Языки стран Дальнего Востока, Юго-Восточной Азии и Западной Африки

30 Языки Стран Дальнего Востока, Юго-Восточной Азии и Западной Африки | LESEWA-XIII tempting to interpret such words as “sensory” or “sensorial” words. What I imply is that onomatopoeic words are used to describe the way one feels when performing an action or merely witnessing it as a hearer or viewer. Although the underlying mechanism of onomatopoeic words’ effectiveness has not been fully studied yet, they are said to be effective thanks to their ability to arouse emotional response by affecting the human sensorium. Another intriguing application of onomatopoeia as conveying extra- verbal image-rich meanings is kuchishōga. Kuchishōga Kuchishōga ( 口唱歌 ) is a word, which structurally suggests ‘oral singing’ (the first character indicates ‘mouth’, ‘oral’; the second and the third mean to ‘sing’, ‘chant’, ‘intone’). In fact, kuchishōga is a series of syllables sung by music instructors when teaching a new tune to an apprentice. Although the aspects of kuchishōga that deserve consideration are numerous, here I shall focus on how onomatopoeia and kuchishōga closely resemble each other in terms of their function as imagination andmemory aids. Both kuchishōga and onomatopoeia are “vocal gestures” (Voeltz and Kilian- Hatz 2001: 3) of the same language and culture. Thus it is reasonable to assume that a close correlation exists between the ways they stir our “imaginative sensibility” (Gokak 1950: 44), namely, between the way onomatopoeic words prompt the imagination and enhance memorization and further recollection, and the similar role played by kuchishōga in music teaching. A significant feature of the onomatopoeic syllables employed in kuchishōga is that they are not simply a means of rote memorization or solmization. Because the vowels and consonants represent and symbolize, kuchishōga is a highly effective teaching method, in which the sounds form a story rather than a melody. Of course, there is no logical sequence in this Fig. 1. Rokudan no shirabe in its original notation. Kuchishōga are the smaller characters printed to the left of the original notation, signified by numbers indicating which string of the koto harp is to be played