Opening Remarks

[jess tauber]

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome folks to the KLANG-LIST discussion list, which is dedicated to the issues concerning ideophones and expressives in the languages of the world. Many thanks to the staff at LINGUIST for making this discussion possible, especially Takako "Tako" Matsui, who has been most patient help in ironing out the bugs. Thanks also to Helen Aristar-Dry, whom I had originally run the idea by during last summer's LSA Linguistic Institute. Other matters had prevented me from pursuing the list creation until now, and are the primary reason the list will remain unmoderated for the present.

The main reason for this list is to provide a convenient (and hopefully permanent) place to safely exchange ideas about ideophones and expressives (two relatively well known terms for what my in the end be the same concept). The prior experiment in such discussion was the now essentially defunct SoundSymbol list, the early postings of which, along with the moderator, appear to have dropped off the face of the earth. Now pumping out viruses (instead of pushing up daisies), that list had long ago ceased to have any real life. Hopefully that will not happen here.

This list will be more focussed around the linguistic issues rather than the more loosey-goosy or "feel-good" aspects of the phenomena in question. Ideophones are serious matters theoretically, even if they themselves are used in more playful contexts within language.

Let the discussion begin...

Jess Tauber
phonosemantics at earthlink.net