Sound Symbolism Research Articles

Socialising the Frequency Code: Effects of gender and age on iconic associations of pitcha).

Burgeoning research has shown the pervasiveness of sound symbolism, a type of iconicity, in language. However, little work looks at how individual experiences and beliefs affect sound symbolic associations. We investigate pitch associations under the Frequency Code, which links high vs low pitch to small vs large body size and female vs male gender (via sexual dimorphism), long claimed to underlie "universal" meanings like submissiveness vs dominance. While such associations appear widespread, the Frequency Code assumes ideological links, e.g., between dominance and masculinity, which differ between individuals and cultures. In Implicit Association Task experiments with English-speaking listeners, we show high pitch is implicitly associated with small size and female gender, and low with large and male, following the Frequency Code. Crucially, though, the strength of these associations varies by social factors. Associations are stronger for male voices and listeners, particularly older men, as ideologies related to the Frequency Code (linking large size, strength, and dominance) tend to be stronger for men. The association of pitch with gender is stronger than with body size, reflecting stronger gender-based stereotypes. This work shows that social experience shapes and reinforces iconic associations, with important implications for how iconic meanings develop and are processed.

Vowel signatures in emotional interjections and nonlinguistic vocalizations expressing pain, disgust, and joy across languagesa).

In this comparative cross-linguistic study we test whether expressive interjections (words like ouch or yay) share similar vowel signatures across the world's languages, and whether these can be traced back to nonlinguistic vocalizations (like screams and cries) expressing the same emotions of pain, disgust, and joy. We analyze vowels in interjections from dictionaries of 131 languages (over 600 tokens) and compare these with nearly 500 vowels based on formant frequency measures from voice recordings of volitional nonlinguistic vocalizations. We show that across the globe, pain interjections feature a-like vowels and wide falling diphthongs ("ai" as in Ayyy! "aw" as in Ouch!), whereas disgust and joy interjections do not show robust vowel regularities that extend geographically. In nonlinguistic vocalizations, all emotions yield distinct vowel signatures: pain prompts open vowels such as [a], disgust schwa-like central vowels, and joy front vowels such as [i]. Our results show that pain is the only affective experience tested with a clear, robust vowel signature that is preserved between nonlinguistic vocalizations and interjections across languages. These results offer empirical evidence for iconicity in some expressive interjections. We consider potential mechanisms and origins, from evolutionary pressures and sound symbolism to colexification, proposing testable hypotheses for future research.

UPAYA GURU DALAM MENGATASI KESULITAN MEMBACA SISWA SEKOLAH DASAR

In facing the challenges students face in reading, teachers need to be proactive in providing guidance to help them overcome obstacles that hinder the learning process. This research aims to explain the reading problems faced by students and the teachers' efforts to solve them in class II of SDN 002 Bagan Besar, Dumai City. The method applied in this research is a qualitative approach. Researchers used various data collection techniques including observation, interviews and document analysis involving research subjects consisting of class II B homeroom teachers and class II B students at SDN 002 Bagan Besar, Dumai City. The research results showed that there were class II B students who experienced difficulties in reading, such as lack of reading fluency, frequent mistakes, difficulty in distinguishing similar letters, and errors in pronouncing words or sound symbols. The efforts taken by teachers to overcome the reading difficulties of class II students at SDN 002 Bagan Besar, Dumai City, have been quite effective. Teachers use interesting and interactive learning methods, such as picture letter books, and strengthen students' self-confidence and motivation through praise. In addition, teachers do not blame students and provide special remedial programs to improve their reading skills

Брендинг в постмодернистском контексте: звуковые логотипы как культурные маркеры

The aim of the study is to identify the peculiarities of sound logos perception and their role in shaping brand cultural identity in the context of postmodern culture. The article analyzes the interaction between audio and visual brand elements and their impact on consumers’ emotional perception. The significance of cross-modal correspondences and sound symbolism in creating effective audio assets is examined. The scientific novelty lies in developing a multicultural cognitive theory of sound symbolism perception, integrating universal cognitive mechanisms and cultural specificities. As a result, the study reveals the complex role of sound in creating brand cultural identity in the era of globalization and proposes new approaches to developing sound strategies for international brands.

Size sound symbolism in mothers' speech to their infants.

Six-month-olds infer object size based on pitch: they map high-pitched vowels onto smaller objects and low-pitched vowels onto larger objects (Peña et al., 2011). The 'sound symbolism bootstrapping hypothesis' (Imai & Kita, 2014) proposes that this may support understanding of word-meaning correspondences; by drawing on iconic pairings between linguistic cues and corresponding referents (e.g., higher pitch for smaller objects), infants develop understanding of word-referent associations. Here we analyse mother-child interactions, testing whether sound-symbolic pitch-size correspondences occur in infant-directed speech. 40 dyads engaged in (semi-)naturalistic interaction around picture books containing images of toys of varying sizes. We compare mothers' pitch when referring to small versus large toys, analysing i) actual size (bigger vs. smaller toys); ii) relative toy size congruence (i.e., congruent vs. incongruent with real-world expectation); and iii) transparency of the test paradigm as regards its focus on size contrastiveness (non-transparent, moderately transparent, highly transparent) to observe the nuances of size sound symbolism in infant-directed speech.

Ease of Articulation in Selecting First Names

Investigating the ease of articulation in selecting names contributes to emphasizing the effect of articulatory features on speech perception and production. It explains why some names are distinctive among multi-semantic references and sociocultural dominance and are more likely appropriate for one sex than the other. This study explores how distinctive features of phonemes subconsciously derive our conception of first names, regardless of rich meanings or morphological endings. It argues that all selected names demonstrate articulatory-easy phonemes. Sex distinction is assumed to attribute phonemes of easier configurations to characterize girl names more than boy names. By inspecting a sample that exhibited no feminine suffixes or compounding structures, the study analyzed the phonemic components based on the articulatory-ease module. The findings justified equivalent preference of boy names and girl names to the ease of bilabial, coronal, voiceless features, and disyllabic structures. However, interest in names with easier anterior coronal sonorants, posterior distributed strident and glottal dominated the selected girl names in line with sound symbolism. Moreover, prominent everlasting names indicated a mechanism of articulatory ease that identified one essential unit to develop a unique smooth flow of phonemes. The distinctive characteristic features of this unit marked sex distinction and determined popularity. KEYWORDS articulatory mechanism, articulatory module, conserving effort, distinctive features, prominent names, sound symbolism

Valence sound symbolism facilitates classification of vowels and emotional facial expressions.

Research on iconicity or sound symbolism chronicles associations between aspects of word meaning and word form. In valence sound symbolism, specifically, vowels were demonstrated to be associated with valence, so that the vowel /i/ (as in English sea) is judged to fit positively valenced stimuli, whereas the vowel /o/ (as in German Boot) is judged to fit negatively valenced stimuli. However, because previous findings were based on judgments or name invention tasks, they may reflect deliberate strategies. The present research aims to demonstrate the automaticity of valence sound symbolism in online language processing by means of a speeded response task. A total of 163 participants performed a speeded categorization task in which they were requested to classify one of two simultaneously presented stimuli, pseudowords containing the vowels /i/ or /o/ and pictures with positive or negative emotional facial expressions. Thus, stimulus pairings could be either congruent (/i/-words and positive expressions; /o/-words and negative expressions) or incongruent (/i/-words and negative expressions; /o/-words and positive expressions). We observed faster and more accurate responses for congruent over incongruent combinations (the simple effects were significant for positive but not for negative expressions). Thus, sound symbolic congruency (vs. incongruency) of an irrelevant stimulus facilitated responses, which accords with an automatic process contributing to valence sound symbolism and indicates that valence sound symbolism is deeply engrained in the human cognitive system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

French Loanwords in English cr-phonaesthemic group

Introduction. The article examines the influence of French borrowings on the process of development of phonaesthemic sound symbolism in the English language. Phonaesthemes work as a language instrument of semantic structuring of meanings of groups of words with similar form. The article aims to identify how French borrowings influenced the set of semes characteristic of the English phonaesthemic group cr-.Methodology and sources. The preselected 62 English words with the initial cr- consonant cluster borrowed from French, were analyzed for their possible influence on the respective English phonaesthemic group. 25 words were confirmed to be phonaesthemic. The words were selected from the Oxford English Dictionary by targeted sampling. Etymology, if necessary, was further verified after French etymological dictionaries Le Littré and Trésor. Theoretical framework for this research are the works of Mikhalev (phonosemantic field theory), Leonardi (on Latin phonaesthemes) and Bottineau (on French iconic words). Methods applied in the research are etymological and phonosemantic analyses. French loanwords included and not included in the English phonaesthemic group were analysed separately.Results and discussion. The data analyses have shown that in case the shared semes of the CR- word group in the donor language coincide with those of the recipient language, loanwords seem to augment and strengthen the tendency to form phonaesthemic groups. Otherwise, new words remain outside the English phonosemantic field of the group in question. Phonotactic restrictions may also leave such loanwords outside the studied phonaesthemic group. French loanwords of Germanic origin seem to demonstrate stronger sustainability in language as compared to those of Latin origin. Words of French origin appear to be onomatopoeic only.Conclusion. The results of the study demonstrate that French loanwords had a limited effect on the English cr- phonaesthemic group. French loanwords have expanded the group and strengthened the tendencies formed within the native English word group.

DIFFERENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE SPECTRO-TEMPORAL AND VOCAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AUDITORY PSEUDOWORDS TO MULTIPLE SOUND-SYMBOLIC MAPPINGS.

Sound symbolism, the idea that the sound of a word alone can convey its meaning, is often studied using auditory pseudowords. For example, people reliably assign the auditory pseudowords "bouba" and "kiki" to rounded and pointed shapes, respectively. Previously we showed that representational dissimilarity matrices (RDMs) of the shape ratings of auditory pseudowords correlated significantly with RDMs of acoustic parameters reflecting spectro-temporal variations; the ratings also correlated significantly with voice quality features. Here, participants rated auditory pseudowords on scales representing categorical opposites across seven meaning domains, including shape. Examination of the relationships of the perceptual ratings to spectro-temporal and vocal parameters of the pseudowords essentially replicated our previous findings for shape while varying patterns emerged for the other domains. Thus, the spectro-temporal and vocal properties of spoken pseudowords contribute differentially to sound-symbolic mapping depending on the meaning domain.

PHONETIC UNDERPINNINGS OF SOUND SYMBOLISM ACROSS MULTIPLE DOMAINS OF MEANING.

Sound symbolism occurs when the sound of a word alone can convey its meaning, e.g. 'balloon' and 'spike' sound rounded and pointed, respectively. Sound-symbolic correspondences are widespread in natural languages, but it is unclear how they are instantiated across different domains of meaning. Here, participants rated auditory pseudowords on opposing scales of seven different sound-symbolic domains: shape (rounded-pointed), texture (hard-soft), weight (light-heavy), size (small-big), brightness (bright-dark), arousal (calming-exciting), and valence (good-bad). Ratings showed cross-domain relationships, some mirroring those between corresponding physical domains, e.g. size and weight ratings were associated, reflecting a physical size-weight relationship, while others involved metaphorical mappings, e.g., bright/dark mapped onto good/bad, respectively. The phonetic features of the pseudowords formed unique sets with characteristic feature weightings for each domain and tended to follow the cross-domain ratings relationships. These results suggest that sound-symbolic correspondences rely on domain-specific patterns of phonetic features, with cross-domain correspondences reflecting physical or metaphorical relationships.

Design of sensory experiences using sound symbolism: A study on rotary switch operation

Design of sensory experiences using sound symbolism: A study on rotary switch operation

Sound symbolic associations: evidence from visual, tactile, and interpersonal iconic perception of Mandarin rimes

Sound symbolism refers to the non-arbitrary relationship between phonemes and specific perceptual attributes. Few studies have focused on the sound symbolic associations between Mandarin phonemes and multiple perceptual dimensions, including social attitudes. The main purpose of the current study is to identify the acoustic cues crucial to perceptual judgment on the visual, tactile, and interpersonal dimensions based on the Mandarin rimes. The study found that in addition to the first and second formants, formant transitions and nasal codas were crucial in characterizing sound symbolic associations. Machine learning models also showed that critical acoustic parameters could successfully classify the different perceived attributes of rimes. The study further examined the mechanisms underlying forming a sound symbolic association. Through mediation analyses, the light/heavy dimension proved to have a suppression effect on the politeness and friendliness perception of Mandarin compound rimes (diphthongs and diphthongs with nasal codas /n/ or /ŋ/). This finding suggested that the two potential mechanisms of sound symbolism (i.e., language pattern account and shared-property account) could coexist and interact with each other.

Do 14-17-month-old infants use iconic speech and gesture cues to interpret word meanings?a).

This experimental study investigated whether infants use iconicity in speech and gesture cues to interpret word meanings. Specifically, we tested infants' sensitivity to size sound symbolism and iconic gesture cues and asked whether combining these cues in a multimodal fashion would enhance infants' sensitivity in a superadditive manner. Thirty-six 14-17-month-old infants participated in a preferential looking task in which they heard a spoken nonword (e.g., "zudzud") while observing a small and large object (e.g., a small and large square). All infants were presented with an iconic cue for object size (small or large) (1) in the pitch of the spoken non-word (high vs low), (2) in gesture (small or large), or (3) congruently in pitch and gesture (e.g., a high pitch and small gesture indicating a small square). Infants did not show a preference for congruently sized objects in any iconic cue condition. Bayes factor analyses showed moderate to strong support for the null hypotheses. In conclusion, 14-17-month-old infants did not use iconic pitch cues, iconic gesture cues, or iconic multimodal cues (pitch and gesture) to associate speech sounds with their referents. These findings challenge theories that emphasize the role of iconicity in early language development.

The role of valence and arousal for phonological iconicity in the lexicon of German: a cross-validation study using pseudoword ratings

ABSTRACT The notion of sound symbolism receives increasing interest in psycholinguistics. Recent research – including empirical effects of affective phonological iconicity on language processing (Adelman et al., 2018; Conrad et al., 2022) – suggested language codes affective meaning at a basic phonological level using specific phonemes as sublexical markers of emotion. Here, in a series of 8 rating-experiments, we investigate the sensitivity of language users to assumed affectively-iconic systematic distribution patterns of phonemes across the German vocabulary: After computing sublexical-affective-values (SAV) concerning valence and arousal for the entire German phoneme inventory according to occurrences of syllabic onsets, nuclei and codas in a large-scale affective normative lexical database, we constructed pseudoword material differing in SAV to test for subjective affective impressions. Results support affective iconicity as affective ratings mirrored sound-to-meaning correspondences in the lexical database. Varying SAV of otherwise semantically meaningless pseudowords altered affective impressions: Higher arousal was consistently assigned to pseudowords made of syllabic constituents more often used in high-arousal words – contrasted by less straightforward effects of valence SAV. Further disentangling specific differential effects of the two highly-related affective dimensions valence and arousal, our data clearly suggest arousal, rather than valence, as the relevant dimension driving affective iconicity effects.

Decoding Phonetic Meaning in a Semantically Meaningful Lexicon: Sound Symbolism in Steam Game Titles

It is widely believed that the marriage between a word’s sound and meaning is not an arranged one. A major exception to this, however, is sound symbolism. Inspired by previous research on the extensive use of sound symbolic associations in naming practices, this study directed attention towards the titles of popular games on Steam, which, unlike brand names, are mostly composed of semantically meaningful lexical items. The results showed that Action/Adventure/RPG game titles contained more voiced obstruents and fewer low vowels than Strategy/Simulation game titles. Additional research could delve into the interplay between semantic and phonetic meanings conveyed by names and titles.

Statistical Relationships Between Phonological Form, Emotional Valence and Arousal of Spanish Words.

A number of studies have provided evidence of limited non-arbitrary associations between the phonological forms and meanings of affective words, a finding referred to as affective sound symbolism. Here, we explored whether the affective connotations of Spanish words might have more extensive statistical relationships with phonological/phonetic features, or affective form typicality. After eliminating words with poor affective rating agreement and morphophonological redundancies (e.g., negating prefixes), we found evidence of significant form typicality for emotional valence, emotionality, and arousal in a large sample of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words. These affective form-meaning mappings remained significant even when controlling for a range of lexico-semantic variables. We show that affective variables and their corresponding form typicality measures are able to significantly predict lexical decision performance using a megastudy dataset. Overall, our findings provide new evidence that affective form typicality is a statistical property of the Spanish lexicon.

John Wallis on sound symbolism

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to give an account of John Wallis’s analysis of sound symbolism in his English Grammar (1653), and to position this in the larger context of contemporary linguistic controversies concerning the search for a universal or philosophical language, as discussed both by other thinkers in the circle of the Royal Society and also by scholars on the continent of Europe. Although Wallis is usually taken to be a critical observer rather than an active participant in these debates, the paper will attempt to provide detailed evidence for his having been a previously unidentified source for the various alternative proposals for phonetic notation developed in John Wilkin’s philosophical language scheme (1688).

Sound symbolic associations in Spanish emotional words: affective dimensions and discrete emotions

ABSTRACT Sound symbolism refers to non-arbitrary associations between word forms and meaning, such as those observed for some properties of sounds and size or shape. Recent evidence suggests that these connections extend to emotional concepts. Here we investigated two types of non-arbitrary relationships. Study 1 examined whether iconicity scores (i.e. resemblance-based mapping between aspects of a word’s form and its meaning) for words can be predicted from ratings in the affective dimensions of valence and arousal and/or the discrete emotions of happiness, anger, fear, disgust and sadness. Words denoting negative concepts were more likely to have more iconic word forms. Study 2 explored whether statistical regularities in single phonemes (i.e. systematicity) predicted ratings in affective dimensions and/or discrete emotions. Voiceless (/p/, /t/) and voiced plosives (/b/, /d/, /g/) were related to high arousing words, whereas high arousing negative words tended to include fricatives (/s/, /z/). Hissing consonants were also more likely to occur in words denoting all negative discrete emotions. Additionally, words conveying certain discrete emotions included specific phonemes. Overall, our data suggest that emotional features might explain variations in iconicity and provide new insight about phonemic patterns showing sound symbolic associations with the affective properties of words.

Sound symbolism in manual and vocal responses: phoneme-response interactions associated with grasping as well as vertical and size dimensions of keypresses

It has been shown that reading the vowel [i] and consonant [t] facilitates precision grip responses, while [ɑ] and [k] are associated with faster power grip responses. A similar effect has been observed when participants perform responses with small or large response keys. The present study investigated whether the vowels and consonants could produce different effects with the grip responses and keypresses when the speech units are read aloud (Experiment 1) or silently (Experiment 2). As a second objective, the study investigated whether the recently observed effect, in which the upper position of a visual stimulus is associated with faster vocalizations of the high vowel and the lower position is associated with the low vowel, can be observed in manual responses linking, for example, the [i] with responses of the upper key and [ɑ] with lower responses. Firstly, the study showed that when the consonants are overtly articulated, the interaction effect can be observed only with the grip responses, while the vowel production was shown to systematically influence small/large keypresses, as well as precision/power grip responses. Secondly, the vowel [i] and consonant [t] were associated with the upper responses, while [ɑ] and [k] were associated with the lower responses, particularly in the overt articulation task. The paper delves into the potential sound-symbolic implications of these phonetic elements, suggesting that their acoustic and articulatory characteristics might implicitly align them with specific response magnitudes, vertical positions, and grip types.

Iconicity mediates semantic networks of sound symbolisma).

One speech sound can be associated with multiple meanings through iconicity, indexicality, and/or systematicity. It was not until recently that this "pluripotentiality" of sound symbolism attracted serious attention, and it remains uninvestigated how pluripotentiality may arise. In the current study, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and English speakers rated unfamiliar jewel names on three semantic scales: size, brightness, and hardness. The results showed language-specific and cross-linguistically shared pluripotential sound symbolism. Japanese speakers associated voiced stops with large and dark jewels, whereas Mandarin speakers associated [i] with small and bright jewels. Japanese, Mandarin, and English speakers also associated lip rounding with darkness and softness. These sound-symbolic meanings are unlikely to be obtained through metaphorical or metonymical extension, nor are they reported to colexify. Notably, in a purely semantic network without the mediation of lip rounding, softness can instead be associated with brightness, as illustrated by synesthetic metaphors such as yawaraka-na hizashi /jawaɾakanaçizaɕi/ "a gentle (lit. soft) sunshine" in Japanese. These findings suggest that the semantic networks of sound symbolism may not coincide with those of metaphor or metonymy. The current study summarizes the findings in the form of (phono)semantic maps to facilitate cross-linguistic comparisons of pluripotential sound symbolism.