A Study of the Productivity of Twelve English Onset Phonaesthemes
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
A Study of the Productivity of Twelve English Onset Phonaesthemes Presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Michael Willett Cardiff University, 2015 Declaration This work has not been submitted in substance for any other degree or award at this or any other university or place of learning, nor is it being submitted concurrently in candidature for any degree or other award. Signed: (Michael Willett; candidate). Date: 01.07.2014 Statement 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). Signed: (Michael Willett; candidate). Date: 01.07.2014 Statement 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. The views expressed are my own. Signed: (Michael Willett; candidate). Date: 01.07.2014 Statement 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed: (Michael Willett; candidate). Date: 01.07.2014 Statement 4 – Previously Approved Bar on Access I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loans after the expiry of a bar on access previously approved by the Academic Standards & Quality Committee. Signed: (Michael Willett; candidate). Date: 01.07.2014 Acknowledgments There are many people to whom I am indebted for their assistance in the production of this work. To my parents, David and Ellen. What can I say except ‘thanks a million’. For never letting me settle for second best. To Gerard O'Grady; a top supervisor and a top mate. Thanks for your guidance these many years, and thank you for answering so many emails late at night. To Joanna Thornborrow, for planting the seeds of inspiration. To Tom Bartlett, for being the voice of reason. Next time you're in Filling Station in bonnie Scotland, there's a meal and a pint on me. To Lise Fontaine, for taking over the reins and for always having the right technological advice. To Marta Wilczek-Watson, William Cheyne and Milla Rauma, for all your help with translation. And for lending your voices, Marta Wilczek-Watson and Gabriella Bentley. There are a great many other people to whom thanks is due, including, but not limited to; Cerys Allen, Sian Alsop, Robert Bluszcz, Amy Cannon, Wendy Cannon, Dr. Justine Coupland, Dr. Nikolas Coupland, Rebecca Craze, Amanda Evans, Dawn Harrington, Laura Johns, Heather Kerchal, Harriet Lloyd, Monika Owen, Rhian Rattray, Carol Rees, Dr. Ben Saunders, Elzbieta Slota, Matt Smith, Alysse Stehli, Amy Stephens, Erica Swain, Sara Sylvester, Carys Watkins, Piotr Wegorowski, Angela Williams and James Winters. To Carly Rebecca Ellis, for the future. Last but not least, this thesis is dedicated to three very special people: First, to John Rupert Firth, linguist extraordinaire. Second, to my fallen hero Riaz “Rico” Mohammed. You were brave, you ventured into the unknown and you kept going long after I'd have given up. Life is cruel, mate, and I'll never forget you. Third, to my late grandfather Ken Nicholas, who passed away in the later stages of this work. You fought so bravely for so very long. Wherever you are, this one’s for you. This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Table of Contents List of Figures 1 List of Tables 2 List of Appendices (on attached CD-ROM) 4 Key to Symbols and Abbreviations 5 Abstract 6 Chapter 1: Introduction 7 1.1) The Context 7 1.2) Gaps in the Existing Phonaestheme Literature 10 1.3) Research Questions Posed 11 1.4) Aims and Scope of Thesis 12 1.4.1) Aims 12 1.4.2) Scope of Thesis 14 1.5) An Overview of the Thesis 16 Chapter 2: Literature Review 20 2.1) Defining ‘Meaning’: Denotation, Reference, Sense, Connotation 20 2.2) Defining Prosodies 25 2.2.1) The Two Components of the Speech Signal 25 2.2.2) Segmental Phonology – The Phonemic Approach 26 2.2.3) Prosodic Phonology 26 2.3) Defining Phonaesthemes 34 2.4) Phonaesthemes and Other Sound-Meaning Correlations 38 2.5) Phonaesthemes and Arbitrariness 46 2.6) Discussion in the Literature of the Twelve Phonaesthemes Under Test 51 2.6.1) Firth (1930; 1935) 53 2.6.2) Sturtevant (1947) 56 2.6.3) Marchand (1966) 57 2.6.4) Bowles (1995) 58 2.6.5) Crystal (2002) 60 2.6.6) Reay (2006) 61 2.6.7) Sadowski (2001) and Williams (2014) on the /ɡl/-<<light>> phonaestheme 62 2.6.8) Summary of Scholarly Support for the Twelve Phonaesthemes Under Test 63 2.7) Literature Review: Conclusion 64 Chapter 3: Motivating the Methodologies 66 3.1) Theoretical Support for the Emergence and Perception of Phonaesthemes 66 3.1.1) Usage-Based Phonology and the Perception of Phonaesthemes 67 3.1.2) Probabilistic Phonology and the Perception of Phonaesthemes 71 3.2) Studying Phonaesthemes Productively: Abelin’s (1999) Swedish Study 74 3.2.1) The Thesaurus and Cross-Language Experiments 81 3.2.2) Tests ‘1a’, ‘1b’, ‘2a’ and ‘2b’ 82 3.2.2.1) Sample Sizes 82 3.2.2.2) Tests ‘1a’ and ‘2a’ 83 3.2.2.3) Tests ‘1b’ and ‘2b’ 87 3.2.2.4) General Methodological Shortcomings of Tests ‘1a’, ‘1b’, ‘2a’ and ‘2b’: 88 The Presentation of Coined Words 3.2.3) Summary 90 3.3) Motivating the Languages Sampled 92 Chapter 4: Vocabulary-Based Experiments 96 4.1) Vocabulary-Based Experiment for Research Questions 1 & 2: Analysis of Dictionary 97 Headwords 4.1.1) Methodology 97 4.1.2) Results 101 4.2) Vocabulary-Based Experiment to Establish Token Frequencies of Phonaesthemes in 109 English: Corpus Analysis 4.2.1) Methodology 109 4.2.2) Results 110 4.3) Summary of Vocabulary-Based Findings 114 Chapter 5: Productive Experiments 116 5.1) The Pilot Study 117 5.1.1) Pilot Question Type 1: Matching Coined Words to Images 124 5.1.2) Pilot Question Type 2: Matching Images to Coined Words 129 5.1.3) Pilot Question Type 3: Word-Building 133 5.1.4) Pilot Question Type 4: Open-Ended Definitions 136 5.1.5) Pilot Question Type 5: Word-Ranking 138 5.1.6) Participant Feedback 142 5.1.7) Critical Evaluation of Pilot Study Findings and Feedback 142 5.1.8) Methodological Changes Implemented for Main Study 151 5.2) Methodologies and Findings of Main Productive Study 156 5.2.1) Experiment 1: Matching Coined Words to Images 156 5.2.1.1) Methodology 156 5.2.1.2) Results 160 5.2.2) Experiment 2: Matching Images to a Single Coined Word 163 5.2.2.1) Methodology 163 5.2.2.2) Results 166 5.2.3) Experiment 3: Open-Ended Definitions 170 5.2.3.1) Methodology 170 5.3.2.2) Results 176 5.2.4) Experiment 4: Word-Ranking; Simplified (Semantic-Differential Scales) 184 5.2.4.1) Methodology 184 5.2.4.2) Results 191 5.3) The Total Productivity of each Phonaestheme in English, French and Polish 197 5.3.1) Calculating and Comparing the Total Productivity of each Phonaestheme 197 5.3.2) Supplementing the Comparison with Statistical Testing 203 5.3.2.1) The Chi-Square test of the Data from Experiments 1 & 2 203 5.3.2.3) Chi-Square Results for Experiments 1 & 2 204 5.4) Comparing the Type, Token and Productive frequencies of the Phonaesthemes in English 206 5.5) Summary of Productive Findings 213 Chapter 6: Further Discussion 217 6.1) Exploring Multiple Semantic Recurrence and Multiple Phonetic Recurrence 218 6.1.1) The Choice of Phonaesthemes 218 6.1.2) Multiple Semantic Recurrence 219 6.1.3) Multiple Phonetic Recurrence 225 6.1.4) Summary of Findings Pertaining to Multiple Semantic Recurrence and Multiple 236 Phonetic Recurrence 6.2) Limitations of the Present Study 237 6.2.1) Limitations Concerning the Absence of Previous Research 237 6.2.2) Limitations Arising from the Scope of the Study 239 6.2.3) Methodological Limitations 242 Chapter 7: Conclusion 247 7.1) A Review of the Thesis and its Findings 247 7.2) Directions for Future Research 255 7.3) Contributions to the Field of Enquiry 263 References 265 List of Figures Item Page Figure 1 Autosegmental diagram of a falling tone across the English monosyllable /fɒɡ/ 29 Figure 2 The spread of [-voice] across the cluster /sl/ 30 Figure 3 The Duality of the Linguistic Sign: Signified and Signifier (adapted from Saussure, 47 1966:67) Figure 4 Phonological schema of lexical items with onset sequence [s] + [l] (adapted from 69 Bybee, 2001:22) Figure 5 Semantic schema of English plural words with final [z] (adapted from Bybee, 69 2001:23) Figure 6 The Simultaneous activation of schemas in the /ɡl/-<<light>> phonaestheme 75 (Bergen, 2004:305) Figure 7 Screenshot of the pilot study question type 1 testing the /ɡl/-<<light>> 128 phonaestheme Figure 8 Screenshot of the pilot study question type 2 testing the /ɡɹ/-<<gripping>> 132 phonaestheme Figure 9 Screenshot of the first pilot study word-building question, testing the productivity of 135 the /sl/-<<pejoration>>, /stɹ/-<<straightness/stretching>> and /ɡɹ/-<<gripping>> phonaesthemes Figure 10 Screenshot of question type 1 testing the /stɹ/-<<straightness and stretching>> 158 phonaestheme (main study) Figure 11 Screenshot of question type 2 testing the /stɹ/-<<straightness and stretching>> 165 phonaestheme (main study) Figure 12 Screenshot of the Semantic Differential scale question testing /kɹ/ and 185 <<crookedness; curvilinearity>> in the main study Figure 13 Graph showing the number of speakers in each cohort who ranked each onset at a 196 point on the scale inclined towards the meaning under test Figure 14 Graph showing the total productivity (%) of each phonaestheme among English, 202 French and Polish speakers Figure 15 Graph showing