Contiguity-based sound iconicity: The meaning of words resonates with phonetic properties of their immediate verbal contexts

We tested the hypothesis that phonosemantic iconicity––i.e., a motivated resonance of sound and meaning––might not only be found on the level of individual words or entire texts, but also in word combinations such that the meaning of a target word is iconically expressed, or highlighted, in the phonetic properties of its immediate verbal context. To this end, we extracted single lines from German poems that all include a word designating high or low dominance, such as large or small, strong or weak, etc. Based on insights from previous studies, we expected to find more vowels with a relatively short distance between the first two formants (low formant dispersion) in the immediate context of words expressing high physical or social dominance than in the context of words expressing low dominance. Our findings support this hypothesis, suggesting that neighboring words can form iconic dyads in which the meaning of one word is sound-iconically reflected in the phonetic properties of adjacent words. The construct of a contiguity-based phono-semantic iconicity opens many venues for future research well beyond lines extracted from poems

How Are Brand Names of Chinese Companies Perceived by Americans?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to conduct an experimental design of Americans’ preferences for the English version of Chinese brand names by drawing from prior research in psychology, linguistics and marketing. The impact of string length and semantic relevance to English on meaningfulness, memorability and likeability of brand names from Chinese companies was assessed. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 × 2 experimental design was used, whereby brand names are categorized by string length (short vs long) and semantic relevance to English (with vs without). Respondents’ perception of the Chinese language in terms of pronounceability, language familiarity and language attitude is used as covariate. Findings – Results reveal shorter brand names, and those with semantic relevance to English are perceived as more memorable. It was also found that pronounceability of the brand name does influence brand name preference in terms of their meaningfulness, memorability and likeability. Research limitations/implications – This exploratory paper is limited to Americans’ perceptions of the English version of Chinese automobile brand names. Practical implications – Chinese companies should therefore carefully consider the brand name characteristics in terms of string length and semantic relevance, as well as their ease of pronunciation when choosing and introducing their brand name in the USA. Originality/value – This is the first paper which assesses Western consumers’ perception of brand names from Chinese automobile companies in terms of their brand meaningfulness, brand memorability and brand likeability

The Study of Sound Symbolism Based on Phonosemantic Association Experiment With the Vowels of the Ukrainian Language

The research deals with the relationship between sound symbolism and the theory of natural origin of the language.There is a certainassociation between particular sound sequences and different meanings in speech. But such a definition of sound-meaningdoes not explain fully the properties of wordsnot only to represent some meaning but also deal with perception caused by different sounds. It is important to demonstrate this mechanism in theory and practiceto examine correspondence between sounds and the meanings the sounds are associated with. Scholars have studied onomatopoeiaand inner meaning of words in different languages since ancient time. Most of their lexical-semantic explorations are devoted to the correlation between sounding and meaning of short onomatopoeic words on the basis of the statistical review. Chronology of the sound semantic explorations in linguistics, philosophy and psychologyis analyzed in the article with a detailed description of experimental studies. The scientific methods used to study associations arising between the proposed colors and Ukrainian sound-letters are as follows: psycholinguistic, mathematical, descriptive, inductive and method of semantic differential. The analysis of the data received finds out the presence of a sound symbolic component in all the vowels of the Ukrainian language and the correspondence of a certain color to each examined sound-letter. The term ‘sound-letter’ is first used in psycholinguistics and is determined as a unit of speech, realized in a text which forms the speaker’s certain mental image. The conclusions made on the basis of this research confirm the interconnection betweensounding, speech perception, general perception, and the speaker’s individual comprehension. Further study is needed to justify sound symbolism of vowels in different positions of short words, through series of practical experiments with a larger number of speakers

Tracking Linguistic Primitives: The Phonosemantic Realization of Fundamental Oppositional Pairs

This thesis investigates how cross-linguistic phoneme distributions of 56 fundamental oppositional concepts can reveal semantic relationships by looking into the linguistic forms of 75 genetically and areally distributed languages. Based on proposals of semantic primes (Goddard 2002), reduced Swadesh lists (Holman et al. 2008), presumed ultraconservative words (Pagel et.al. 2013), attested basic antonyms (Paradis, Willners & Jones 2009) and sense perception words, a number of semantic oppositional pairs were selected. Five different types of sound groupings were used dividing phonemes according to; the frequency of vowels' second formant and consonants' energy accumulation (Frequency), sonority (Sonority), a combination of the aformentioned two (Combination), general phonetic traits, e.g. voicing (General), and lastly incorporating all traits of the four presented groupings (All). These were analyzed by means of cluster analyses creating biplots, illustrating the phonological relatedness between the investigated concepts. Also, the phoneme distributions' over- and underrepresentation from the average was calculated defining which sounds represented and were lacking for each concept. Significant semantic groupings and relations based solely on phonological contrasts were found for most investigated concepts, including the semantic domains; Small, Intense Vision-Touch, Large, Organic, Horizontal-Vertical Distance, Deictic, Containment, Gender, Parent and Diurnal, and the sole concept OLD. The most notable relations found were; MOTHER/I vs. FATHER, a three-way deictic distinction between I, indicatory deictic concepts and THERE, and a dimensional tripartite oppositional relationship between Small and (possibly with Intense Vision-Touch), Large-Organic and Horizontal-Vertical Distance. Embodiment, benefits of oppositional thinking and evidence for more general concepts to precede complex concepts were proposed as explanations for the results

Words in the mirror: Analysing the sensorimotor interface between phonetics and semantics in Italian

International audienceThis paper proposes a theoretical, methodological and descriptive framework for combining a gestural-mimetic theory of the sign with the principle of arbitrariness. First, it draws attention to the history of the question, discusses its theoretical core and presents a method to analyse the relationship between the differential system of phono-articulatory signifiers and the differential system of logical-semantic signifieds. In section 2, this method is tested on the Italian grammatical monosyllables, focusing on a complete description of the words formed from one phoneme (‘monophonemes’), of the words distinguishing grammatical persons and of the adverbial pairs. The main result is that phono-articulatory oppositions (such as [open : closed] and [front : back]) can be systematically described as images of logical-semantic oppositions (such as {complex : simple} and {positive : negative}, respectively). In section 3, a number of conclusions are drawn, particularly about the difference between linguistic ‘values’ and psychological ‘concepts’

Cognitive Science

Abstract Research on the relation between sound and meaning in language has reported substantial evidence for implicit associations between articulatory?acoustic characteristics of phonemes and emotions. In the present study, we specifically tested the relation between the acoustic properties of a text and its emotional tone as perceived by readers. To this end, we asked participants to assess the emotional tone of single stanzas extracted from a large variety of poems. The selected stanzas had either an extremely high, a neutral, or an extremely low average formant dispersion. To assess the average formant dispersion per stanza, all words were phonetically transcribed and the distance between the first and second formant per vowel was calculated. Building on a long tradition of research on associations between sound frequency on the one hand and non-acoustic concepts such as size, strength, or happiness on the other hand, we hypothesized that stanzas with an extremely high average formant dispersion would be rated lower on items referring to Potency (dominance) and higher on items referring to Activity (arousal) and Evaluation (emotional valence). The results confirmed our hypotheses for the dimensions of Potency and Evaluation, but not for the dimension of Activity. We conclude that, at least in poetic language, extreme values of acoustic features of vowels are a significant predictor for the emotional tone of a text

Phonosemantic Evidence for the Mimetic Stratum in the Japanese Lexicon

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Onomatopoeia in the English and German Nursery Rhymes

This article is dedicated to the problem of onomatopoeia that is analyzed in English and German nursery rhymes. The material of the research includes thirty texts and has two stages: the first one shows the differences of sound-imitating words types while the second one deals with the syntactic-morphological and semantic characteristics of onomatopoeia in English and German nursery rhymes

The Two Meanings of Sound Symbolism

This article deals with sound symbolism and the ways to interpret sound symbolic phenomena. Sound symbolism appears to be a universal phenomenon but linguists tend to neglect it or offer heterogeneous approaches and definitions. This paper is concerned with the role of motivation, as assumed in cases like cuckoo, and the question whether some sound symbolic effects might be the result of acquired statistical knowledge about the language system. The author argues that several aspects of sound symbolism such as natural/iconic or habitual relationships between sound and (facets of) referents interact but should be considered separately to gain a more realistic insight into the working of sound symbolism