What Can a String of Letters Possibly Mean When it is Not a Word? Speech Sounds as One Answer to the Search for Meaning in Finnegans Wake

Abstract

In his last novel, Finnegans Wake, James Joyce attempted to redirect readers' search for meaning away from traditional paths by using many non-words (combinations, foreign words, neologisms, and onomatopoeic words). Words and non-words in the novel were analyzed in terms of the emotional meanings of their constituent sounds using the model developed by Whissell where motor responses involved in enunciating sounds are associated with their emotional meaning. Significant sound-emotion differences were identified among and within chapters. “Smiling” pleasant long e (as in “tee”) was used at higher rates in successive chapters and “sighing” passive AO (as in “Shaun”) was used at especially high rates in Chapters 8 (“Anna Livia Plurabelle”) and 12 (“Mamalujo”). Sound emotionality is one of the alternative paths to meaning in the novel.