Professional Documents
Culture Documents
FALLACY
• If someone asked you to say
the most beautiful word or
phrase in English, what would
you choose? Would it be based
on the meaning of the word?
How it sounds? How it is
spelled?
What is PHONAESTHETIC ?
• Phonaesthetics is the study of
the euphony and cacophony of
words without regard for
semantics. Phonaesthetics
derives from two Greek word
parts that mean “voice-sound”
and “aesthetics.
• Euphony is used most
commonly to describe
the pleasing, agreeable
sound effect of poetry.
In general, vowel sounds
are more euphonious.
• Cacophony, meaning
harsh and discordant, is
the opposite of euphony.
Cacophony comes from
the Greek word parts
meaning “bad,” “evil,” and
“voice.”
Did you find my interpretation of
sound symbolism in (1) and (2)
convincing? Can phonetic detail be
matched up with a text in such a
way? Or perhaps the
interpretation reads too much into
a few simple vowels and
consonants? So were my views
mere hunch?
• The simple truth of the matter is that in
phonetics there is simply no such thing as a
‘dry’ consonant or a ‘flying’ vowel, and such
impressionistic labels have no place
whatsoever in the systematic study of speech
sounds.
Stephen Spender’s poem
‘Pylons’
oh eh aye oo eea uh