2. Theory of Meaning
It is important to consider in the extra linguistic field, which is comic. To understand the meanings onomatopoeic expressions‟ meaning in the comic strips,
the readers have to understand the context in the comic strips. Looking comics as an integral language on the one hand, and as a partnership of words and pictures
on the other. This is very interesting that interpretation of the readers are also needed,
that is why in translating the onomatopoeic expression must be careful in order to deliver the imagination and the content between the pictures and the story.
In categorizing the onomatopoeia, the writer provides some theory of type of the Onomatopoeia or Symbolic Meaning. According David Crystal 1987,
there are several attempts have been made to find specific correspondences between sounds and meaning. For example, in several languages an association
has been suggested between close vowels especially [i] and smallness, and an open vowels especially [a] and largeness, as in English teeny, little, bit, slim. On
the other hand, there are several counter-examples to this tendency, example big vs small.
In translating the onomatopoeic expression in the comic, the writer must be able in understanding the meaning of the onomatopoeic expression in the
Source Text. There are certain types of meaning. Contextual Meaning and Lexical Meaning will help the writer in analyzing this research.
a. Lexical Meaning
Lexical meaning refers to the dictionary definition. It is the meaning of the term in common usage. The first step in translating each vocabulary is by looking
at the dictionaries. If the vocabularies are found, it can be called as lexical. Onomatopoeic words have many synonyms, such as ba-dooomm and baaa-dooow
which have meaning the sound of explosion. They are often multi meaning as well such as poink which has some meanings as the bouncing sound or the sound of
small metallic hit.
There are several ways in lexical meaning. The first is Homonyms. As
what Fromkin said in her book, An Introduction to Language 2000, “knowing a
word means knowing both its sounds and its meaning” means that sound and meaning have relation. Homonyms or homophones in this context focus in the
pronunciation. When two or more words have the same pronunciations but different in meanings, they will be called as homonyms. Word tale and tail are the
examples of it. They are pronounced as [te ɪ l], but in meaning, they are different.
According to Oxford dictionary, tale means a story created using the imagination, especially one that is full of action and adventure. Meanwhile, tail means the part
that sticks out and can be moved at the back of the body of a bird, an animal or a fish.
Homonyms are different from homographs. Homographs are words that
spelt the same but different meaning. Word tear in tear in the eye and a tear in her blouse
is spelt the same, but has different meaning. There is also polysemy, which happens when a word has multiple meanings that are related conceptually
or historically. Bear is polysemus, because it has several meanings „to tolerate‟,
„to carry‟, and „to support‟. There are also synonyms meaning words have the same meaning but
different spelling or sound different. One of the examples is the words annoy and bother
which mean to make somebody angry. Different from synonyms, antonyms are the opposite in meaning. Big vs small is the example. Red, blue,
black, white are hyponyms. It is a set of words whose relationship is general to
more specific. Three more lexical meanings are metonyms, retronyms, and proper names.
A metonym is a word used in place of another word or expression to convey the same meaning. Retronyms are expression that would once have been redundant.
Proper names mean a language‟s shortcuts. Crown which refers to monarchy is the example of metonyms. Silent movie is a retronym because in the past all
movies were silent, whereas nowadays all of movies are now not silent, even though there are some movies which are silent. The last example is White House
which is to name official residence of US President. White house is example of proper names.
b. Contextual Meaning
If lexical meaning focuses on the lexical features of the word, in this contextual meaning focuses on the text. Contextual meaning is the meaning of
word in particular situations and certainly in different kind of context. It might be a reason, justification, assumption, explanation, or other function of the context.
The context of sound may often provide enough clues to comprehension.
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