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Sound-Symbolism P THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM English Language & Applied Linguistics MA AL (part-time) RESEARCH METHODS ESSAY Term 2 (2017/2018) Student Number 1869751 Title of Module Language and the Senses (SENSES). Code: 09 29566 Question You will be asked to conduct a small research project, present the findings to the group in the form of a short presentation (maximum 12 slides) in week 9 and submit a 4,000 word written report. Plan a small experimental study or corpus study to investigate one of the following topics: • Language and the senses • Sound symbolism • Iconicity in brand names • Aspects of ineffability of perceptual information • Sensory metaphors • Taste and smell words • Expert vocabulary (wine experts, coffee experts etc.) • Sensory language in advertising You may base your study on one of the studies that we have explored in class, or you may prefer to develop your own. Number of Words 3, 933 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I declare: a. that this submission is of my own work; b. that this is written in my own words; and c. that all quotations for published or unpublished work are acknowledged with quotation marks and references to the work in question. Date: 18 / April / 2018........................................................................................................ filename: 1869751-RMSENSES1 CONTENTS 1: INTRODUCTION and BACKGROUND § Signs p. 3 § Arbitrariness and Iconicity in Language p. 4 § Sound-Symbolism p. 5 § Kiki and Bouba p. 6 2: The EXPERIMENT § Purpose p. 7 § Fictive Words and Novel Objects p. 7 § Method p. 9 § Predictions p. 10 3: The RESULTS § Quantitative Results p. 11 Name-to-Brick Preferences p. 11 Sound-to-Shape Preferences p. 12 Sound-to-Size Preferences p. 13 Consonant-for-Shape or Vowel-for-Shape? p. 14 Vowel-for-Size or Consonant-for-Size? p. 15 § Qualitative Results p. 16 4: FINAL COMMENTS and KEY FINDINGS § Final Comments p. 18 § Key Findings p. 19 APPENDIX p. 20 BIBLIOGRAPHY p. 22 - 2 - 1: INTRODUCTION and BACKGROUND § Signs A sign can be described as a pairing between a signifier and a signified in which the signifier represents, or stands for, the signified (Chandler, 2002; Danesi, 2002; de Sassure, 2013[1916]; Johansen & Larsen, 2002). To better illustrate what this means, consider the sign below (which is used to mark the presence of radiation): In this sign, the signifier is arrangement of three ‘pizza slices’ around a disc, while the signified is (something like) ‘Careful! Radiation!’. Signs are often described as being symbolic or iconic (Chandler, 2002; Danesi, 2002; Johansen & Larsen, 2002). In symbolic signs, the connection between the signifier and the signified is an arbitrary one. What this means is that the signifier has no natural, obvious connection to its signified (Chandler, 2002; Danesi, 2002; Johansen & Larsen, 2002; Nuckolls, 1999). The sign for radiation is a symbolic sign, as there is no natural, obvious reason that this arrangement of shapes, and not some other one (±, or ❖, or, :-0) should be used to warn us about the presence of radiation. Many words are symbolic signs, as, for example, in the case of ‘tree’. Given that the pronunciation of ‘tree’, [tri:], is not especially tree-like, there is no natural, obvious reason that this word, and not some other word (‘hotel’, or ‘janitor’, or ‘axe’), to talk about those tall, leafy things that grow from the ground. Iconic signs, meanwhile, are those in which the signifier does have a natural, obvious connection to its signified. For example, (some) paintings are iconic, as they have been made to look like whatever thing the artist chose to depict. In iconic signs, then, the connection between the signifier and the signified is non-arbitrary, as the signifier resembles its signified (Chandler, 2002; Danesi, 2002; Johansen & Larsen, 2002; Nuckolls, 1999). Words like ‘meow’, ‘quack’, and ‘moo’, or ‘boom’, ‘bang’, and ‘pop’ are not symbolic signs like ‘tree’, but are, instead, iconic ones. This is because - 3 - these words do resemble their referents, as their pronunciations sound like the actual sounds they refer to, be they animal sounds (like the former trio), or ‘explosive’ sounds (like the latter trio). Words like these, which resemble the sounds they refer to, are called onomatopoeic words (Miller, 2014; Schmidtke, Conrad, & Jacobs, 2014). § Arbitrariness and Iconicity in Language That a language can consist of both symbolic (‘tree’) and iconic (‘meow’) signs has been noticed since the time of Plato1. However, in modern linguistics, it has become standard, following de Sassure’s Course (2013[1916]), to think of a language as a system that relies on arbitrary symbols, and to view arbitrariness as an essential design feature of language (Hockett, 1959, 1960). As a consequence of this view, the ‘arbitrariness-of-the-linguistic-sign’ view (de Sassure, 2013[1916]), many have come to see those elements of a language that are iconic, like ‘meow’, ‘quack’, and ‘moo’, as a minority of anarchic, lawless elements that exist outside the ‘real’ language system. According to this view, then, onomatopoeic words can be ignored without consequence, as they are not examples of ‘proper’ language (de Sassure, 2013[1916]; Müller, 1869; c.f., Ahlner, 2009; Ahlner & Zlatev, 2010; Dingemanse et al., 2015; Hinton, Nichols & Ohala, 1994; Lockwood & Dingemanse, 2015; Nuckolls, 1999). Yet many of those who have claimed that arbitrariness is essential to language have, as Ahlner (2009; Ahlner & Zlatev, 2010) points out, made these claims based solely upon the study of the major European languages, and under the assumption that what is true of these languages must be true of all languages. But, those who have studied one or more of the world’s other languages, including its sign-languages (Taub, 2001), have noticed that these many of them make extensive and substantial use of iconic elements, and that, additionally, these elements are not, by any means, marginal or wayward (Dingemanse et al., 2015; Hinton, Nichols & Ohala, 1994; Lockwood & Dingemanse, 2015). 1 See Plato’s dialogue Cratalyus, circa 400BC. - 4 - § Sound-Symbolism In discussing iconicity in language, the term sound-symbolism is often used to distinguish linguistic iconicity, from iconicity in other modalities (Ahlner & Zlatev, 2010; Dingemanse et al., 2015; Hinton, Nichols & Ohala, 1994; Lockwood & Dingemanse, 2015). So far, the only examples of sound-symbolism that have been given are words like ‘meow’ and ‘pop’. However, languages can be iconic in different ways, so, imitative, ‘sound-alike’ words, like the ones just mentioned, represent just one kind of sound-symbolism (Dingemanse et al., 2015; Hinton, Nichols & Ohala, 1994; Lockwood & Dingemanse, 2015). Hinton, Nichols and Ohala (1994) have devised a typology of sound-symbolic phenomena that distinguishes imitative sound-symbolism (which covers the kinds of onomatopoeic words that have already been mentioned) from (amongst other things) synesthetic sound-symbolism. If imitative sound-symbolism is when a speech sound is used to refer to the acoustic properties of something else, like when the word ‘meow’ is used to refer to a cat’s call, then synesthetic sound-symbolism is when a speech sound is used to refer to the non-acoustic properties of something else (Hinton, Nichols & Ohala, 1994). One example of synesthetic sound-symbolism is when a speaker chooses different consonants, perhaps [k] and [b], to indicate differences in shape, or chooses different vowels, perhaps [i:] and [u:], to indicate differences in size (more on this shortly). A second example of synesthetic sound- symbolism is a class of words called ideophones. Ideophones are constructions that allow speakers to provide holistic descriptions of sensory events (Dingemanse, 2011, 2012, 2118). For example, ‘koro-koro’, a Japanese ideophone, means something like ‘small, continuously rolling, object’2 (Kita, 2008). 2 To refer to an experience of a large, continuously rolling, object, one would say ‘goro-goro’. Note that the only difference between ‘koro-koro’ and ‘goro-goro’ is between the initial consonants, and, additionally, note that these sounds are identical except that one is voiced while the other is not. Given that the voicing differences between two [k] and [g] appear to be marking non-acoustic differences between two differently-sized objects, this is a yet another example of synesthetic sound-symbolism. - 5 - § Kiki and Bouba Before continuing, it’s worth mentioning an experimental paradigm called the Kiki- Bouba paradigm, this is because the experiment described below is an addition to, and continuation of, this very paradigm. This tradition of experiments began, in 1929, with an experiment by Wolfgang Köhler. In this experiment, Köhler first showed his participants two shapes: a pointed, star-like shape and a rounded, cloud-like shape, then, he asked each participant to say which shape was ‘Takete’ and which was ‘Baluba’ (Köhler, 1929). Despite the fact that ‘Takete’ and ‘Baluba’ were both nonsense words with no conventional, ‘public’ meanings, many participants preferred to call the star-like shape ‘Takete’, and the cloud-like shape ‘Baluba’. In a more recent experiment, by Ramachandran and Hubbard, participants were also shown star- and cloud-like shapes, but, this time, the names ‘Takete’ and ‘Baluba’ were replaced with ‘Kiki’ and ‘Bouba’. When asked which name belonged to which shape, 95 – 98% of the participants preferred to call the star-like shape ‘Kiki’ and the cloud-like shape ‘Bouba’ (Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001). Given that, in both of these
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