Cross-linguistically shared and language-specific sound symbolism in novel words elicited by locomotion videos in Japanese and English

Chen, Si, Saji, Noburo, Akita, Kimi, Kantartzis, Katerina ORCID: 0000-0002-8008-144X, Kita, Sotaro and Imai, Mutsumi (2019) Cross-linguistically shared and language-specific sound symbolism in novel words elicited by locomotion videos in Japanese and English. PLoS ONE, 14 (7). e0218707. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0218707

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Abstract

This paper demonstrates a new quantitative approach to examine cross-linguistically shared and language-specific sound symbolism in languages. Unlike most previous studies taking a hypothesis-testing approach, we employed a data mining approach to uncover unknown sound-symbolic correspondences in the domain of locomotion, without limiting ourselves to pre-determined sound-meaning correspondences. In the experiment, we presented 70 locomotion videos to Japanese and English speakers and asked them to create a sound symbolically matching word for each action. Participants also rated each action on five meaning variables. Multivariate analyses revealed cross-linguistically shared and language-specific sound-meaning correspondences within a single semantic domain. The present research also established that a substantial number of sound-symbolic links emerge from conventionalized form-meaning mappings in the native languages of the speakers.

Item Type: Article
Article Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Linguistics; Semantics; Phonology; Consonants; Vowels; Lexical semantics; Biological locomotion; Languages
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Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania
Divisions: Schools and Research Institutes > School of Education and Science
Research Priority Areas: Health, Life Sciences, Sport and Wellbeing
Depositing User: Anne Pengelly
Date Deposited: 12 Jul 2019 12:41
Last Modified: 31 Aug 2023 09:04
URI: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/7013

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