Sound Devices Alliteration – the repetition of constant sounds in words that are close together. Assonance – the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds, especially in words close together. Onomatopoeia – the use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its use or meaning.

Sound devices are special tools the poet can use to create certain effects in the poem to convey and reinforce meaning through sound. The four most common sound devices are repetition, rhyme, alliteration, and assonance.

Repetition and rhyme are only a few of the many sound devices found in beautiful poetry. Check out these types of sound devices and see how many resonate with you!

Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is a sound device that represents the exact sound of something in the poem. The poet forms a word to imitate the sound made by the object in the poem.

Popular Literary Devices

• Alliteration.
• Assonance.
• Consonance.
• Meter.
• Onomatopoeia.

Common Examples of Onomatopoeia

• Machine noises—honk, beep, vroom, clang, zap, boing.
• Animal names—cuckoo, whip-poor-will, whooping crane, chickadee.
• Impact sounds—boom, crash, whack, thump, bang.
• Sounds of the voice—shush, giggle, growl, whine, murmur, blurt, whisper, hiss.

Onomatopoeia (pronounced ˌ’AH-nuh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh’) refers to words whose pronunciations imitate the sounds they describe. A dog’s bark sounds like “woof,” so “woof” is an example of onomatopoeia.

How to Write an Onomatopoeia. Because onomatopoeia is a description of sound, in order to use onomatopoeia, Create a scene which involves a sound. Use a word, or make one up, that imitates the sound.

Assonance. This figure of speech is similar to alliteration, because it also involves repetition of sounds. But this time it’s vowel sounds that are being repeated. Assonance creates internal rhyming within phrases or sentences by repeating vowel sounds that are the same.

The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called vowel rhyme.

Alliteration is when a writer repeats the consonant sounds at the beginnings of words. For example, in “My puppy punched me in the eye,” the words “puppy punched” are alliterative because they both begin with “p.” Assonance is when a writer repeats the vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of words.

Assonance is defined as the repetition of similar vowel sounds within words, phrases, or sentences. (Remember that vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.) When the same vowel sound is repeated multiple times in close proximity, you’ve found assonance.