Research Instruments and Data Gathering Technique
25 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 in Excerpt 3.1.
26
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 research instrument to meet the aforementioned purpose.