Alliteration; Assonance; and Onomatopoeia | Style | Grammar Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians hello Rosie I did it
so you've caught me mid scribble in the
greatest challenge of my career will I
be able to write the word oh no ma topia
do it I got up you did it yeah this is
one of my least favorite words to spell
but one of my favorite things to talk
about because what we're talking about
today alliteration assonance and
onomatopoeia uh and these are all words
that are related to the way language
sounds but let's begin with alliteration
Rosie what is alliteration alliteration
is when a series of words all start with
the same consonant so what's a good
example of that
Robert Park swim swiftly surely and
straight ahead so you can see that all
these pink words here swims with
leisurely straight ahead all begin with
s and so this is why we call this a
literation because s is a consonant and
all of these things share a similar
consonant sound now I want to contrast
that with assonance which is what Rosie
assonance is when a series of words all
start with the same vowel Alfia
abolished all anguish you can see all of
these words in the sentence in the same
vowel neighborhood right
but my favorite evolved is onomatopoeia
which comes from Greek and it basically
means like autumn autumn ox means a name
resulting from doing so really this is
this word just means sounds like what it
does so any really anything that you
would conceive of as a a sound effect
like a word that comes from a sound
effect
so the bees buzzed for example but what
is what is buzz what's the sound that a
bee makes it's it's what it does that
that word is derived from the blue sound
but that's not the only example of
onomatopoeia we've compiled here a list
we got released okay we've got splat
it's kind of the sound of something
hitting pavement yep we've got clang
which is like the clang of a bell we've
got bang which sounds like something
exploding whoosh which sounds like air a
wind beep yeah weak sounds like a
beeping okay like that is literally so
if you if you are trying to summon up
the actual sound of a thing and
transcribe it and use it as a noun or
verb you're using onomatopoeia I know
it's a terrifying looking word right
like no one word should have this many
vowels in front of the other I get it I
get it
I'm terrified of spelling this word but
I managed to do it apparently and now
you know what it means and that should
take away some of its scariness and
impart to you some of its power because
here at Khan Academy we want you to have
the power to harness language and
specifically today to harness these
three different language styles so
alliteration repeating the same
consonant a bunch of times in a row so
swimming swiftly surely and straight
ahead
assonance where you repeat the same
vowel like abolished all anguish and
onomatopoeia where you make a word that
sounds like what the words effect is so
the bees buzz the pudding cup went splat
the the the boxing Bell fell to the
floor with a clang the firework went off
with a bang a flight of bats whooshed
past my head and the robit' the little
baby robot beeped at me insistent
I like those how can a robot be a baby I
think it's just the size okay sure yeah
that's legitimate so okay so I guess the
question is now you know what these
things are but Rosie why would a person
want to use these techniques in language
whether written or spoken that's a great
question
writers can use some of these techniques
to basically use this sound to get
across a pattern like if you're if
you're going to use words that all sound
the same at the beginning with a bunch
of s's that kind of could potentially
build some momentum to your sentence
like it kind of makes the reader sit up
and pay attention to like oh this is an
interesting pattern so that could be one
reason why a writer might use for
example alliteration yeah so it's a way
to express a pattern and to build on
what you were saying
you can also it's just a good attention
grabber and it's also useful for its own
sake just as a as a technique for for
writing prose or poetry like it's
something you it's a useful property of
language to be able to sometimes access
right and a good example with automata
Piett Inomata Pia is you're really
capturing you're really capturing the
sound so the reader is really able to be
immersed in the experience even more
fully you can you can hear the sounds
that are happening the buzzing of the
bees or yeah it just puts you even more
in the story that the writer is telling
that's why you would want to learn how
to use assonance alliteration and
onomatopoeia you can learn anything Dave
it out Rosie out