Comparing to European languages, Korean and Japanese are referred to as languages that are abundant with onomatopoeia (a generic term for an imitation sound, an echoic word, and a mimetic word). In this vein, the onomatopoeia in both languages has muc...
Comparing to European languages, Korean and Japanese are referred to as languages that are abundant with onomatopoeia (a generic term for an imitation sound, an echoic word, and a mimetic word). In this vein, the onomatopoeia in both languages has much similarity as well as much difference in subtle nuance and the range of meaning according to morph. To date, preceding studies on onomatopoeia in Korean and Japanese have mainly centered on the comparative analysis of the phoneme and morph of vocabularies in dictionaries. In addition, preceding studies have focused on the difference of morph and expression of corresponding vocabularies when translating Japanese into Korean.
The aim of this study was to comparatively examine the similarity and difference of textual onomatopoeia in Korean and Japanese, and looked into the characteristics of the range of meaning. In order to compare onomatopoeia in both languages under the similar conditions, the investigator selected 10 translated world masterpiece novels in Korean and Japanese respectively (total 20 novels).
First, as for morphologic classification, onomatopoeia was classified into repetitive and non-repetitive types, and examined its frequency of appearance and characteristics. In a repetitive type, two syllable-type (AA type) is most frequent in Korean, but four syllable-type (ABAB type) in Japanese. As the samething in a non-repetitive type, two syllable words hold a majority in Korean, whereas four syllable words are the most in Japanese.
This syllabic difference is seemingly due to the fact that Korean can plainly imply a variety of symbolic meanings and nuances, for it can comprise all the three phonemes―an initial sound, a medial sound, and a final sound―in a syllable, whereas Japanese makes up a syllable with a sound, thus having much difficulty in expressing a symbolic meaning. The reason there are a variety of four syllable words in Japanese is that the four syllable words are most stable in a sense of vocabulary and frequently used as general vocabularies in everyday life.
One assumption for the most remarkable characteristic of onomatopoeia in Korean and Japanese is that complete repetitive-type, especially ABAB type, occupies a main part. However, its frequency of appearance is low, especially in Korean texts, different from expectation. It is seemingly because the ABAB type degrades its dignity and is inclined to childish images in an adult novel, and there are many derived words that consist of an onomatopoeic stem and a suffix.
Second, the onomatopoeia in a sentence is analytically classified into an independent type and a derived type. In this analysis, both languages reveal a contrary modality. Korean has more derived-type words than independent-type words by 1.5 times, whereas Japanese has more independent-type words than derived-type words by 1.6 times. This finding shows that there are many onomatopoeic words of which extent of making into a generalized vocabulary is intensive in Korean. In this vein, Korean onomatopoeic words mainly play the role of an adverb, but they are frequently changed into such vocabularies that function as a verb or an adjective. So there are many Korean onomatopoeic words that can be mistaken as general vocabularies. Japanese also generates a variety of types of derived words, but typical onomatopoeic words are an independent type.
Third, each onomatopoeic word was classified into a natural sound, a man's/animal's sound, a state, a sense, and a feeling to comparatively examine the range of meaning. Both languages have more mimetic words than imitation sounds (In the two languages, mimetic words are more than 90%). As for sentimental words that express emotion, Japanese is more than twice (12.27%) than Korean (5.86%). When examined only in the sentimental words, onomatopoeic words of negative emotion hold a majority in Japanese (59.2%), thus occupying much higher proportion than that of Korean (38.2%).
This is because Korean language develops a variety of emotional adjectives and therefore can express all the details, but Japanese language on the other hand modifies a variety of onomatopoeic words to classify the expression of meanings. And Japanese people traditionally have such tendency as fathoming out the other party's emotion in everyday human relations. In addition, because they are deeply concerned about nature and weather as an agricultural people and their culture attaches importance to natural beauty, sensible and emotional expressions and vocabularies have been seemingly developed too. Abundance of negative sense-related vocabularies can be attributed to the Japanese people's sensible tendency which have been traditionally touched with sorrow and sadness. In other words, languages (vocabularies) are closely related to society, culture, and racial characteristics.
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