THE ONOMATOPOEIA BLENDS: MORPHONOLOGICAL AND GRAPHIC OVERLAPPING

Abstract

This paper analyses onomatopoeia blends with fusion of a phonological or graphical overlap of the SWs (e.g., bombastic). The phonological parallel of part or whole SWs increases the fortune of the blend. Producing a word that phonetically imitates the sound pronounces is known as onomatopoeia. Phonological properties and overlapping are highly relevant in coining onomatopoeia blends. Modern linguistic theories hold that relationships between sounds and meanings are subjective. However, growing evidence suggests that sounds and meanings can have systematic relationships, known as ‘sound symbolism’. Therefore, this study highlights the morphonological and graphic overlapping inspiration in the onomatopoeic blends found in journalism and advertising. This study aims to classify the types of morphonological and graphic overlapping onomatopoeia blends and explore its sound symbolism. This qualitative study used Mattiello’s (2013) and Hinton et al.’s (2006) frameworks to analyse 40 onomatopoeic blends according to morphonological and graphic overlapping and sound symbolism. Onomatopoeia is the interpretation and reproduction of a sound within the framework of a language. The findings mostly revealed phonological and graphic overlapping with imitative sound symbolism in onomatopoeia blends. The semantic effect is noticeable in an onomatopoeia because of the phonetic structure of words that identify typically imitative sounds. Phonological overlapping symbolically highlights the interrelatedness of the SW’s meanings in blending. The onomatopoeia blends effectively spread a message and attract attention to an idea or a product in advertising and journalism.Keywords: Blending, onomatopoeia, morphonological and graphic, overlapping, meanings