finishing my thesis. I would keep remembering her understanding and encouragement given to
me, both during my lectures and thesis guidance.
Wholeheartedly, I would also give my special thanks to my academic
advisor, Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd. Her cheerfulness and tireless spirit have inspired me to be passionate and to strive hard for giving the best in all I do.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to all lecturers of English
Language Education Study Program (ELESP), especially Dr. E. Sunarto, M.Hum., F. Chosa Kastuhandani, S.Pd., M.Hum., and Drs. Barli Bram, M.Ed., Ph.D., for sowing me with invaluable seeds of knowledge. Also, I would like to thank ELESP secretariat who have really helped me in dealing with
administration matters and staffs of Sanata Dharma Library for their contribution
in providing me precious information. Next, my thanks is to all custodians of
xi
Profusely, I would like to give my heartfelt gratitude to my one and only
real treasure in this world, my family consisting of Bapak Rudi, Ibu Joeli, Mas Handoyo, and Lidia. I would keep remembering their unconditional support, love and sincere prayers in encouraging me completing my final requirement for
achieving this bachelor degree. In addition, I would give my sincere thanks to
Budhe Ery for her prayers and positive encouragement during the hard times of struggling for my thesis.
I would like to give warm thanks to my classmates as well as my
colleagues in Itikiwir Secret Agents whose members are Cinta, Makrin, Nucik, Mimi, Richil, and Alek. I am really grateful since God has sent me such angels called best friends for this meaningful-six-year friendship. I would as well thank
all members of Maskil cell community and all companions of PBI batch 2009, especially Tintin, Angel, Titus, Wanda, Devi, and Danik as my boon companions for supporting me finishing my undergraduate study soon. Also,
everyone directly or indirectly having given contributions to me in accomplishing
this thesis deserves my sincere thanks.
At last, I admit that there are still many weaknesses in my thesis.
Therefore, I really expect this thesis may increase opportunities for future
researchers to conduct more in-depth research focusing on sound symbolism.
xii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TITLE PAGE ... i
APPROVAL PAGES ... ii
DEDICATION PAGE ... iv
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ... vi
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ... vii
ABSTRACT ... viii
ABSTRAK ... ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... x
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... xii
LIST OF TABLES ... xiv
LIST OF FIGURES ... xv
LIST OF APPENDICES ... xvi
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. Research Background ... 1
B. Research Problems ... 4
C. Research Objectives ... 4
D. Problem Limitation ... 4
E. Research Benefits ... 5
F. Definition of Terms ... 7
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 9
A. Review of Related Studies ... 9
B. Theoretical Description ... 12
1. English Children Songs ... 12
a. Lullabies ... 13
b. Play Songs ... 13
2. Sound Symbolism ... 14
a. Corporeal Sound Symbolism ... 14
xiii
c. Synesthetic Sound Symbolism ... 15
d. Conventional Sound Symbolism ... 15
C. Theoretical Framework ... 16
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 20
A. Research Method ... 20
B. Research Setting ... 21
C. Research Subjects ... 22
D. Research Instruments and Data Gathering Technique ... 23
E. Data Analysis Technique ... 24
F. Research Procedure ... 27
CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ... 30
A. Sound Symbolism Found in Lullabies ... 30
1. Imitative Sound Symbolism ... 32
2. Synesthetic Sound Symbolism ... 35
3. Conventional Sound Symbolism ... 37
B. Sound Symbolism Found in Play Songs ... 42
1. Corporeal Sound Symbolism ... 44
2. Imitative Sound Symbolism ... 46
3. Synesthetic Sound Symbolism ... 49
4. Conventional Sound Symbolism ... 50
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ... 54
A. Conclusions ... 54
B. Recommendations ... 55
REFERENCES ... 57
xiv
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 2.1 Initial Phonesthemic Sounds ... 18
Table 2.2 Middle Phonesthemic Sounds ... 19
Table 2.3 Final Phonesthemic Sounds ... 19
Table 3.1 Lyrics of Lullabies/Play Songs ... 24
Table 3.2 Classification of Sound Symbolism Categories in Lullabies/Play Songs ... 25
Table 3.3 List of Sound Symbolic Words in Lullabies/Play Songs ... 27
Table 4.1 Percentage of Sound Symbolism Categories in Lullabies ... 31
Table 4.2 Imitative Sound Symbolic Words in Lullabies ... 33
Table 4.3 Conventional Sound Symbolic Words in Lullabies ... 38
Table 4.4 Phonesthemic Sounds and Their Meaning of Conventional Sound Symbolic Words in Lullabies ... 39
Table 4.5 Phonesthemic Sounds and Their Meaning of Sound Symbolic Words of Combined Categories in Lullabies ... 41
Table 4.6 Percentage of Sound Symbolism Categories in Play Songs ... 43
Table 4.7 Functions of the Word boo in Play Songs ... 46
Table 4.8 Phonesthemic Sounds and Their Meaning of Conventional Sound Symbolic Words in Play Songs ... 51
xv
LIST OF FIGURES
Page Figure 4.1 Classification of Sound Symbolic Words in Lullabies ... 32 Figure 4.2 Corporeal Sound Symbolic Words Depicting the Internal
States of the Speaker ... 45 Figure 4.3 Topics Represented by Imitative Sound Symbolic Words ... 47 Figure 4.4 Topics Represented by Sound Symbolic Words of
xvi
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
Appendix A Tables of Phonesthemes ... 60
Appendix B Lyrics of Lullabies ... 63
Appendix C Lyrics of Play Songs ... 70
Appendix D Classification of Sound Symbolism in Lullabies ... 94
Appendix E Classification of Sound Symbolism in Play Songs ... 97
Appendix F List of Sound Symbolic Words in Lullabies ... 112
1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter comprises six major sections along with the detailed
information of each. First, the research background section explains the
foundation of conducting this research. Second, the research problems section
contains the research questions formulated by the researcher. Third, the problem
limitation section functions to lead this research to be focused and specific.
Fourth, the research objectives section offers the expected outcomes in response
to the formulated problems. Fifth, the research benefits section tells about the
target parties who may obtain positive contributions from this research. The last,
the definition of terms section includes the concise elaboration of the research key
words or phrases, which is to avoid misinterpretation and bring the readers to the
in-line concepts as the researcher’s.
A. Research Background
As entering a new life phase, “the newborn infant is ready for the lifelong career of learning,” according to Piaget (as cited in Pikunas, 1976, p. 150). This
fact points out that a stage of learning for one does not start when entering one’s
school age, but even since one was a newly-born infant. One of the evidences that
infants have actively learnt since their early ages is when learning to babble. The
stage of babbling is really important for infants because it is an early step of
language spoken in the environment” (Fogel, 1984, p. 210). The act of imitation
done by infants, in fact, determines their “acquisition of oral speech” (McCarthy,
1971, p. 106). In short, infants will absorb the sounds of language they heard,
process them in their brain, and finally let them come out in the form of oral
speech in their older ages.
That learning process shows that language plays a significant role in children’s life. McCarthy articulates that children’s mentality is strongly affected
by language (1971, p. 104). She adds that the influences of language over children’s mentality cover three aspects, two of which are the children’s need of
delivering thinking or feelings to other people orally and their eligibility for “academic achievement” (McCarthy, 1971, p. 104). Therefore, having good
language acquisition is really helpful for children because it can bring them to
brighter future.
A simple way that can be done to encourage children to have good
language acquisition is by teaching them vocabulary closely related to their life.
Since children, including babies and toddlers, are still in the level of concrete
thinking, it is easier for them to learn vocabulary whose sound describes its
meaning. The concept of describing things or meanings based on the sounds they
produce as happening to children is called sound symbolism. Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala (1994) argue that “sound symbolism is the direct linkage between sound
and meaning” (p. 1). It means that a sound is in-line with its meaning or its
intended object. An example of sound symbolism which is familiar to children is
naming an animal which adults recognize as a cow, so they are inclined to take its
sound to name it. The word moo in that example is actually classified as an imitative sound symbolic word – one of four sound symbolism categories, which
is also known as onomatopoeia. There are a huge number of words containing
sound symbolism which can be easily found in daily life, including in songs.
Lullabies and play songs, as song types having close relation to children, also
contain sound symbolism. It means sound symbolism and children songs can be a
perfect combination for improving their language acquisition, particularly their
vocabulary. Therefore, the purpose of conducting this research is to analyze the
existence of sound symbolism in English children songs, i.e. lullabies and play
songs.
Further, this research was inspired by two previous studies conducted by
scholars dealing with linguistics and language. The first study was conducted by
Pischedda (2011) entitled “Empirical Research on the Translation of Sound
Symbolism from English to Italian: The Case of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” His study focused on the problems found in translating sound symbolic words or
phrases from English to Italian version found in a children book. Meanwhile, the
focus of this research is to analyze sound symbolic words in different children
literature, namely lullabies and play songs. The second study was a dissertation
entitled “Sound Symbolism: A Possible Piece in the Puzzle of Word Learning.” The writer of the dissertation, Parault (2002), put her study’s concern to the role
of sound symbolism to assist adults in learning unfamiliar words in isolation and
deepened the analysis of sound symbolic words which might contribute positive
impacts to children, not adults. In addition, this research was a library study,
which did not require any experiment directly with certain participants.
B. Research Problems
There are two research problems based on the research background.
Firstly, what categories of sound symbolism are found in lullabies? Secondly,
what categories of sound symbolism are found in play songs?
C. Research Objectives
Referring to the aforementioned research problems presented in the
research problems section, this research is conducted to achieve two objectives.
Firstly, it is to classify sound symbolic words found in lullabies. Secondly, it is to
classify sound symbolic words found in play songs.
D. Problem Limitation
To attain an obvious and purposeful focus, the researcher puts several
limitations on this research. Firstly, this research is addressed to investigate sound
symbolism in English language due to its ability to enhance children’s language
acquisition, particularly in terms of vocabulary enrichment. Secondly, the
researcher focuses on sound symbolism used in children songs in English
language, not other literature forms. In this case, the researcher does not put any
the subject of this research. Thirdly, despite open-topic songs, the types of the
songs are limited to lullabies and play songs only. It is because of the fact that
those types of the songs function as a medium for caregiving work or childcare.
E. Research Benefits
The findings of this research are expected to offer new insights to some
parties, which are briefly elaborated as follows.
1. To Language Studies
Even though plenty of studies discuss sound symbolism, there are still
limited numbers of research focusing on that topic connected with children’s
literature. Thus, the researcher expects the findings of this research can be a
reference or a basis for future researchers to assist in developing the sound
symbolism study.
2. To Teaching Studies
Teachers of English language, especially for young learners are expected
to introduce English language to their students not in a complicated way, but in a
fun way. It is to avoid the nightmare of learning English caused by inappropriate
methods employed in teaching young learners. Hence, teaching English through
songs is really effective and fun, which is supported by Shen (2009, p. 94) that “songs are comprehensible, enjoyable, authentic and full of language we need in
real life”. Furthermore, a lot of children songs contain sound symbolism referring
to particular things or ideas. Thus, the researcher hopes that the findings of this
especially in children songs, which can be a medium to introduce the young
learners to new vocabularies.
3. To Children’s Parents or Caregivers
The researcher realizes the fact that children, especially infants, have
restricted vocabulary. Definitely, there is a process of improving their verbal
knowledge. Responding to this fact, the researcher observes that sound symbolism
appearing in children songs, particularly lullabies and play songs, can be one of solutions for enriching children’s vocabulary. Therefore, through this research, the
researcher hopes that children’s parents or caregivers could be more aware of
sound symbolism found in children songs, which functions both as a medium of
caregiving as well as language learning.
4. To Readers
The existence of children, including infants and toddlers, as a part of the
society cannot be overlooked. They play a crucial role in shaping up what has
been done by their former generation in the future. Therefore, it is intensely
important for the readers, who are considered as the older generation, to prepare
children in many aspects, including their academic competence such as language
proficiency. The researcher hopes by reading this thesis, the readers may notice
that lullabies and play songs, especially the ones containing sound symbolism, can
boost children’s language proficiency. Consequently, the use of songs in teaching
language to children might increase in public, which raises many possibilities of
F. Definition of Terms
To avoid vague notions in perceiving the key terms of this research, the
definitions of particular terms used along the discussion of this thesis are briefly
explained as follows.
1. Sound Symbolism
Inspired by the previous research whose main topic was the same as this
research has, i.e. sound symbolism, the researcher decided to adopt the same
definition of sound symbolism. It constitutes “branch of linguistics which studies the relationship between the sound of an utterance and its meaning” (Hinton, 1994
as cited in Pischedda, 2011, p. 8). It means that sound symbolism refers to sounds
describing their intended concrete and abstract things as well as their meanings.
There are four categories of sound symbolism applied for the word classification
of this research according to Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala (1994); they are
corporeal sound symbolism, imitative sound symbolism, synesthetic sound
symbolism, and conventional sound symbolism. The analysis of sound symbolism
will be conducted by sorting the collected data into those categories.
2. Lullabies
Songs can be a medium of children learning which possesses various
functions. Lullabies, a song type closely related to children, are defined by Trehub
and Trainor (1998, p. 49) as songs sung by children’s parents or caregivers for
calming or encouraging them to sleep. In addition, Cass-Beggs and Cass-Beggs
can be indicated as lullabies if they have audibly soft melody whose contents are
about encouraging sleep and simple.
3. Play Songs
Unlike lullabies whose function is to soothe children, play songs are
created to encourage them to be more cheerful and active. Based on Suliteanu,
1979), the roles of play songs are “to amuse the child when he is awake by lifting
him up in the arms, playing with his fingers and palms, tickling him, moving his hands and feet, teaching basic movements” (as cited in Trehub & Trainor, 1998, p.
53). Trehub and Trainor (1998, p. 53) also articulate that the prominent features of
play songs are their capability to invite children showing “lively and exuberant
performances.” It means play songs are related to songs whose characteristics are
9
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
The purpose of this chapter is essentially to spotlight the theories used as
the bases of conducting this research. It is divided into three major sections,
namely the review of related studies, the theoretical description, and the
theoretical framework section. The review of related studies was presented to give
a brief understanding related to previous relevant sound symbolism studies and to
see what aspects make this research distinct from them. The theoretical
description provides a review of related studies and a number of closely relevant
theories to this current research, namely sound symbolism and children songs
covering lullabies and play songs. Afterwards, the theoretical framework
embraces the synthesis of all theories in the theoretical description to respond to
the research problems.
A. Review of Related Studies
In real life, the emergence of sound symbolism inevitably exists within humans‟ communication, both in oral and written forms. That fact invites the
interests of linguists and scholars from various backgrounds in understanding such
phenomenon happening worldwide. One of many topics discussed mostly in
connection with sound symbolism is the application of using sound symbolism by
Pischedda (2011) conducted a research related to sound symbolism entitled “Empirical Research on the Translation of Sound Symbolism from
English to Italian: The case of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” In his research, he concerned the use of sound symbolism in applied linguistics, namely translation in
a children book which was presented like a combination between comic and
novel. As an Italian, he investigated how an English children book which was
translated into Italian version affected the Italian readers‟ understanding towards
its content, particularly sound symbolic words or phrases found in it. Therefore,
there were two methods employed in his research. First, he collected sound
symbolic words or phrases in both versions. Second, he created a survey
containing a list of sound symbolic words or phrases found in English versions
and asked their meanings or intended objects to the respondents. The result of his
study was that Italian readers were more familiar with sounds in the form of
interjection than lexicalized ones. Furthermore, referring to his research result, his
respondents as the representatives of Italian readers have fitted with English sound
symbolism version. It reflected that there was a fundamental problem in
translating sound symbolic words or phrases into Italian, i.e. linguistic matter. The researcher, influenced by the Pischedda‟s findings, also conducted a
research concerning the use of sound symbolic words in children literature. Unlike
his research, this research lifted up English children songs, lullabies and play
songs in particular, as the research subjects. Further, the main focus in this
research was to discover the categories of sound symbolism articulated by Hinton,
Another study having much to contribute to this research is an empirical
research of sound symbolism conducted by Susan Janeen Parault in 2002. Her research, entitled “Sound Symbolism: A Possible Piece in the Puzzle of Word
Learning”, scrutinized to what extent the capability of sound symbolism could assist adult participants in vocabulary learning. To measure how far sound symbolic words might affect the adult participants‟ comprehension of word
knowledge, Parault conducted five studies consisting of two major purposes. The
first purpose employing four studies was for finding the effects of sound
symbolism within words presented in isolation, whereas another purpose
employing one study was for the effects of sound symbolism within words
embedded in context. She provided a set of unfamiliar English words presented in
the guess phase and the recognition phase to test the participants. Her research indicated positive results. The first four studies showed the usefulness of sound
symbolism within words to assist the participants to choose the right definition of
the tested words presented in isolation. Similarly, the fifth study suggested the
benefit of using context in sound symbolic words for vocabulary learning.
Even though this research was also inspired by Parault‟s research yet there
were a set of features making it different from the former research conducted by
Parault (2002). First, this research concentrated on children literature, namely
lullabies and play songs. Unlike Parault‟s research concerning adult participants,
this research took literature related to children as its subject. Besides, this research
was based on library study, which means it did not involve humans as its direct
of lullabies and play songs taken from the internet, and did not need to conduct any experiments as Parault‟s did.
B. Theoretical Description
The central issues exposed in this section are theories of sound symbolism
and English children songs, specifically lullabies and play songs. The section of
sound symbolism theory expounds its four categories which will be employed in
data analysis. Then, the section of English children songs clarifies the
characteristics and functions of lullabies and play songs.
1. English Children Songs
According to Kennedy (1994), the description of song is „the natural
human means of musical self-expression‟ (as cited in Trehub & Trainor, 1998, p.
44). In other words, songs serve as media for humans to express whatever they
feel or think about on melody. Since there are a lot of humans‟ expressions, the
functions of songs also vary, based on their contexts. In their article, Trehub and
Trainor (1998) utter that there are various contexts encouraging humans to sing songs, namely “child care, ceremonial events, religious gatherings, and private,
self-care activities” (p. 45). In addition, they mention the examples of songs
functioning as child care are lullabies and play songs. The characteristics of
a. Lullabies
Lullabies are songs whose function is to calm baby or encourage them to
sleep, as stated by Trehub and Trainor (1998, p. 49). Moreover, Pantaleoni (1985)
and Zuckerkandl (1973) articulated that lullabies also can “enhance the relationship between adult performer and child audience” (as cited in Trehub &
Trainor, 1998, p. 49). It means that lullabies played a significant role in children‟s
life. A children song might be considered as a lullaby when it has the
characteristics of lullabies. They are „simple, soothing, rhythmic, and repetitive‟
(Cass-Beggs & Cass-Beggs, 1969, as cited in Lavoie, 2010, p. 2).
b. Play Songs
Unlike lullabies, play songs own a different purpose, which is „to amuse
the child when he is awake by lifting him up in the arms, playing with his fingers
and palms, tickling him, moving his hands and feet, teaching basic body
movements‟, according to Suliteanu (1979, as cited in Trehub & Trainor, 1998, p.
53). In other words, play songs invite children to actively participate in singing as
well as to entertain them. The features of play songs can be easily known by the “lively and exuberant performances” within the songs, “sound play of various
types including rhyme, alliteration, and repetition” (Trehub & Trainor, 1998, p.
53). Still based on Trehub and Trainor, play songs sometimes also contain “alphabet and counting routines”. In brief, play songs are a type of songs whose
2. Sound Symbolism
The definition of sound symbolism proposed by Hinton et al. (1994) has
been cited many times by scholars worldwide as the basis of their research.
Similarly, this research is based on the same definition, which says that “sound symbolism is the direct linkage between sound and meaning” (p. 1). Sound
symbolism is classified into four categories, namely corporeal sound symbolism,
imitative sound symbolism, synesthetic sound symbolism, and conventional sound
symbolism (Hinton et al., 1994). The elaboration of each category is ordered based on the “degree of direct linkage between sound and meaning” as follows.
a. Corporeal sound symbolism
This sound symbolism category serves to represent the condition of the speaker‟s emotions or body (Hinton et al., 1994, p. 2). The features of this
category are the involvement of “involuntary, „symptomatic‟ sounds such as
coughing or hiccupping, and ranges through expressive intonation, expressive
voice quality, and interjections”, according to Hinton et al. (1994, p. 2). The
examples of sound symbolic words in this category are Aaugh! and Achoo!, which can be found in comics or similar literature (Hinton et al., 1994, p. 2).
b. Imitative sound symbolism
Imitative sound symbolism is related to “onomatopoeic words or phrases representing environmental sounds” (Hinton et al., 1994, p. 3). Similar to its
name, the function of this category is basically to imitate various sounds in the
environment such as sounds made by animals and other inanimate objects.
c. Synesthetic sound symbolism
The function of this sound symbolism category is to represent “the
acoustic symbolization of non-acoustics phenomena” (Hinton et al., 1994, p. 4). In
other words, it is used to describe the “sound” of phenomena which do not
produce any sound. The characteristics of synesthetic sound symbolism are the existence of “certain vowels, consonants, and suprasegmentals” that“consistently
represent visual, tactile, or proprioceptive properties of objects, such as size or shape” (Hinton et al., 1994, p. 4). The examples of this category are the
phenomena of diminution and augmentation. Diminution describes the small size
of things, animals, parts of the body, or other objects. The word tiny is a good example for explaining the definition of diminutive. The vowel i in the word tiny is a high front vowel which describes something small. On the other hand,
augmentation is related to the big size of objects. One of the examples of
augmentation is the word hog, meaning a pig which can grow large. Within the word hog, there is a vowel ɑ ː which is a back vowel describing things in big size.
d. Conventional sound symbolism
Conventional sound symbolism is “the analogical association of certain
phonemes and clusters with certain meanings”, according to Hinton et al. (1994,
p. 5). The example of conventional sound symbolic words is the words
containing gl- as their phonesthemes. The term of phonestheme itself means “submorphemic meaning-carrying entities”, as stated by Bolinger (1965, as cited
in classifying their meanings. There are three theories related to this term
proposed by three different scholars; they are Bolinger‟s , Bloomfield‟s, and
Rhodes‟. Those theories are simplified in the form of tables presented by Abelin
(1999, pp. 32-33) which can be seen in Appendix A.
C. Theoretical Framework
To answer the two research problems proposed in the previous chapter, the
researcher takes two steps in outline. Firstly, before conducting classification of
sound symbolism in English children songs, the researcher sorts the collected
songs into two types, namely lullabies and play songs. To determine whether a
song belongs to lullaby or play song, the researcher employs the theories cited in
Trehub and Trainor (1998).
The second step, to answer the two research problems which are basically
formulated to classify sound symbolic words found in lullabies and play songs,
the researcher uses the theory of sound symbolism proposed by Hinton, Nichols,
and Ohala (1994). Based on that theory, there are four sound symbolism
categories; they are corporeal, imitative, synesthetic, and conventional sound
symbolism.
Since the scope of the last mentioned category – conventional sound
symbolism – was broad, the researcher provides supporting theories to cover it.
Besides the theory suggested by Hinton et al. (1994), the other theories used in
this category are Bolinger‟s, Bloomfield‟s, and Rhodes‟, which are presented in a
The following tables are basically to show the phonesthemic sounds along
with their contents synthesized from the three theories of conventional sound
symbolism. The purpose of dividing the phonesthemic sounds into three tables is
simply to make them more understandable. However, the researcher allows any
possibility if there will be phonesthemic sounds existing in lullabies or play songs,
but not stated in those three tables, as long as they refer to particular content.
Table 2.1 is presented phonesthemic sounds whose positions are at the
beginning of words. There are 10 phonesthemic sounds having more than one
Table 2.1 Initial Phonesthemic Sounds*
No. Sound Content
1. b- dull impact / “anchored” (path) / abrupt, loud onset (path) 2. bl- loud, air-induced sound (path)
3. dʒ- up-and-down-movement
4. dr- liquid (classifier, path) / simple (path) 5. ɛr intense
6. fl- phenomena of movement (in air or moving light) / 2 dimensional (classifier) / liquid (path)
7. gl- phenomena of light (unmoving light) 8. i diminutive
9. itr intermittent 10. j-/tʃ - short (path) 11. kl- abrupt onset (path)
12. kr- bent / noisy impact(path) / abrupt onset 13. m- liquid (path)
14. n- 3 dimensional (classifier) 15. ow steady
16. p- “anchored” (path) / abrupt onset (path) 17. pl- abrupt onset (path)
18. r- irregular onset
19. ʃ /sk- 2 dimensional, flexible (classifier) 20. sk- swift movement
21. skr- grating impact or sound 22. sl- smoothly wet / liquid (path)
23. sn- breath-noise / quick separation or movement / creep 24. sp- cylindrical (classifier)
25. sp-t rush of liquid
26. st- arrest / 1 dimensional (classifier) 27. st-nt piece of performance
28. str- 1 dimensional, flexible (classifier) 29. str-p line having breadth
30. θ- low pitch, slow onset 31. tʃ - irregular onset
32. tr- liquid (classifier) / simple (path) 33. tw- twisting motion
34. w- back and forth (path) / poorly resolvable onset (path) 35. y loud, vocal tract noise (path)
36. z- poorly resolvable onset (path)
Table 2.2 depicts the phonesthemes which are located in the middle of
words. There were only three sounds based on the three theories‟ synthesis. Each
sound has only one content.
Table 2.2 Middle Phonesthemic Sounds*
No. Sound Content
1. -ɛt(ə) particled movement 2. i diminutive
3. -im(ə) small light or noise
*Taken from Bolinger’sand Bloomfield’s theories
Table 2.3 shows a number of phonesthemic sounds which are located at
the end of words. Each sound of 13 phonesthemes refers to one content only,
based on the synthesized theories of phonesthemes.
Table 2.3 Final Phonesthemic Sounds
No. Sound Content
1. -ʌm clumsy 2. -amble locomotion 3. -ash hit, fragments 4. -awns quick movement 5. -ɛ violent movement 6. -ɛə big light or noise 7. i diminutive
8. -im(ə) small light or noise 9. -lessness indifference 10. -ump awkward, heavy 11. -ust surface formation
12. -usty old
13. -utter discontinuity
20 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter exposes the method applied in this research to analyze
research data and obtain the answers of research problems. The content of this
chapter is put into six sections. Those are the research method, the research
setting, the research subjects, the research instrument and data gathering
technique, the data analysis technique, and the research procedure. The research
method pertains to the appointed research type. The research setting explains the
place and time taken during conducting the research. The research subjects
describe the subject’s nature along with the method of sampling. The research
instrument and data gathering technique discusses the apt instrument for
collecting the data. The data analysis technique expounds the manner of analyzing
the data result. The last section, the research procedure, is about the stages in this
research.
A. Research Method
This research aimed to classify sound symbolic words found in lullabies
and play songs. The method employed in this research was content analysis. As
Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2007) convey that “content analysis can be
undertaken with any written material, from documents to interview transcriptions,
was chosen as a method to analyze the data in the form of songs, particularly song
lyrics, which are considered as written material.
Furthermore, this research concerns phenomena closely connected with
humans in recorded sources, namely the existence of sound symbolism in lullabies
and play songs. This statement is in-line with Patton’s notion (1985 as cited in
Merriam, 2009) related to the purpose of qualitative research, which one of its
types is content analysis; it is to:
understand situations in their uniqueness as a part of a particular context and the interactions there. This understanding is an end in itself, so that it is not attempting to predict what may happen in the future necessarily, but to understand the nature of that setting (p. 14).
It means that this research investigates lullabies and play songs as the linguistic
phenomena which are familiar in the society, in order to have an intact
comprehension. Hence, it was proportional to the purpose of conducting this
research, in short, to analyze sound symbolic words in lullabies and play songs by
examining each verse of song lyrics and interpreting the data result.
B. Research Setting
The researcher started conducting the research from 2014 to 2015. Since it
was content analysis research, the researcher did not deal with human participants,
but documents, namely a number of song lyrics along with their audio version or
MP3. The research was started by collecting all of the data, then writing the
C. Research Subjects
The subjects of this research were English children songs containing sound
symbolism both in 15 lullabies and 45 play songs. The difference quantity
between lullabies and play songs is by virtue of their cultural background. The
two types of songs which are in English were evidently influenced by the culture
existing in English-speaking countries, specifically American in this case. To
illustrate, American parents coming from middle class tend to educate their
children to be independent and self-reliant (Rogoff, 2003, p. 195). One of the
ways to educate them is by providing them their own room to sleep even since
they were still babies, based on Morelli, Rogoff, Oppenheim, and Goldsmith
(1992, as cited in Rogoff, 2003, p. 196). It means parents and their children have
no much interaction during the night time, specifically before going to sleep
because they sleep apart. That is the reason why the quantity of lullabies found is
not as many as play songs.
Further, the researcher took into account any topic as the research subjects
as long as the songs contained sound symbolism. All of the data were taken from
various children-content websites on the internet, such as www.dreamenglish.com and www.singwithourkids.com and a video-specialized website named www.youtube.com, whose song lyrics were already provided in all of those data sources. In this case, the data taken from www.youtube.com were converted into MP3 versions. The reason of providing songs in audio versions (MP3) only and
excluding audio-visual versions (video) was to stimulate the readers to predict
represented without any displayed picture. In brief, the collected data consisted of
two forms – audio (MP3) and written forms (song lyrics). The aim of collecting
both forms is to obtain the conformity between sound symbolic words found in
written lyrics and their audio version.
D. Research Instruments and Data Gathering Technique
Since this research applied qualitative research, specifically content
analysis as its method, there were two instruments employed here. First, the
researcher played an important role as a human instrument which is a
characteristic of qualitative research, as stated by Merriam that “the researcher is
the primary instrument for data collection and data analysis” (2009, p. 15). Thus,
the researcher played the major role in interpreting the result of collected data and
analyzed data. The second instrument was two observational tables used to
present the data collected by the researcher.
There were two steps in gathering all data for this research in outline. First,
the researcher searched English children songs along with their lyrics provided by
various educational websites; in other words, it was the process of transcribing
songs. The researcher then sorted them into two types, namely lullabies and play
songs, as stated by Trehub and Trainor (1998). However, the researcher did not
limit the topic coverage of songs as long as they met one or more categories of
sound symbolism; its purpose was for enriching the discussion of this research
Table 3.1 Lyrics of Lullabies / Play Songs
LULLABIES / PLAY SONGS
No. Title Lyric
1.
2.
3.
Table 3.1 is used to record the whole lyrics of songs. Each lyric was
obtained by copying them from their original sources. Besides, the researcher also
searched their MP3 or audio version. Since a number of song lyrics showed in the
sources were not the same as their audio version, the researcher made some
revision or transcribed them manually to result the fixed and final lyrics. In other
words, the researcher did some cross-checking process to ensure the accuracy
between the songs and their lyrics. Then, when there were words indicating sound
symbolism found in the lyrics, the researcher marked the words in bold type to be
more visible for the readers.
E. Data Analysis Technique
To analyze the collected data, there were several techniques implemented.
After the data gathering process, the researcher determined which sound
symbolism category fitting the words marked in bold type by referring to the
theory of sound symbolism stated by Hinton et al. (1994). This step was regarded
as the classification technique of this research. To conduct this classification, the
title, the songs line where the words are located in, the sound symbolic word, the
sound symbolic categories filled by putting a check, and the frequency of sound
symbolism occurrences. Table 3.2 presents all of the aforementioned contents.
Table 3.2 Classification of Sound Symbolism Categories in Lullabies / Play Songs
LULLABIES / PLAY SONGS
No. Title Line
Sound Symbolic
Word (Base Form)
Sound Symbolism
Category
Frequency
Co
rpo
re
a
l
Imita
tiv
e
Sy
nes
thet
ic
Co
nv
ent
io
na
l
1.
2.
3.
Table 3.2 provides the song lines column because it also played an
important role in determining sound symbolism category. Besides, the context
brought in the songs line might influence the decision whether a word was a
sound symbolic word or not. An example depicting that context participated in
determining whether a word belongs to a sound symbolic word or not is illustrated
Excerpt 3.1
One day that goat felt frisk and fine Ate three red shirts, right off the line The man he grabbed him by the back And tied him to a railroad track
Rhodes (1994, p. 276) in his article mentions that track, trip, drive, and drag are the examples of words possessing onset tr-/dr- whose purpose is to describe simple paths or a set of actions (verb). In spite of this, the word track in the last line of Excerpt 3.1 functions differently, not as described by Rhodes’
theory. It is preceded by the words a and railroad forming a specific context. As a result, it does not refer to a particular action (verb), but “the pair of long metal
bars fixed on the ground at an equal distance from each other, along which trains travel” (“Track”). In brief, the word track in Excerpt 3.1 constitutes a special term
for describing a way on which trains run (noun).
Even though this research was conducted as a qualitative research with
descriptive data, which means its data were collected in the words forms (Bogdan
& Biklen, 2003, p. 5), the researcher provided a column for the frequency record
of sound symbolic occurrences. Numbers put in the column were not the primary
research data, but aimed to be supporting data.
The next step of data analysis was to explain the function of each sound
symbolic word found in lullabies and play songs. It was important to provide a list
of sound symbolic words along with their functions because it could avoid a
complicated discussion in the following chapter. Table 3.3 was created as a
Table 3.3 List of Sound Symbolic Words in Lullabies / Play Songs
LULLABIES / PLAY SONGS
No.
Word /Phonetic Transcription/
Number of Occurrence
(Song No.)
Sound Symbolism
Category
Function
1. 2. 3.
Table 3.3 contains more detailed information related to the sound
symbolic words obtained previously. The researcher determined to use this table to bring systematic explanation of each sound symbolic word’s function in
representing something. Every sound symbolic word was presented along with its
phonetic transcription in US version taken from Cambridge Dictionary (online version), and several words which were not available in the dictionary were
transcribe manually. Each function of the entire words was derived from several
dictionaries; those were the Third Edition of Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (electronic version), Oxford Dictionaries (online version), Merriam-Webster (online version), and Dictionary.com (online version).
F. Research Procedure
To keep this research on the track, the researcher conducted it by
1. Visiting various websites
Before collecting the data, the researcher looked for websites containing
English children songs through a search engine named Google. After that, the researcher ascertained that those websites provided lullabies and play songs.
2. Transcribing English children songs
To determine whether or not English children songs could be taken as the
research subject, the researcher listened to the songs and transcribed them.
Besides, the researcher downloaded its audio form as well.
3. Sorting the selected songs
After selecting songs, the researcher put the gathered songs into two types
of song, namely lullabies and play songs.
4. Analyzing the sound symbolic words
The researcher identified sound symbolic words found in each song and
classified them into categories based on sound symbolism theories, namely
corporeal, imitative, synesthetic, and conventional sound symbolism.
5. Defining the function of each sound symbolic word
To make the readers understand precisely and systematically the origin of
the sound symbolic words categorization, the researcher provided the function of
each word. It aimed to show what is represented by each word.
6. Drawing conclusions
After finishing the previous stages, the researcher drew a conclusion from
the research findings and rechecked them whether the findings were able to
7. Writing the thesis
The last stage was to write all stages done by the researcher during
30
CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the result of this research is presented along with its
in-depth discussion, responding to the research purpose stated in the previous
chapter, namely to analyze sound symbolism found in lullabies and play songs.
On that account, there are two sections containing the analysis of sound symbolic
words found in lullabies and play songs.
A. Sound Symbolism Found in Lullabies
Referring to the four categories of sound symbolism theory stated by
Hinton et al. (1994), the researcher discovered three categories lullabies, namely
imitative sound symbolism, synesthetic sound symbolism, and conventional sound
symbolism, while there was no word containing corporeal sound symbolism in
this kind of English children song. The total of sound symbolic words was fifteen
words. The percentage of those words was 20% imitative sound symbolic words,
40% conventional sound symbolic words, and 40% sound symbolic words of
combined categories consisting of 26.67% imitative-conventional sound symbolic
words and 13.33% synesthetic sound symbolic words. Those percentages can be
Table 4.1 Percentage of Sound Symbolism Categories in Lullabies
No. Sound Symbolism
Category
Percentage
(%) Example
1. Corporeal 0 - 2. Imitative 20 twinkle 3. Synesthetic 0 - 4. Conventional 40 fly 5. Combination
- Imitative & Conventional - Synesthetic & Conventional
26.67 13.33
flutter wee
In detail, the fifteen sound symbolic words consisted of three imitative
sound symbolic words, six conventional sound symbolic words, and six sound
symbolic words of combined categories. The last mentioned sound symbolic
words were derived from four imitative-conventional sound symbolic words and
two synesthetic-conventional sound symbolic words. To make this detailed
information perfectly understandable, the obtained numbers are illustrated in
Figure 4.1 Classification of Sound Symbolic Words in Lullabies
To obtain more in-depth analyses of the general findings, the researcher
put this section into three subsections, i.e. imitative sound symbolism, synesthetic
sound symbolism, and conventional sound symbolism, each of which contains
several examples and their explanation.
1. Imitative Sound Symbolism
According to Hinton et al. (1994, p. 3), a word or phrase can be put in this
category if it contains onomatopoeia which means it represents sounds or noises
found in the environment. In this research, there were seven words indicating this
sound symbolism category; they were three words of imitative sound symbolism
only and four words of imitate-conventional sound symbolism. 0
Imitative Synesthetic
Conventional 0
0 3
6
