34 category found in lullabies, followed by twinkle which appeared twice out of
fifteen lullabies. Both of words, flutter and twinkle, along with swing and tap were classified in this category due to its rhythm of movement or sounds.
Excerpt 4.1
I love the sound of the music they make
When little raindrops are tapping away
Like a piano on my window pane Playing a lullaby
Excerpt 4.1 shows a verse of a lullaby entitled Playing a Lullaby. The verse described that a lullaby was noted for its softness or gentleness. The word
tap , the basis form of tapping, represented the act of hitting something gently, and
often repeatedly, especially making short sharp noises see Table 4.2. It means tap
constituted a repeated movement resulting rhythmical sounds. The word tap itself could be function as a noun or a verb. However, it functioned as a verb in
this case, which means it highlighted more on the act producing its sounds than the sounds itself.
Excerpt 4.2
When the blazing sun is gone When he nothing shines upon
Then you show your little light
Twinkle , twinkle, all the night
Twinkle , twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
35 In Excerpt 4.2, a lullaby is closely related to gentle light as shown in the
phrase your little light. This relation was also supported by the previous line. It was described in the verse that the sun shining bright light had gone and it was
replaced by the star whose light was not as bright as the sun. The sound symbolic word twinkle in the song entitled Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star was to describe a
phenomenon of a star to shine repeatedly strongly then weakly, as if flashing on and off very quickly see Table 4.2. It demonstrated the fact that twinkle counted
as a repeated movement connected to sight, similar to the word tap, but it did not cause any sound of its movement.
2. Synesthetic Sound Symbolism
If imitative sound symbolism talks more about environmental sounds or noises, synesthetic sound symbolism emphasizes
“acoustic symbolization of non- acoustic phenomena” Hinton et al., 1994, p. 4. A word can be considered as a
synesthetic sound symbolic word if it there is a representation of visual, tactile, or proprioceptive object quality depicted by particular vowels, consonants, or
suprasegmentals consistently Hinton et al., 1994, p. 4. In this case, Trehub and Trainor 1998 utter that
“the lullaby in Western societies, privileges certain sonorous patterns such as humming, syllables without signification,
onomatopoeia, the repetition of syllables, and the diminutives of words ” as cited
in Bargiel, 2002. Diminutives as one of lullabies features are, in fact, perfect examples of synesthetic sound symbolic words. In this research, unfortunately
36 there were only two words found containing synesthetic sound symbolism,
specifically in diminutive forms. The two words were tip and wee.
Excerpt 4.3
I. L.O.V.E. Y.O.U. Youre all of my dreams coming true
From your cute little nose
To the tip of your toes
I. L.O.V.E. Y.O.U.
The song entitled I. L.O.V.E. Y.O.U. in Excerpt 4.3 tells a story about a mother singing a lullaby to her baby whose content is about praising the baby. She
expressed her love and grateful feeling to be gifted such a lovely baby through the song. The story behind the song demonstrated that one of the characteristics of
lullabies is to facilitate a close connection of emotion between a mother and her baby Lavoie, 2010: 40. Therefore, to make such a close mother-and-her-baby
connection, the mother expresses her strong feeling to her baby within the song lyric Trehub Trainor, 1998: 51. As presented in Excerpt 4.3, th
e mother‟s love feeling is expressed by adoring
the cuteness of her baby‟s physical features. Since the baby had small physical features, the mother used diminutives for describing
them, such as tip in to the tip of your toes. The word tip belonged to synesthetic sound symbolic word for, based on the context, it represented the small pointed or
rounded extremity see Appendix F. Furthermore, the sound [ ɪ] in the word tip
was a high front vowel representing diminutive forms or small objects.
37
Excerpt 4.4
From the high rooftops, down to the sea No one‟s as dear, as baby to me
Wee little fingers, eyes wide and bright
Now sound asleep, until morning light
The case occurring in Excerpt 4.4 is similar to Excerpt 4.3. The song title of Excerpt 4.4 is Rock a Bye Baby whose content is almost the same as Excerpt
4.3 has. It told the mother‟s aim of soothing and lulling her baby by expressing
her admiration to him through a harmonic note. Her admiration was depicted in her phrases describing the cuteness of her bonny baby, i.e. wee little fingers, and
eyes wide and bright . Again, a form of diminutive was used in describing the
baby‟s small physical features, namely the word wee. The phonetic transcription of the word wee is wi
ː, which the sound [i] within it plays a role as a high front vowel representing a diminutive form or small object. The word wee itself
actually functions to represent a very small size or little amount see Appendix F.
3. Conventional Sound Symbolism
Based on the research findings on lullabies, conventional sound symbolism emerged most frequently than the other two sound symbolism
categories. This category reached 40 or six out of fifteen words for conventional sound symbolic only. It did not count the conventional sound symbolic words
belonging to other categories too, which attained exactly the same percentage as the words indicating conventional sound symbolism only see Table 4.1. As
Hinton et al. 1994, p. 5 stated, words can be considered as conventional sound
