Sound symbolism is a theory that holds that certain vocal
sounds, or phonemes, carry meaning, at least in part, derived from their
specific sound. In this post, I will attempt to argue that sound symbolic language formed an integral part in the evolution of language, bridging the gap between using words as mere imitation of sounds (onomatopoeia) to the more complex forms of abstract language that we know today.
First, I'd like to begin by exploring a broad overview of the evolution of language. We can see that early humans began communicating via
simple hand gestures. This rudimentary form of communication then extended to
vocalizing the imitation of sounds to signify what you wanted to say, which we know today as onomatopoeia. The next
step in the evolution of language, I argue, was the use of sound-symbolic words
that were linguistically more complex then simple imitations of sounds, yet these
words still maintained some of their meaning derived from the phonemes in the
word. Finally, the last step in the evolution was formulating abstract words
that derive their meaning from some other source rather than the specific
sounds they make.
My research led me to the determination that words have certain sound-symbolic rules that allow universal detection of meaning. A study by Lowrey & Schrum (2007) studied this phenomenon finding that:
Front vowel sounds are ones that are made with the tongue forward in the mouth, such as the sound of the letter “I” in mill. Back vowel sounds are ones that are made with the tongue farther back in the mouth, such as the “a” sound in mall. Numerous prior studies have shown that the two types of vowel sounds tend to be associated with different concepts that are strikingly uniform, even across cultures. Front vowel sounds convey small, fast, or sharp characteristics, while back vowel sounds convey large, slow, or dull characteristics. (Lowrey & Schrum, 2007)
This theory is backed up by Ramachandran et al.,
(2001) which found that 95% of people could correctly determine the shape of an
object a word refers to given the antonyms “bouba” or “kiki”. This high
percentage of correct responses was found to be conclusive cross-culturally and
a study by Maurer et al., (2006) found that even toddlers as young as 2.5 years
old were able to distinguish between the two as accurately as adults. The
conclusion from these studies was that people are able to infer a particular
shape by distinguishing between rounded vowels versus non-rounded vowels. A
word like “bouba” has a round vowel like [o] and people thus associate it as
representing a round shape. On the other hand, “kiki” has a non-rounded vowel
[i] and as such is associated with being spiky. This explains why sound symbolism is especially prevalent in marketing and branding where companies want to use sound symbolic rules to denote specific characteristics of their products like size, speed, and shape.
All in all, the research shows that in certain pockets of vocabulary sound-symbolic rules inject meaning throughout languages on a seemingly universal, cross-cultural basis. That is why I argue sound symbolic language played a very important role in the evolution of language where sound symbolic words formed a pocket of vocabulary that can essentially be defined as a more abstract form of onomatopoeia where the meaning of the word still relied on the characteristics of some of phonemes of the word. This, perhaps, then formed the launching pad to more abstract forms of language such as the one we use today.
What do you think? Does it make sense sound symbolic word were important to the evolution of language or do you believe they came to be after humans had already acquired language? Sound symbolism is especially prevalent in marketing, can you think of any examples?
I think there is absolute validity to the theory of Sound Symbolism. I can draw several experiences that reflect a feeling of "that words sounds like it means X" especially when inventing words for fun with friends. Moreover, Lewis Carroll was famous for using Sound Symbolism in his works, like in his epic poem "Jabberwocky", where he writes,
ReplyDelete"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe. "
At no point in the poem do we know exactly what it's saying, but through Sound Symbolism we can infer the meaning and ambience of the narrative.
So to answer your final question, it's not only prevalent in marketing, but also in art!
The "bouba" vs. "kiki" example was brought up at the linguistics event on Thursday--I've been turning it over in my head ever since. It's an incredibly strong example of how effective sound symbolism can be. It seemed entirely doubtless that the word "bouba" matched the rounded, cloud-like shape, and "kiki" was paired with the spiky star.
ReplyDeleteI also began thinking about other words that seem to "match" their sounds. "Poof" came to my mind. The rounded vowels suggest something soft and unsubstantial. Like smoke, like a "poof" of air. Much like onomatopoeic words sound like the sound they mean, a word with sound symbolism that matches its meaning seems to have another layer to it.
I agree that this must come in handy for branding companies--"kiki" reminded me of "Nike." Nike's a good name, not only because of the reference to the goddess of victory, but because even the word "Nike," with it's unrounded vowels, suggests speed--perfect for an athletic brand.
Like Laura, I also attended the Linguistics event on Thursday and was surprised to find out how well “bouba” matched the rounder shape while “kiki” fit the spikier one. It made me realize that sound symbolism plays a huge role in everyday life. One example of a brand name that profits off of symbolic sounds is Hubba Bubba bubblegum. Aside from the catchy rhyme of Hubba Bubba, the more rounded and back shape of the vowels and the bilabial plosive of the [b] sound conjure up the image of a perfectly spherical bubble blown from this particular brand of chewing gum, perhaps enticing consumers to purchase this brand over others. Hubba Bubba’s competition probably includes Dubble Bubble and Bubbaloo for similar phonetic reasons. In addition to advertising, what intrigued me about this blog post was the strong connection between hand gestures and spoken language. This makes me wonder if the reason that I am passionate about dancing and watching dance performances is due to the bodily movements taking place of words that would normally be used to convey emotion, whether it be communicating desire by reaching out in the distance or expressing joy through majestic jumps and turns. It is amazing to think how much information one can get across not by using words but through the art form of dance as a kind of “body language.”
ReplyDeleteRather, I find the claim that a sound itself may convey some inherent semantic component unbelievable. Assume otherwise. If the connection between sounds and meanings were physiological (as argued in Plato's Cratylus), since every human being has more or less the same physiological apparatus for pronunciation, all languages of the world would exhibit largely systematic similarities/correspondences (as opposed to the episodic and highly random examples given here -- "small" itself being a counterexample, a word with back vowel that obviously does not convey something large). As for "kiki" and "bouba," I also don't consider it a particularly convincing argument for sound symbolism of rounded/unrounded vowels. If we use "bidi" and "kouza" probably the result would be less distinct, or even go reverse. The effect apparently demonstrates that our perception of the words may be influenced by their sounds, but that does not necessarily indicate how words originated or evolved.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Tom's comment, I would question the basis upon asserting that the truth of sound symbolism necessitates identical characteristics across all languages. This presumption requires an implicit assumption of a one-to-one relationship between sounds and symbols. I would infer that this relationship is false. Consider an example of various words/sounds that illicit similar semantic response, such as the bilabial and aspirate "pah!" and the smacking of lips. Each is distinct phonetically, but many would likely suggest each references similar semantics, such as the collision of two objects. Better examples may exist, but perhaps some symbols reference more than one meaning in phonetics.
ReplyDeleteThe most striking piece of evidence for an evolutionary explanation, in my opinion, is that sound symbolic words exist cross-culturally across languages. Languages far-removed geographically have whole groups of vocabulary dedicated to sound symbolism. For example, Japanese has a large inventory of sound symbolic words, also known as mimetic words. Words that fall under this category in Japanese are onomatopoeia (words that mimic actual sounds), words that depict non-auditory senses and words that depict psychological or bodily feelings. Mimetics are a very interesting topic on a brain-level, too. Consider how most words are complete abstract connections to real-world phenomena, whereas mimetics have actual innate connections to the real-world. When hearing an 'abstract' word, then does our brain resort to memory of the word and its significance? And when we hear a mimetic, is another part of the brain active? Studies show that the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) is active in listening to Japanese mimetics, an area not typically active in language reception.
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ReplyDeleteI disagree with Nicolas’s model of language evolution.
ReplyDeleteNicolas proposes that early humans first communicated with hand gestures and later began using onomatopoeia and language. I believe this is false. Almost all mammals use sounds to communicate, from dolphins to baboons and chimpanzees, so it’s very possible that language evolved as an almost universal characteristic of mammals shortly following the split between mammals and reptiles.
It is still a possible explanation, however, that humans and chimpanzees only developed oral communication after they split from a common ancestor, and that oral communication evolved convergently. I don’t think this is the case, however, because characteristic to the primate family, and to mammals more generally, is an oral cavity with vocal chords, and it would not make sense for vocal chords to have evolved as a universal mammal characteristic if all mammals did not use vocal communication.
I think Nicolas’s perception of early humans communicating primarily via hand gestures is a common misconception that comes from seeing misleading artistic depictions of early humans using hand gestures. I think that such a depiction was invented by artists to convey the primitiveness of early peoples who were in fact very complex.
This topic made me recall with great fondness a former English teacher who used to highlight with delight instances of “sound matching sense” in various poems, plays, and poetic prose we read! Many literary devices, such as alliteration, assonance, and cacophony, exploit properties of sound, and thus have the potential to evoke sound-symbolic associations. This made me wonder if there have been any studies to date that have investigated whether there is a positive correlation between the “success” of a poem (in terms of its popularity and perceived beauty) and the amount of sound-evoking literary devices it has. Moreover, I wonder if more experienced authors use a higher ratio of sound-evoking to non-sound-evoking literary devices than do amateur authors.
ReplyDeleteAside from literature, I have also noticed sound symbolism in everyday spoken language. For example, the front vowels [i] and [ɪ] often come immediately before or after [t] in words that evoke ‘smallness’: In French, “petit(e)” means “small”. In English, the verb “flit” signifies a small, quick movement. In Spanish, the morpheme “-ito” and “-ita” are added to convey smallness. In Bisaya/Visayan, the Filipino dialect I speak, we use “-ito” and “-ita” in a similar manner, likely a vestige of Spanish colonization in our history – at home, for example, I affectionately call my younger brother Miguel “Miguelito”, which means “little Miguel” – but we also see [i] and [ɪ] and paired with [t] in non-Spanish-derivative expressions in Bisaya, such as “na’ipit” (pronounced [nə’ɪpit]), which means “stuck, or squeezed into a small space.”
While my examples may hint at some universal aspect of sound symbolism, I would hesitate to say that sound symbolism is universal in the sense that all sound-semantic mappings are universally agreed upon. To continue with the phonemes I used above, [i] and [ɪ] can be combined with [t] to produce words that do *not* convey smallness like they do in the words above. In my native Bisaya, for example, “pa’it” and “panit” sound very similar to each other and to the “na’ipit” example above, but they all mean very different things: “Pa’it” means “foul to the taste”, “panit” means “skin”, and “na’ipit” means “stuck, or squeezed into a small space.”
If all sound-semantic mappings were universal, we would hear more systematic similarities among all human languages, as Tom alluded to. Put another way, we need another theory besides sound symbolism to explain how the distinct languages we have today came to sound so distinct. How come, for example, we say some languages are “harsher” than others?
Given that there are cross-cultural differences in sound perception, it seems reasonable to suppose that there are also cross-cultural differences in perceptions of qualitative aspects of sound like “harshness,” “brightness”, “beauty”, etc. that underlie sound symbolism. Becoming more immersed in a new language as a secondary-language speaker may also change our perception of these qualitative aspects of sound. Before I learned German, for example, I took it for granted that German is “harsh” because it contains a lot of fricatives. However, when I studied abroad in Germany, I did not think it was as harsh as before. Interestingly, while I was there, I started to perceive English as harsher than I did before. The harsh aspects of English may have eluded me before because when I communicate in English at home, at school, and with friends, I am more conscious of semantics rather than phonetics.
I found Marianne’s last paragraph about the various qualitative characteristics of language and the cultural differences in the perception of those characteristics intriguing. For me, at least, I’ve definitely noticed a difference in the way I perceive the languages that I speak fluently and those that I don’t.
DeleteFor me, at least, if I don’t know a certain language, I almost unavoidably slip into viewing that language as something foreign – as something more like music, which, while rich in emotional content/meaning, conveys much less directly pin-point-able, concrete meaning. (Of course it conveys meaning to those who speak the language in question; I just mean that it doesn’t convey any concrete meaning to me.)
Once you speak a language with a certain degree of fluency, it becomes more difficult to view it purely in terms of its qualitative characteristics – in terms of its rhythms, its musicality, its overall auditory character, etcetera. . . It becomes difficult (though not impossible) to hear a phrase you’ve heard a hundred times and, before comprehending its meaning, analyze its less semantic characteristics. With a phrase you’ve heard a hundred times, you comprehend the meaning it carries almost instantaneously; you process the phrase’s meaning and its qualitative characteristics simultaneously . . .
In an earlier comment, Cristian mentioned Lewis Carrroll’s “Jabberwocky.” I think poetry ( “Jabberwocky,” but also poetry in general) is one medium in which there is an attempt to re-emphasize the less semantic elements of language – by altering the sound patterns from those one would hear in casual speech, poets bring the less semantic elements of language back to the surface – so that they don’t go unnoticed in the rush to communicate meaning that so often characterizes daily speech.
I believe sound symbolic words played a significant role in the evolution of many languages but I'd be hesitant to assert their role in all languages. One language that has fascinated anthropologists and linguists for decades is the Khosian Click Language. Spoken by a tribe in central Namibia, theirs is a language characterized by a series of clicking sounds. I once watched a youtube video of a man speaking the click language. I tried desperately to discern the differences between the clicks as he described the way he used grass in his daily routine. After half an hour I gave up and began studying sanskrit; it was much easier! Seriously though, the click language is highly evolved yet, to the ears of many, has no discernible sound symbolic words. It's quite possible there exist many other languages similar to the click language as well. Sound symbolic words are probably more observed in Latin based languages. This is only a guess on my part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6WO5XabD-s
ReplyDeleteI do believe that sound symbolism may have affected the evolution of languages. It is mind-blowing to know that across different languages, similar vowel sounds can convey similar characteristics. This shows how in some manner or another, different languages are all somewhat connected.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do not think sound symbolism has much effect on how a person learns a language. I think the reason 95% of the people correctly identifies “bouba” and “kiki” is because they’ve seen other associations of such sounds and shapes in the past. And the people who’ve associated such sounds with such shapes in the past have done so because they’ve also seen such associations in their pasts. It’s a cycle of associations learned from the community, not from the sound symbolisms.
Immoral as it is, I’ve always wanted to try raising a kid with all the “wrong” symbolisms. For example, when I’m grounding him/her, I’d give him/her a thumbs up. When I’m sad, I’d smile. When I’m mad, I’d bake cookies and offer him/her unlimited access to the cookie jar. Then, would the kid associate a thumbs up with making a mistake? Would the kid associate a smile with sadness? (I promise I won’t carry out such an experiment, for the sake of the poor kid.)
Likewise, what would happen if a person grew up always seeing “bouba” associated with pointy objects and “kiki” associated with round objects? In that case, I don’t think the rounded [o] vowel or the non-rounded [i] vowel would have much effect. The person would name the spiky object “kiki” and the round object “bouba.”
Therefore, I think that although sound symbolism connects different languages (and probably contributed to the evolution of different languages), it doesn’t have a huge effect on how a person acquires their knowledge of a language.
In order to further investigate your ideas about sound symbolism I think it would be useful to compare certain words and the sounds used in them across multiple languages. Sometimes there does seem to be similar sounds used across all languages. This happens mostly with onomatopoeias such as animal sounds. However, even these are not identical. One of the earlier files in the book showed that animals make "different sounds" in different languages. For example, a dog says "ruff ruff" in English but "klav klav" in Hebrew. So even onomatopoeia are not necessarily the same across languages. Additionally, I think comparing the sounds of words that are not onomatopoeias across different languages would show whether there is a universality to sound symbolism. For example, in English do we associate the [i] sound with spike things because it is the vowel used in the word spike or do we use the vowel [i] because we think it sounds "spikey". Knowing whether the [i] appears in the French, Spanish, Italian, etc word for spike would be helpful to answering this question about English
ReplyDeleteI am not familiar with how the exact research for the bouba-kiki effect was conducted, but I am skeptical of its implications. It is apparently definite that some sounds show a higher correspondence with certain symbols, but can we be ever sure “which” sounds are the source of distinction? The sounds in the sample are “bouba” and “kiki”, and from the results we get from this experiment we cannot distinguish the effect of manners, places of articulations, voicing of consonants, the effect of tongue positions, and rounding of vowels. The experiment may show that the “sound symbolism” phenomenon is present, but it takes quite a lot of extrapolations and hand-wavy justifications to conclude that such a result arises from contrast between rounded/unrounded vowels.
ReplyDeleteNicolas’ theory, based on the research of Ramachandran et al., (2001), is very thought provoking. The presence of the phenomenon across cultures and languages does suggest that, at its very root, language was an amalgamation of onomatopoeic sounds. These sounds are continually identified with a large subclass of things when we use language. One particular feature that could call into this question this “early origin” theory is the amount that modern languages have intertwined and been influenced by one another. All of the Romance languages, for example, have interactions with at least one Slavic, Germanic, or Afro-Asiatic language. This is reciprocated in many other languages. Thus, it could be that this phenomenon is the result of a convergence of language, rather than a divergence after an early phoneme-based origin. These factors make it difficult to rely on experimental data that is not conducted longitudinally, since these experiments fail to capture the change over time that may have occurred.
ReplyDeleteI want to share my own experience:
ReplyDeleteI'm an international student. Last year, I learned the word 'boba tea' by guessing its meaning. Before I came to US, I knew what boba tea was, but I didn't know what it was called in English. When I first heard the word 'boba', I immediately pictured something round and cute in my head. I combined this sphere shape thing in my head with the word 'tea', and guessed what 'boba tea' might be. And it turns out that my speculation was correct!
Hence, I do think that people across cultures can associate certain sounds with certain images. However, I would argue that the phenomenon is a result from our observations from the nature and/or the daily life, not from our instincts about language. For example, we know that the bubbles in the water would make 'bobobo' sound, and the bubbles are round shaped. We also know that when we slide a finger nail across the blackboard, we would hear an uncomfortable 'kiiiszzsiiiiiiiii' sound, and our nails are very sharp. But this is only for sounds that have an obvious correspondence with images. As the book pointed out, most words are totally arbitrary.
As I read through this blog post, I kept trying to think of a word that contradicts this concept. I have found several examples but no contradictions. In Spanish, whenever you want to describe something as small/term of endearment, you add the suffix -ita/-ito. This is a front vowel sound, whose sole job is to make whatever you are talking about smaller. For example, if a family has a child named "Kelly," they might call her "Kell-ita." I didn't realize how powerful this was and how much we use it in Spanish, especially Perú, which is where my family is from. If we want to tell someone something will happen very quickly (small amount of time), we say "ahorita." Virgil brought up the clicking language, very different indeed, but I was wondering if anyone had any counterexamples? Front vowel sounds that describe something robust, large, big?
ReplyDelete