The metaphorical potential of onomatopoeia in German media discourse

This paper is devoted to the study of the metaphorical potential of vocabulary with the semantics of sound in modern German, namely, the specifics of creating implicit meanings in the syntactic constructions of texts of mass media discourse with metaphorized onomatopes. The relevance of the research lies in the fact that it allows us to identify how onomatopoeic vocabulary in German mass media discourse serves as a hidden but powerful tool for forming value judgments and emotional impact on the audience through meanings that are not expressed directly, but only implied. This approach reveals new strategies for creating convincing and concise messages in today’s multi-modal information space. The aim of the article is to identify and describe how implicatures, including onomatopes in German media discourse, realize their metaphorical potential for covert influence on the audience. The research material consists of more than 710 contextual examples from the texts of the modern German mass media discourse, including onomatopoietic vocabulary in metaphorical meanings. The sample of texts mainly accumulated publications of a media-political nature published in 2024. The research methodology includes discourse analysis, including contextual analysis and pragmatic interpretation of onomatopoietic units. The author believes that onomatopoeic vocabulary in mass media discourse is represented to a greater extent (83%) in metaphorical models, where the basis of transference are verbal or substantive lexemes with the semantics of sounding the voices of fauna and flora, and the target is the human voice. The metaphorical potential of onomatopes in these texts is reduced to the explication of emotional or evaluative components of implicit meanings thematically related to political and social problems of modern society, such as migration, reemigration, oppositional sentiments, democratic values, and others. Onomatopoeic vocabulary in metaphorical meanings in media political discourse implements negative emotions or a negative assessment of the subject, object, or the action itself.