Dance Generation by Sound Symbolic Words

This study introduces a novel approach to generate dance motions using onomatopoeia as input, with the aim of enhancing creativity and diversity in dance generation. Unlike text and music, onomatopoeia conveys rhythm and meaning through abstract word expressions without constraints on expression and without need for specialized knowledge. We adapt the AI Choreographer framework and employ the Sakamoto system, a feature extraction method for onomatopoeia focusing on phonemes and syllables. Additionally, we present a new dataset of 40 onomatopoeia-dance motion pairs collected through a user survey. Our results demonstrate that the proposed method enables more intuitive dance generation and can create dance motions using sound-symbolic words from a variety of languages, including those without onomatopoeia. This highlights the potential for diverse dance creation across different languages and cultures, accessible to a wider audience. Qualitative samples from our model can be found at: https://sites.google.com/view/onomatopoeia-dance/home/

Development of non-arbitrary to the arbitrary iconic words in Javanese language

Onomatopoeic words in Javanese language are an evidence of the uniqueness of both the lingual aspects and the described facts. This study discussed the phenomenon of phonological and morphological language processing. It examined the derivation of the onomatopoeic root words of Javanese language into some form of the word as iconic formation. The data source covers the source language of local print media and another complementary source which was obtained from informants living in the regions of Surakarta and Yogyakarta. This study revealed the Ullman’s onomatopoeic classification of primary and secondary onomatopoeias. The primary onomatopoeic is sound imitations of referents, i.e. crowing, roaring, barking sounds, etc. The secondary onomatopoeia is the sound which arises beyond the occurring acoustic experience; they are sounds produced by movements and physical, and mental quality of an object. i.e. the word bruk (voice of falling heavy objects), prang (sound of a broken plate). The development of sound imitation icon as an icon causes a shift in the status of a root word form or onomatopoeic sound imitator to other states. Words like thuthuk [ṭuṭU?] ‘'beater', kethuk kempyang [kəәṭU? kəәmpjaŋ] 'typical instrument used in Gamelan', pethuk [pəәṭU?] 'coming across' and bathuk [baṭU?] 'forehead' were the derivative words which originated from the root word thuk [ṭuk] with the additional formative process, repetition on the root word, compounding, and reduplication. In the Javanese language, onomatopoeic words often have the same family with other words

Translation of Onomatopoeia: Somewhere between Equivalence and Function

English-Persian translation of novels deals with the challenges of understanding and transferring different linguistic aspects such as those of onomatopoeias. These elements are expected to create difficulties for translators as they are realized differently in English and Persian. Although some studies have been done to identify onomatopoeias in different languages, they are less debated in the area of translation. This study concentrates on English translation of 125 onomatopoeias in the novel A Tale of Two cities written by Charles Dickens and their Persian translations done by two translators. It aims at identifying English onomatopoeias in the corpus and the translation techniques used for translating them by the two translators. Furthermore, taking prospective approach, it comparatively assesses the two translated versions in terms of their success of translation of onomatopoeias from English into Persian. Finally this study aims at proposing a guideline which helps the translators to translate onomatopoeias in English Novels into Persian

Sound-Action Symbolism

Recent evidence has shown linkages between actions and segmental elements of speech. For instance, close-front vowels are sound symbolically associated with the precision grip, and front vowels are associated with forward-directed limb movements. The current review article presents a variety of such sound-action effects and proposes that they compose a category of sound symbolism that is based on grounding a conceptual knowledge of a referent in articulatory and manual action representations. In addition, the article proposes that even some widely known sound symbolism phenomena such as the sound-magnitude symbolism can be partially based on similar sensorimotor grounding. It is also discussed that meaning of suprasegmental speech elements in many instances is similarly grounded in body actions. Sound symbolism, prosody, and body gestures might originate from the same embodied mechanisms that enable a vivid and iconic expression of a meaning of a referent to the recipient.Peer reviewe

Maternal speech to three-month-old infants in the United States and Japan

Journal ArticleAn American-Japanese comparison of maternal speech to 3-month-old infants is presented. Mother-infant dyads were videotaped in the laboratory, and the maternal speech was analysed by function and syntactic form. US mothers were more information-oriented than were Japanese mothers; they also used more question forms, especially yes/no questions. Japanese mothers were affect-oriented, and they used more nonsense, onomatopoeic sounds, baby talk, and babies' names. The differences between countries in maternal speech addressed to 3-montholds appear to reflect characteristic culture-specific communicative styles as well as beliefs and values related to childrearing

Meeting Moi Moi : An Exploration of Ideophones in Japanese Children\u27s Literature

This thesis investigates an uncharted sector of the study of onomatopoeia in Japanese—children’s literature. After briefly exploring the definition of onomatopoeia and ideophone, the linguistic characteristics of these words in Japanese, and the lack of attention given to ideophones occurring in Japanese children’s literature, I proceed to investigate the linguistic properties of ideophones which occur in a corpus of Japanese children’s literature that I compiled. This examination uncovers a set of novel ideophonic forms that appear in two books, prompting an informal study investigating native Japanese speakers’ reactions to said forms. This study, carried out in the form of a series of interviews, seeks to explore native speakers’ sound symbolic intuitions when presented with novel ideophonic items out of context. Upon completion of this study, I found several notable similarities between interviewees’ answers for specific items and even across multiple items. Considering that notable and interesting results appeared despite some limitations to this investigation, at the end I discuss the need for further research to more deeply and widely explore territory scouted by this project

The semantic aspects of onomatopoeia : focusing on Japanese psychomimes

This thesis aims to examine the semantic aspects of Japanese onomatopoeia, which is among the least studied of the language phenomena in Japanese linguistics. While there have been a certain number of works written on Japanese onomatopoeic words within the last twenty years, one may be struck by the rarity of linguistic works done on the semantic analysis of those words