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: https://orcid.org/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
Related URLs:	Dataset
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, Health and Sciences
Research Priority Areas:	Health, Life Sciences, Sport and Wellbeing
Depositing User:	Anne Pengelly
Date Deposited:	12 Jul 2019 12:41
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2025 08:15
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/7013

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