Journal Article

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

Saji, Noburo, Kita, Sotaro, Imai, Mutsumi, Akita, Kimi, Kantartzis, Katerina

2019

Overview

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.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adult / Analysis / Biology and Life Sciences / Data mining / English language / Female / Human locomotion / Humans / Information retrieval / Japan / Japanese language / Language / Language for specific purposes / Languages / Locomotion / Locomotion - physiology / Male / Meaning / Medicine and Health Sciences / Multivariate Analysis / Native language / Novel words / Pattern Recognition, Physiological - physiology / Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology / Phonetics / Psychological aspects / Running - physiology / Semantics / Social Sciences / Sound / Sound symbolism / Speech - physiology / Symbolism / United Kingdom / Vocabulary / Walking - physiology