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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 Hinton et al., 1994, p. 5. The phonestheme within words play an important role
16 in classifying their meanings. There are three theories related to this term
proposed by three differe nt 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 simplified way as cited in Abelin 1999, p. 32-33.
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