Onomatopoeia in interactions between advanced students of English. A corpus based study

The aim of this work is to present a pilot study investigating the distribution of phono-iconic phenomena in interactions between learners of English. The study was based on Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) that contains transcripts of conversations between advanced and experienced non-native users of English. The description of material for analysis and methods of study was preceded by a short theoretical introduction to a range of directions of research concerning vocal behaviour in language with special reference to onomatopoeia. The article also provides brief and essential information on VOICE.