Onomatopoeia is often defined as words that mimic sounds. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), it refers to “the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named”. Standard English examples include buzz, meow, crash and splash. Onomatopoeia presents an interesting challenge to the assumption that the link between word form and meaning is completely arbitrary (de Saussure 1959), since the sounds of onomatopoeic words seem to resemble or imitate (at least part of) their interpretations. For example, there is something about the word buzz that resembles the sound made by a bee. Some scholars, therefore, argue that onomatopoeia poses a specific challenge for de Saussure’s notion of language arbitrariness.

Different terminologies are used to categorise words that fall within this description, such as mimetics, expressives, and ideophones (cf. Dingemanse and Akita 2016, 2019). In Japanese linguistics, the term mimetics is generally used rather than onomatopoeia. Another term that is often used is ideophone , which, according to Akita and Dingemanse (2019), supersedes what is generally covered as onomatopoeia and includes a wide range of words that denote imagery from different sensory domains such as motion, texture, states, and sounds. While such distinctions could be useful in a descriptive study of onomatopoeia, it is not within the scope of this study to make such a distinction and, as such, the term onomatopoeia will be used to cover them all. Note that the use of the term onomatopoeia in this study is for convenience and is not to be taken as having any particular commitment to the debate on terminology.

According to Hinton et al. (1995, 10–11), the functions of onomatopoeia include communication of mimicry, expression of internal states, expression of social relationship (diminutives, vocatives), salient characteristics of objects and activities (movement, shape, etc.), and grammatical and discourse indicators (intonation markers, distinction between parts of speech, expression of evaluation and affect towards objects).

While onomatopoeia can be used across different genres, especially in languages with ample onomatopoeia such as Japanese, it is particularly prevalent in literary work and other sensual discourse such as food writing, as demonstrated in examples (1) to (3):In (1), the onomatopoeic word tinkle is used to describe the sound of bells, and over sprinkle and twinkle to describe the manner in which a star flickers. It also contains tinkling and jingling, which again describe the sound of bells. Examples (2) and (3), like twinkle in (1), contain the use of phenomimes (gitaigo), where onomatopoeia is used to describe non-auditory-based senses. In (2) the onomatopoeic expression ooze out describes the way in which cream is about to come out onto the spoon, while hushes and shushes in (3) describe the manner in which snow silences the world. In (4), the gijogo (psychomime) wakuwaku describes the person’s excited emotional state.

It is generally accepted that onomatopoeia/mimetics evoke some kind of affect and feeling. For example, Kita argues that:

Japanese mimetics are a class of words that are not only referential but also evoke a vivid at-the-scene feeling […] In most cases, a mimetic evokes some complex combination of sensory inputs and affect, which can be described more accurately as impression than as sensation.

(Kita 1997, 381)

He further argues that “Japanese mimetics have a unique psychological effect. They evoke vivid ‘images’ of an experience, full of affect. This imagery is not only visual but can also be based on other perceptual modalities and physiological states” (Kita 1997, 386).

However, it is not entirely clear what onomatopoeia encodes or how it evokes such feelings. Nor is it clear how such feelings are related to what onomatopoeia encodes. This is not to deny what was observed in Kita’s (1997) analysis of mimetics. Nevertheless, further investigation into the meaning of onomatopoeia is necessary, in order to establish what is linguistically encoded and how such encoded meaning contributes to the communication of feelings.

Similarly, the highly expressive nature of the meaning of onomatopoeia has led scholars to consider that its meaning is somewhat vague and difficult to define. Furthermore, the meanings of onomatopoeic expressions are often ambiguous, and some scholars treat them as polysemous. For example, Inoue (2013) shows how an onomatopoeic expression gatagata could mean (i) a specific sound accompanying a specific aspect of an object/state, as illustrated in (5a); (ii) the way in which something is not regular or orderly, as described in (5b); (iii) an uneven and unsmooth texture, as illustrated in (5c) and (5d); or (iv) the state of something that is not running smoothly or successfully, as shown in (5e):

As illustrated in example (5), a single onomatopoeia can communicate a range of different meanings. As such, it is extremely difficult to pin down what onomatopoeia encodes. The question is whether onomatopoeia is in fact polysemous, as is often claimed, or whether multiple interpretations of onomatopoeia are a result of the inference process. The main aim of this book is to answer the question: What is the role of onomatopoeia in communication and how do we communicate with onomatopoeia?