Analysis of Sound Effect Classification in English Comics and their Persian Translations

Subject Areas : All areas of language and translation

Fatemeh Badiozaman ¹ , Masoud Sharififar ² , Mina Zandrahimi ³ , Ebrahim Samani ⁴

1 - Shahid Bahonar University
2 - Department of Foreign Languages, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran [e-mail]
3 - department of foreign languages, faculty of literature and humanities, Shahid Bahonar university of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
4 - Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Tourism, Higher Education Complex of Bam

Received: 2023-02-23 Accepted : 2023-03-20 Published : 2024-04-25

Keywords: Comic books, Onomatopoeia, Sound effects, Translators, Sound symbolism,

Abstract :

Comic books have received attention as multimedia texts profiting from words and pictures combined in order to narrate a specific story. As one of the features of comic books, sound effects such as onomatopoeic expressions contribute to the readability of these books. This descriptive study aimed at examining the effectiveness of different proposed classifications in accounting for all the cases of sound effects in English comic books and their Persian translations. In this case study, the focus was on seventeen English comics and their Persian translations. This study classified the cases of sound effects according to three classifications including Attridge's lexical and non-lexical onomatopoeia, Kokko’s onomatopoeic and non-onomatopoeic sound effects, and, Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala's sound symbolism. According to the results, Attridges’ and Kokko’s classification categorized all of the cases of sound effects in the sample (100 percent); however, the classification by Hinton, Nichola, and Ohala didn’t account for all the cases of sound effects. Moreover, the findings also indicated that the sound effects were not duly reflected in the Persian translation of comic books. The findings of this study can give sufficient insight to comic book writers and translators regarding the most common categories of sound effects.

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