PHONETIC UNDERPINNINGS OF SOUND SYMBOLISM ACROSS MULTIPLE DOMAINS OF MEANING.

ABSTRACT: Sound symbolism occurs when the sound of a word alone can convey its meaning, e.g. 'balloon' and 'spike' sound rounded and pointed, respectively. Sound-symbolic correspondences are widespread in natural languages, but it is unclear how they are instantiated across different domains of meaning. Here, participants rated auditory pseudowords on opposing scales of seven different sound-symbolic domains: shape (rounded-pointed), texture (hard-soft), weight (light-heavy), size (small-big), brightness (bright-dark), arousal (calming-exciting), and valence (good-bad). Ratings showed cross-domain relationships, some mirroring those between corresponding physical domains, e.g. size and weight ratings were associated, reflecting a physical size-weight relationship, while others involved metaphorical

SUBMITTER: Lacey S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11398306 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature