Sound symbolism

{{Short description|Study in linguistics}} {{Use American English|date = February 2019}} In linguistics, '''sound symbolism''' is the perceptual similarity between speech sounds and concept meanings. It is a form of linguistic iconicity. For example, the English word ''ding'' may sound similar to the actual sound of a bell.

Linguistic sound may be perceived as similar to not only sounds, but also to other sensory properties, such as size, vision, touch, or smell, or abstract domains, such as emotion or value judgment. Such correspondence between linguistic sound and meaning may significantly affect the form of spoken languages.

==History== ===Plato and the Cratylus Dialogue===

In ''Cratylus'', Plato has Socrates commenting on the origins and correctness of various names and words. When Hermogenes asks if he can provide another hypothesis on how signs come into being (his own is simply 'convention'), Socrates initially suggests that they fit their referents in virtue of the sounds they are made of:

{{blockquote|Now the letter rho, as I was saying, appeared to the imposer of names an excellent instrument for the expression of motion; and he frequently uses the letter for this purpose: for example, in the actual words rein and roe he represents motion by rho; also in the words tromos (trembling), trachus (rugged); and again, in words such as krouein (strike), thrauein (crush), ereikein (bruise), thruptein (break), kermatixein (crumble), rumbein (whirl): of all these sorts of movements he generally finds an expression in the letter R, because, as I imagine, he had observed that the tongue was most agitated and least at rest in the pronunciation of this letter, which he therefore used in order to express motion|Cratylus.<ref>(This is an open source translation available at [http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/cratylus.html Internet Classics Archive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150325050942/http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/cratylus.html |date=2015-03-25 }}</ref>}}

However, faced by an overwhelming number of counterexamples given by Hermogenes, Socrates has to admit that "my first notions of original names are truly wild and ridiculous".

===Upanishads===

The Upanishads and Vyākaraṇa contain a lot of material about sound symbolism, for instance:

{{blockquote|The mute consonants represent the earth, the sibilants the sky, the vowels heaven. The mute consonants represent fire, the sibilants air, the vowels the sun… The mute consonants represent the eye, the sibilants the ear, the vowels the mind.|Aitareya Aranyaka III.2.6.2.<ref>[http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe01/sbe01237.htm] The Upanishads, translated by Max Müller, 1879.</ref>}}

The concept of Sphota and Nirukta is also based on this.

===Shingon Buddhism===

Kūkai, the founder of Shingon, wrote his ''Sound, word, reality'' in the 9th century which relates all sounds to the voice of the Dharmakaya Buddha.

===Early Western phonosemantics===

The idea of phonosemantics was sporadically discussed during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In 1690, Locke wrote against the idea in ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding''. His argument was that if there were any connection between sounds and ideas, then we would all be speaking the same language, but this is an overgeneralisation. Leibniz's book ''New Essays on Human Understanding'' published in 1765 contains a point by point critique of Locke's essay. Leibniz picks up on the generalization used by Locke and adopts a less rigid approach: clearly there is no perfect correspondence between words and things, but neither is the relationship completely arbitrary, although he seems vague about what that relationship might be.<ref>adapted from a literature review by Margaret Magnus</ref>

===Modern linguistics===

Modern linguistics has been seen as opposing sound symbolism, beginning with Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), considered the founder of modern 'scientific' linguistics. Central to what de Saussure says about words are two related statements: First, he says that "the sign is arbitrary". He considers the words that we use to indicate things and concepts could be any words – they are essentially just a consensus agreed upon by the speakers of a language and have no discernible pattern or relationship to the thing. Second, he says that, because words are arbitrary, they have meaning only in relation to other words. A dog is a dog because it is not a cat or a mouse or a horse, etc. These ideas have permeated the study of words since the 19th century.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

==Types== ===Onomatopoeia=== {{see also|Onomatopoeia}} Onomatopoeia refers to words that imitate sounds. Some examples in English are ''bow-wow'' or ''meow'', each representing the sound of a dog or a cat.

===Ideophone=== {{see also|Ideophones}} An ideophone is "a member of an open lexical class of marked words that depict sensory imagery".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dingemanse |first1=Mark |title=Chapter 1. 'Ideophone' as a comparative concept |journal=Iconicity in Language and Literature |date=15 May 2019 |volume=16 |pages=13–33 |doi=10.1075/ill.16.02din|hdl=21.11116/0000-0002-6949-7 |isbn=978-90-272-0311-3 |s2cid=171541216 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Unlike onomatopoeia, an ideophone refers to words that depict any sensory domain, such as vision or touch. Examples are Korean ''mallang-mallang'' 말랑말랑 'soft' and Japanese ''kira-kira'' キラキラ 'shiny'. Ideophones are heavily present in many African and East/Southeast Asian languages, such as Japanese, Thai, Cantonese and Xhosa. Their form is very often reduplicated, but not necessarily so.

===Phonaesthemes=== {{see also|Phonaestheme}} A phonaestheme is a sub-morphemic sequence of sounds that are associated to a certain range of meanings. A well-known example is English ''gl-'', which is present in many words related to light or vision, such as ''gleam'', ''glow'', or ''glare''. Since it is submorphemic, ''gl-'' itself is not a morpheme, and it does not form compounds with other morphemes: ''-eam'', ''-ow'', and ''-are'' have no meaning of their own. Phonaesthemes, however, are not necessarily iconic, as they may be language-specific and may not iconically resemble the meaning they are associated to.

===Sound symbolism in basic vocabulary=== Blasi et al. (2016),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Blasi |first1=Damián E. |last2=Wichmann |first2=Søren |last3=Hammarström |first3=Harald |last4=Stadler |first4=Peter F. |last5=Christiansen |first5=Morten H. |title=Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=27 September 2016 |volume=113 |issue=39 |pages=10818–10823 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1605782113|pmid=27621455 |pmc=5047153 |bibcode=2016PNAS..11310818B |doi-access=free }}</ref> Joo (2020),<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Joo |first1=Ian |title=Phonosemantic biases found in Leipzig-Jakarta lists of 66 languages |journal=Linguistic Typology |date=27 May 2020 |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=1–12 |doi=10.1515/lingty-2019-0030|hdl=21.11116/0000-0004-EBB1-B |s2cid=209962593 |doi-access=free |hdl-access=free }}</ref> and Johansson et al. (2020)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Erben Johansson |first1=Niklas |last2=Anikin |first2=Andrey |last3=Carling |first3=Gerd |last4=Holmer |first4=Arthur |title=The typology of sound symbolism: Defining macro-concepts via their semantic and phonetic features |journal=Linguistic Typology |date=27 August 2020 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=253–310 |doi=10.1515/lingty-2020-2034|s2cid=209913202 |doi-access=free }}</ref> demonstrated that in the languages around the world, certain concepts in the basic vocabulary (such as the Swadesh list or the Leipzig–Jakarta list) tend to be represented by words containing certain sounds. Below are some of the phonosemantic associations confirmed by the three studies:

{| class="wikitable" ! Concept !! Sound |- | Breast || Nasal sounds (e. g. /m/) |- | Knee || Rounded vowels (e. g. /o/) |- | Tongue || Lateral consonants (e. g. /l/) |}

=== Magnitude symbolism === High front vowels, such as /i/, are known to be perceptually associated to small size, whereas low and/or back vowels, such as /u/ or /a/, are usually associated with big size. This phenomenon is known as '''magnitude symbolism'''.

Sapir (1929)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sapir |first1=E. |title=A study in phonetic symbolism. |journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology |date=1929 |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=225–239 |doi=10.1037/h0070931|hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-002C-4324-D |s2cid=37090694 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> showed that, when asked which of the two tables, named ''mil'' and ''mal'', is bigger than the other, many people choose ''mal'' to be bigger than ''mil''. This phenomenon is not only observable in pseudowords, but present throughout English vocabulary as well.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Winter |first1=Bodo |last2=Perlman |first2=Marcus |title=Size sound symbolism in the English lexicon |journal=Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics |date=28 June 2021 |volume=6 |issue=1 |doi=10.5334/gjgl.1646|s2cid=238832121 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

=== Deictic symbolism === In many languages, the proximal demonstrative pronoun ('this') tends to have high front vowels (such as /i/), whereas the distal demonstrative pronoun ('that') tends to have low and/or back vowels (such as /u/).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Johansson |first1=Niklas |last2=Zlatev |first2=Jordan |title=Motivations for Sound Symbolism in Spatial Deixis: A Typological Study of 101 Languages |journal=Public Journal of Semiotics |date=1 January 1970 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=3–20 |doi=10.37693/pjos.2013.5.9668|doi-access=free }}</ref> Examples include: English ''this'' and ''that'', French ''ceci'' and ''cela'', Finnish ''tämä'' and ''tuo,'' and Indonesian ''ini'' and ''itu''.

=== Pronominal symbolism === First person pronouns (''me'') and second person pronouns (''you'') tend to contain a nasal sound.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nichols |first1=Johanna |last2=Peterson |first2=David A. |title=The Amerind Personal Pronouns |journal=Language |date=June 1996 |volume=72 |issue=2 |page=336 |doi=10.2307/416653|jstor=416653 }}</ref> Joo (2020)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Joo |first1=Ian |title=Phonosemantic biases found in Leipzig-Jakarta lists of 66 languages |journal=Linguistic Typology |date=27 May 2020 |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=1–12 |doi=10.1515/lingty-2019-0030|hdl=21.11116/0000-0004-EBB1-B |s2cid=209962593 |doi-access=free |hdl-access=free }}</ref> suggests that this may be related to the infant's tendency of using the nasal sound to seek the attention of the caretaker.

=== Phoneme symbolism (Bouba-kiki effect) === {{see also|Bouba/kiki effect}} thumb|right|250px|Which of the two shapes is ''bouba'', and which one is ''kiki''?

Wolfgang Köhler introduced what is known as the Takete-Maluma phenomenon. When presented two shapes, one being curvy and another being spiky, and asked which one is called ''Takete'' and which one is called ''Maluma'', participants are more likely to associate the name ''Takete'' to the spiky shape and the name ''Maluma'' to the curvy shape.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Köhler |first1=Wolfgang |title=Gestalt psychology; an introduction to new concepts in modern psychology. |date=1970 |publisher=Liveright |location=New York |isbn=0-87140-218-1}}</ref>

Following Ramachandran and Hubbard in 2001, this phenomenon is now more commonly known as the bouba/kiki effect, and has been demonstrated to be valid across different cultures and languages.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ramachandran |first1=V.S. |last2=Hubbard |first2=E.M. |title=Synaesthesia -- A window into perception, thought and language |journal=Journal of Consciousness Studies |date=1 December 2001 |volume=8 |issue=12 |pages=3–34}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bremner |first1=Andrew J. |last2=Caparos |first2=Serge |last3=Davidoff |first3=Jules |last4=de Fockert |first4=Jan |last5=Linnell |first5=Karina J. |last6=Spence |first6=Charles |title="Bouba" and "Kiki" in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape–sound matches, but different shape–taste matches to Westerners |journal=Cognition |date=February 2013 |volume=126 |issue=2 |pages=165–172 |doi=10.1016/j.cognition.2012.09.007|pmid=23121711 |s2cid=27805778 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ćwiek |first1=Aleksandra |last2=Fuchs |first2=Susanne |last3=Draxler |first3=Christoph |last4=Asu |first4=Eva Liina |last5=Dediu |first5=Dan |last6=Hiovain |first6=Katri |last7=Kawahara |first7=Shigeto |last8=Koutalidis |first8=Sofia |last9=Krifka |first9=Manfred |last10=Lippus |first10=Pärtel |last11=Lupyan |first11=Gary |last12=Oh |first12=Grace E. |last13=Paul |first13=Jing |last14=Petrone |first14=Caterina |last15=Ridouane |first15=Rachid |last16=Reiter |first16=Sabine |last17=Schümchen |first17=Nathalie |last18=Szalontai |first18=Ádám |last19=Ünal-Logacev |first19=Özlem |last20=Zeller |first20=Jochen |last21=Perlman |first21=Marcus |last22=Winter |first22=Bodo |title=The bouba/kiki effect is robust across cultures and writing systems |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |date=3 January 2022 |volume=377 |issue=1841 |article-number=20200390 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2020.0390|issn=0962-8436|pmid=34775818 |pmc=8591387 |s2cid=244103844 }}</ref>

===Tactile sound symbolism=== Bilabial consonants have been demonstrated to be linked to the perception of softness, arguably due to the soft texture of human lips.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sakamoto |first1=Maki |last2=Watanabe |first2=Junji |title=Bouba/Kiki in Touch: Associations Between Tactile Perceptual Qualities and Japanese Phonemes |journal=Frontiers in Psychology |date=12 March 2018 |volume=9 |article-number=295 |doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00295|pmid=29593602 |pmc=5857596 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kumagai |first1=Gakuji |title=The pluripotentiality of bilabial consonants: The images of softness and cuteness in Japanese and English |journal=Open Linguistics |date=31 December 2020 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=693–707 |doi=10.1515/opli-2020-0040|s2cid=231628731 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

The trilled R is frequent in words for 'rough' while infrequent in words for 'smooth'.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Winter |first1=Bodo |last2=Sóskuthy |first2=Márton |last3=Perlman |first3=Marcus |last4=Dingemanse |first4=Mark |title=Trilled /r/ is associated with roughness, linking sound and touch across spoken languages |journal=Scientific Reports |date=20 January 2022 |volume=12 |issue=1 |page=1035 |doi=10.1038/s41598-021-04311-7 |pmid=35058475 |pmc=8776840 |bibcode=2022NatSR..12.1035W |language=en |issn=2045-2322}}</ref>

==Use in commerce== Sound symbolism is used in commerce for the names of products and even companies themselves.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Klink |first1=Richard R. |title=Creating Brand Names With Meaning: The Use of Sound Symbolism |journal=Marketing Letters |date=1 February 2000 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=5–20 |doi=10.1023/A:1008184423824 |s2cid=166893362 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008184423824 |language=en |issn=1573-059X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> For example, a car company may be interested in how to name their car to make it sound faster or stronger. Furthermore, sound symbolism can be used to create a meaningful relationship between a company's brand name and the brand mark itself. Sound symbolism can relate to the color, shade, shape, and size of the brand mark.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Klink |first=Richard R. |date=2003 |title=Creating Meaningful Brands: The Relationship Between Brand Name and Brand Mark |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1027476132607 |journal=Marketing Letters |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=143–157 |doi=10.1023/A:1027476132607|s2cid=114904260 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sound Symbolism}} Category:Sound Category:Symbolism Category:Phonaesthetics Category:Onomatopoeia Category:Semantics