Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word
phonaesthesia. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
phonaesthesia, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
phonaesthesia in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
phonaesthesia you have here. The definition of the word
phonaesthesia will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
phonaesthesia, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Apparently coined by British linguist John Rupert Firth.
Noun
phonaesthesia (uncountable)
- (linguistics) Any correspondence between the sound of a word and its meaning; examples include onomatopoeia and the use of phonaesthemes.
1984, Laurence Picken, Musica Asiatica, volume 4, page 214:For this latter term, phonaesthesia is doubtless at work, since kring is also ‘the sound of a small bell’.
2010, Katie Wales, “Northern English in Writing”, in Raymond Hickey, editor, Varieties of English in Writing: The written word as linguistic evidence, page 74:In contrast, writers of bucolic dialogues, like George Meriton, for instance, and lively song-writers like Robert Anderson in Cumberland, seem drawn to expressive lexis, marked by sound patterns of reduplication, alliteration and phonaesthesia.
2011, Prue Goodwin, The Literate Classroom, page 41:Phonaesthesia refers to the vaguer phenomenon whereby families of words with shared phonemes sometimes evoke related meanings in a not-quite-echoic manner.
2011, Jean Boase-Beier, A Critical Introduction to Translation Studies, page 11:Those in (1.15) illustrate a weaker type of iconicity, generally known as phonaesthesia: the consonant cluster ‘fl’ seems to suggest quick movement, but it is not a direct representation of movement, or speed.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Related terms