Onomatopoeia and the Post-Industrial Soundscape

Many of the sounds of the modern soundscape are new to history and as such to the human ear. Anthropophony has expanded greatly thanks to electromechanical and digital technology (e.g. motorised traffic, AC systems). Still, languages maintain their ability to refer to new environmental sounds, for example through onomatopoeia such as beeping, buzzing or rattling.

To investigate how sound imitation has evolved alongside changes in the soundscape, the author examined six urban sound sources (sirens, cars, fans, etc.) and identified twelve onomatopoeic verbs used by speakers in the Finnish language corpus KORP v9 to imitate the sounds produced by these sources. The verbs were then analysed in terms of etymology and usage context to shed light on linguistic adaptation.

The study shows that languages generally prefer to recycle existing verbs through semantic shifts based on metaphorical extension and or aural-affective resemblance, rather than creating entirely new ones.