Download pdf
Evidence to the Ubiquity of Sound Symbolism - Reviewing Recent Experimental Studies on Crossmodal Sound-meaning Association
- 1 School of Foreign Studies, Nankai University, Tianjin, China
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Sound symbolism, the study of the direct relationship between sound and meaning, challenges the traditional notion of the arbitrariness of linguistic symbols. This paper reviews recent experimental research, particularly studies utilizing nonce words, to explore the mechanisms and universality of sound-meaning associations and discuss the thematic and methodological innovations and restraints. Our synthetic review highlights the recently-discussed aspects including the robustness and ubiquity, the inner mechanism and potential undermining factors of the well-known bouba/kiki effect, suggesting that sound symbolism is deeply rooted in human cognition, although different methodological realizations may lead to contradicting findings. In light of the importance of sound symbolism in language evolution, acquisition, and use, this research underscores the crucial role of relevant bouba/kiki experiments as probe, which can offer a cross-linguistic perspective applicable to a wide range of languages and speakers.
Keywords
Sound symbolism, iconicity, sound-meaning correspondence, segmental feature, orthography
[1]. Saussure FD (1916) Cours de Linguistique Générale, eds Bally C, Sechehaye A, Riedlienger A (Payot, Paris).
[2]. Ćwiek, A., Fuchs, S., Draxler, C., Asu, E.L., Dediu, D., Hiovain, K., Kawahara, S., Koutalidis, S., Krifka, M., Lippus, P., Lupyan, G., Oh, G.E., Paul, J., Petrone, C., Ridouane, R., Reiter, S., Schümchen, N., Szalontai, Á., Ünal-Logačev, Ö., Zeller, J., Perlman, M., & Winter, B. (2021). The bouba/kiki effect is robust across cultures and writing systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377. Blake, B. J. (2017). Sound Symbolism in English: Weighing the Evidence. AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS, 37(3), 286–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2017.1298394
[3]. Dingemanse, M., Schuerman, W., Reinisch, E., Tufvesson, S., & Mitterer, H. (2016). What sound symbolism can and cannot do: Testing the iconicity of ideophones from five languages. Language, 92(2), e117–e133. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2016.0034
[4]. Feist, J. (2013). “Sound symbolism” in English. Journal of Pragmatics, 45(1), 104–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.10.008
[5]. Johansson, N. E., Anikin, A., Carling, G., & Holmer, A. (2020). The typology of sound symbolism: Defining macro-concepts via their semantic and phonetic features. Linguistic Typology, 24(2), 253–310. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2020-2034
[6]. Joo, I. (2020). Phonosemantic biases found in Leipzig-Jakarta lists of 66 languages. Linguistic Typology, 24(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2019-0030
[7]. Imai, M., Kita, S., Nagumo, M., & Okada, H. (2008). Sound symbolism facilitates early verb learning. Cognition, 109(1), 54–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.07.015
[8]. Maurer, D., Pathman, T., & Mondloch, C. J. (2006). The shape of boubas: Sound–shape correspondences in toddlers and adults. Developmental Science, 9(3), 316–322. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00495.x
[9]. Sapir, E. (1929). A study in phonetic symbolism. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12(3), 225–239. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0070931
[10]. Ohala, J. J. (1983). Cross-Language Use of Pitch: An Ethological View. Phonetica, 40(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1159/000261678
[11]. Tarte, R. D., & Barritt, L. S. (1971). Phonetic symbolism in adult native speakers of English: Three studies. Language and Speech, 14(2), 158–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/002383097101400206
[12]. Blasi, D. E., Wichmann, S., Hammarström, H., Stadler, P. F., & Christiansen, M. H. (2016). Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(39), 10818–10823. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1605782113
[13]. Lo, L.-Y., Luk, H. M., & Thompson, N. (2017). An Investigation of Sound-Symbolism in the Context of Tactile Feeling. The Journal of General Psychology, 144(2), 157–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2016.1276047
[14]. Winter, B., & Perlman, M. (2021). Size sound symbolism in the English lexicon. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 6(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1646
[15]. Passi, A., & Arun, S. P. (2024). The Bouba-Kiki effect is predicted by sound properties but not speech properties. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 86(3), 976–990. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-022-02619-8
[16]. Fryer, L., Freeman, J., & Pring, L. (2014). Touching words is not enough: How visual experience influences haptic–auditory associations in the “Bouba–Kiki” effect. Cognition, 132(2), 164–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.03.015
[17]. Hamilton-Fletcher, G., Pisanski, K., Reby, D., Stefańczyk, M., Ward, J., & Sorokowska, A. (2018). The role of visual experience in the emergence of cross-modal correspondences. Cognition, 175, 114–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.02.023
[18]. De Carolis, L., Marsico, E., & Coupé, C. (2017). Evolutionary roots of sound symbolism. Association tasks of animal properties with phonetic features. Language & Communication, 54, 21–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2016.10.003
[19]. De Carolis, L., Marsico, E., & Coupé, C. (2017). Evolutionary roots of sound symbolism. Association tasks of animal properties with phonetic features. Language & Communication, 54, 21–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2016.10.003
[20]. Jakobson, R., & Waugh, L. R. (2011). The Sound Shape of Language. De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110889451
Cite this article
You,Y. (2025). Evidence to the Ubiquity of Sound Symbolism - Reviewing Recent Experimental Studies on Crossmodal Sound-meaning Association. Communications in Humanities Research,69,54-60.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Literature, Language, and Culture Development
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).