著者

川北 直子

出版者

湘南工科大学

雑誌

湘南工科大学紀要 (ISSN:09192549)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.31, no.1, pp.241-249, 1997-03-25

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The vocabulary referring to sound, onomatopoeia, can be semantically analyzed into morphemic elements. The analysis of the onomatopoeia leads us to find that speakers in different language cultures take different meanings from each sound based on their aural images. This paper observes form-meaning correspondences in English onomatopoeia from the viewpoint of L2 learners, comparing them with those in Japanese, in order to figure out some differences of aural images perceived by English speakers and Japanese speakers. Cultural differences in aural images are basically caused by two backgrounds : 1) lack of formal distribution in either language and 2) linguistic experiences of speakers. The latter would be harder but important for L2 learners to find, such as subtle distributional differences in articulatory places between English plosives and those in Japanese, the meanings of [± voiced] in either language, and so on.