A study on Onomatopoeia used in Sponge Bob Square Pants

ABSTRACT

This study examines onomatopoeia constructed in Sponge Bob comics. Onomatopoeia is related to the origin of language, the natural sound sources. It is one of examples of iconic sign as an object named after the sound it produced. Onomatopoeia is used for several reasons. It is not only in written language but also in spoken language as well. People often use onomatopoeia to make an effect in writing. By using onomatopoeia, the sound words can be visually written and displayed. Today, the use of onomatopoeia is not only limited for writing device, but it is used for advertisement, news headline, comic strips and other children story. Therefore, the researcher intends to investigate onomatopoeic words used in Sponge Bob comic.

The objectives of this study are to find out onomatopoeic words constructed in Sponge Bob comics and then describe all onomatopoeic words based on their characteristics, their types, and their use. Furthermore, it is aimed to describe the lexical and the contextual meanings of onomatopoeic words in Sponge Bob Square Pants comics which are sometimes different from others.

This study is designed by using a descriptive qualitative method which has characteristics that the researcher is as the most important instrument. The data are collected from Sponge Bob Square Pants series. There are some chapters that are available to get, they are “Fry Cook Games”, “Welcome to the Chum Bucket”, “ Patty Hype”, and “Dying for Pie”.

The result of this study shows that there are several features of onomatopoeic words which are constructed in Sponge Bob comic. Furthermore the most dominant type of onomatopoeia is non-reduplicated onomatopoeia. This study also examines that not all onomatopoeic words in Sponge Bob Square Pants have similar meaning as the context. Sometimes, they are different from others.