Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is a literary device where words are designed to imitate the sounds they represent, enhancing the auditory experience of language. Common examples include words like "buzz," "hiss," and "beep-beep," which mimic real-life noises. This technique is prevalent in various forms of writing, from poetry to comic books, enabling authors to convey vivid sensory details and emotions. While strict definitions focus on words that directly replicate sounds, broader interpretations may include words that evoke a sense of sound without exact imitation, such as "whisper" or "murmur." Onomatopoeia aids in communication by providing shortcuts for complex ideas, making descriptions more engaging and relatable. It can also serve cultural functions, like conveying humor or tension through recognizable sound effects, such as "ka-ching" for money. Overall, onomatopoeia enriches literary expression and helps create a more immersive reading experience.
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Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is a type of figurative language in which a word is meant to imitate a sound. Words like buzz, creak, and hiss are considered onomatopoeia because they are what they sound like. Other examples are closer imitations of actual sounds. Cock-a-doodle-do, beep-beep, and choo-choo, for example, copy the sounds made by a crowing rooster, a beeping car horn, and a revving train engine.
Overview
Onomatopoeia may not be a familiar term to those outside the world of academia, but the concept is actually quite common. Words that sound like the things they name are quite popular and can be invented by poets, authors—and even babies!—to make their ideas understood. Although sensory details of all kinds are important to strong, engaging writing, authors sometimes find it difficult to incorporate the sense of hearing into a written piece. The use of onomatopoeia widens the writer's options and allows readers to experience the text with their hearing, too. Like other figures of speech, onomatopoeia can increase comprehension and enjoyment by the reader.
In the strictest sense, onomatopoeia includes only words that sound like or imitate the sound of an object. For example, echoes of sound include the words splat, plop, and zip. Bird names that clearly imitate a bird's call, such as bob-white or chickadee, are also examples of a strict interpretation of the concept. A broader interpretation of onomatopoeia requires only a relationship between the sound and the word. For example, crisp, bellow, and trickle convey the sense of the sounds they represent, but they don't directly copy them.
By using sound words to describe actions, authors can give their writing an element of simplicity. To say that someone beeped at a friend or chortled at a joke is more direct than to explain how a person operated the car horn or expressed amusement. Some use of onomatopoeia provides shortcuts to cultural references, such as punctuating a joke with the sound of a beating drum (da-dum-dum) or describing a high-priced item or service with the ka-ching of a cash register.
The use of onomatopoeia as a literary device can be found in every type of writing, from comic books to poetry. POW! and BLAM! are standard expressions used in fighting scenes when comic-book superheroes arrive to save the day. The size and color of the typeface reinforces the message. But onomatopoeia can be subtle, too. In the poem “The Bells,” Edgar Allan Poe explores the various emotions associated with bells according to the occasions on which they’re rung. Poe effectively assigns different sounds to each emotion associated with a bell, ranging from merry, tinkling sleigh bells and lovely, chiming wedding bells to terrifying clangs of alarm bells. In each case, these noise words are used to clarify the author's meaning and charge it with emotion for the reader.
Bibliography
Bredin, Hugh. "Onomatopoeia as a Figure and a Linguistic Principle." Project MUSE. Project MUSE 2013. Web. 8 Jul. 2014.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/new‗literary‗history/v027/27.3bredin.html>
Gardner, Traci. "Onomatopoeia: A Figurative Language Minilesson." Read Write Think. International Reading Association/National Council of Teachers of English, 2014. Web. 8 Jul. 2014.
<http://www.readwritethink.org/resources/resource-print.html?id=909>
Gerard, Maureen. "Buzz! Whiz! Bang! Using Comic Books to Teach Onomatopoeia." Read Write Think. International Reading Association/National Council of Teachers of English, 2014. Web. 8 Jul. 2014.
<http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/buzz-whiz-bang-using-867.html>
Liberman, Anatoly. Word Origins and How We Know Them. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Bells.” Yale Book of American Verse. Ed. Thomas R. Lounsbury. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1912. Web. 9 Jul. 2014. <http://www.bartleby.com/102/88.html>