Explorations of Sound Symbolism and Iconicity
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2019-09-17 Explorations of Sound Symbolism and Iconicity Sidhu, David Michael Sidhu, D. M. (2019). Explorations of Sound Symbolism and Iconicity (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/111016 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Explorations of Sound Symbolism and Iconicity by David Michael Sidhu A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN PSYCHOLOGY CALGARY, ALBERTA SEPTEMBER, 2019 © David Michael Sidhu 2019 i Abstract Sound symbolism refers to the finding that individuals have biases to associate certain language sounds (i.e., phonemes) with certain perceptual and/or semantic features (see Lockwood & Dingemanse, 2015; Sidhu & Pexman, 2018a). An example of this is the association between the phoneme /i/ (as in heed) and smallness. This is of special interest to language because it can enable iconic relationships between form and meaning: instances in which a word’s form maps onto its meaning via resemblance. For instance, the word teeny contains a vowel associated with smallness, and refers to something small. Iconicity can also exist through direct resemblance, in which a form imitates the meaning to which it refers (e.g., bang, woosh). In Chapter 2 I synthesize the existing sound symbolism literature to arrive at five potential mechanisms that could give rise to the associations between phonemes and features. I also discuss as yet unanswered questions for the field and propose ways in which future research might answer these questions. In Chapter 3 I demonstrate a novel form of sound symbolism, namely that between phonemes and personality factors. In a departure from much of the previous literature, I conduct this investigation using real first names, allowing exploration of sound symbolism in existing language. Further, by demonstrating an association between phonemes and an abstract dimension, I widen the scope of sound symbolism, and provide a novel test case for the potential mechanisms discussed in Chapter 2. In Chapter 4 I turn my attention to iconicity and its benefit to language processing. I demonstrate that iconic words are processed faster on a lexical decision task as well as a phonological lexical decision task, compared to arbitrary words. I consider how this finding might fit into an existing model of word processing. ii Finally, in Chapter 5, I explore the effect of iconicity on the structure of the lexicon. I demonstrate that iconic words tend to have more unique meanings, and to have a greater amount of associated sensory experience. I discuss how these findings could shed light on the emergence of iconicity in the lexicon over time. Across these diverse studies I explore non-arbitrariness in language both at the level of individual phonemes and entire words. A running theme throughout this work is a consideration of the mechanisms underlying these phenomena, as well as an exploration of their relevance to broad, existing language. iii Preface Chapter 2 is adapted from the pre-proof version of the following open access publication, permitted under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): Sidhu, D. M., & Pexman, P. M. (2018). Five mechanisms of sound symbolic association. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25, 1619-1643. Chapter 3 is a pre-proof version of the publication listed below, which is adapted with permission. Copyright © 2019 by American Psychological Association. Sidhu, D. M., Deschamps, K., Bourdage, J. S., & Pexman, P. M. (2019). Does the name say it all? Investigating phoneme-personality sound symbolism in first names. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. doi:10.1037/xge0000662 This article may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record. No further reproduction or distribution is permitted without written permission from the American Psychological Association. Chapter 4 is a pre-proof version of the following manuscript, which has been accepted for publication: Sidhu, D. M., Vigliocco, V., & Pexman, P. M. (in press). Effects of iconicity in lexical decision. Language and Cognition. iv Chapter 5 is a pre-proof version of the publication listed below, which is adapted with permission. Copyright © 2018 by Taylor & Francis. Sidhu, D. M., & Pexman, P. M. (2018). Lonely sensational icons: semantic neighbourhood density, sensory experience and iconicity. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33, 25-31. v Acknowledgements Thank you Penny Pexman for being the best supervisor anyone could ask for. If I were to rerun the simulation of grad school 100 times, I would hope to be lucky enough to be your student each of those 100 times. None of this would have happened without your wisdom, support and guidance. Thank you Mandy for your love, companionship and understanding. You’ve been a wonderful partner throughout this process and I can’t imagine having done it without you. I will always be grateful for the times you reassured me when things went wrong, and the times you celebrated with me when things went right. {~} Thank you Mom for fostering my imagination, and your unshakable love and belief in me. Thank you Dad for instilling in me the value of hard work and of not giving up. Thank you Puba, Jida, Kamar, Daniel, Guy, Felix, Noah, Adev, Tracy, Gord and all of my other family for your constant support over the years. Thank you to my friends for making life a joy. Thank you to all the lab members, graduate students and professors who helped me ask, and look for answers to, interesting questions. Thank you to my committee members Glen Bodner, Suzanne Curtin, Darin Flynn and Jamie Reilly for your time and thoughts. vi Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Sound Symbolism 1 Arbitrariness, Systematicity and Iconicity 4 The Studies to Follow 9 Chapter 2 9 Chapter 3 9 Chapter 4 10 Chapter 5 10 Chapter 2: Five Mechanisms of Sound Symbolic Association 12 Sound Symbolism 12 Size and Shape Symbolism 16 Arbitrariness and Non-Arbitrariness 20 Phonetic Features Involved in Sound Symbolism 27 Mechanisms for Associations Between Phonetic and Semantic Features 30 Mechanism 1: Statistical Co-Occurrence 32 Mechanism 2: Shared Properties 36 Low-level properties 37 High-level properties 38 Mechanism 3: Neural Factors 46 Mechanism 4: Species-General Associations 48 Mechanism 5: Language Patterns 51 Contextual Factors 53 Outstanding Issues and Future Directions 55 Phonetic Features 55 Relationship with Crossmodal Correspondences 58 Next Steps in Exploring Mechanisms of Association 60 Conclusion 65 Acknowledgements 68 Chapter 3: Investigating Phoneme-Personality Sound Symbolism in First Names 69 Introduction 69 Sound Symbolism 69 Sound Symbolism in Real Language 73 Phoneme-Personality Sound Symbolism 74 The Present Study 80 Experiment 1 83 Method 83 Ethics Statement 83 Participants 83 Materials and Procedure 84 Results 86 Discussion 89 Experiment 2 90 Method 90 vii Participants 90 Materials and Procedure 90 Results 91 Discussion 93 Experiment 3 93 Method 93 Participants 93 Materials and Procedure 94 Results 95 Discussion 105 Experiment 4 106 Method 106 Participants 106 Materials and Procedure 106 Results 108 Discussion 110 Experiment 5 111 Method 111 Participants 111 Materials and Procedure 112 Results 112 Discussion 114 General Discussion 115 Mechanisms for Phoneme-Personality Sound Symbolism 119 Real World Implications 124 Conclusion 126 Acknowledgements 127 Chapter 4: Effects of Iconicity in Lexical Decision 128 Introduction 128 Experiment 1 132 Methods 132 Participants 132 Materials and Procedure 132 Results 135 Statistics 135 Reaction time 136 Accuracy 137 Discussion 139 Experiment 2 139 Methods 139 Participants 139 Materials and Procedure 139 Results 140 Reaction time 140 Accuracy 142 Discussion 144 English Lexicon Project Analysis 144 Results 144 Discussion 146 viii General Discussion 147 Conclusion 150 Acknowledgements 151 Chapter 5: Semantic Neighbourhood Density, Sensory Experience and Iconicity 152 Introduction 152 Method 156 Materials and Procedure 156 Results 157 Discussion 163 Acknowledgements 166 Chapter 6: Conclusion 167 Limitations 168 Future Research 170 Sound Symbolism 170 Iconicity 171 Theoretical Contributions 172 Future Theoretical Refinements 174 Sound Symbolism 174 Iconicity 175 References 177 Appendix A 209 Appendix B 211 Appendix C 213 ix List of Tables Table 1 Sample definitions of phonetic sound symbolism in the literature. 13 Table 2 Definitions of linguistic terms used throughout the paper (derived from Ladefoged & Johnson, 2010; Reetz & Jongman, 2009). 18 Table 3 A summary of the shared properties that are proposed to be involved in sound symbolism. 45 Table 4 Definitions of linguistic terms used throughout the article (derived from Ladefoged & Johnson, 2010; Reetz & Jongman, 2009). 71 Table 5 “Round” and “Sharp” traits generated by participants and used