2018-05-03 Pronunciation: onomatopoeia

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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RP English = “Received Pronunciation” - an accent that wealthy British people learn(ed) in boarding schools, not really native to any particular area (sometimes called “BBC English” or “Queen’s English”, though neither BBC nor the Queen has spoken it since the 1950s)
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onomatopoeia = when a word sounds like what it means (You pop a baloon.)
knock
bang
crash
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There is also sound symbolism, where certain sounds consistently represent things like size.
A big dog says “woof”, a small dog says “arf” or “yip”. (We sometimes refer to small dogs as “yippy dogs”.)
“cock-a-doodle-doo” is the sound roosters “make” in English.
- We hear and say our own language’s sounds in other sounds.
Sometimes the verb is the same as the sound: Ducks quack when they say “quack.”
Other times it’s different: Dogs bark when they say “woof.”
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“mood” sounds like “mooed”, but “wood” doesn’t sound like “wooed”
(This is also the difference between “look” and the name “Luke”, or between “hood” and “who’d”.)
The difference in these vowels is similar to the difference between “sheep” and “ship”.
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Look, Luke, they ship cheap sheep on a cheap sheep ship!
Where can I ship cheap chips?