Sound Symbolism - Will Styler, Spring 2015

## What do you say to a Llama that loves picnicking? Alpaca lunch.
	
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### This presentation is available (now) at:

[http://www.savethevowels.org/talks](http://www.savethevowels.org/talks)

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## Sound and Meaning
Will Styler - Semantics

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# The Classical View

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### Non-arbitrary signs

*The sign is causally linked to the signfied*

Smoke indicates fire

Bleeding indicates injury

Will's presence indicates crappy puns

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### Iconic (or representational) signs

*A referential abstraction from the signified*

# ☂ ☃ ☀

Some hand gestures

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### Arbitrary Signs

*Referential only by agreement and widespread knowledge*

Non-representational symbols (♄)

Non-iconic gestures

* ... and, most importantly...

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# Language!

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### We're kind of committed to that idea

> "Language - A System of Arbitrary Signs"

(from Finegan's [Language: Its Structure and Use](http://www.amazon.com/Language-Its-Structure-Edward-Finegan/dp/0495900419))

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### (Most) language is based on sound

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* ###The connection between sound and meaning is arbitrary!

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# Phonosemantics

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### Phonosemantics

*The study of and search for non-arbitary meanings in speech sounds*

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### How can sound have non-arbitrary meaning?

Iconicity

Analogy

Emergent groupings

Sounds really mean something

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## Meaning by Iconicity

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### "Sound Effects"

* "Boom!"

* "Pew pew pew!"

* "Vroom vroom!"

* Sound effects can be arbitrary, too!

* (c.f. Rimshot, Sad Trombone)

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## Onomatopoeia

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### Onomatopoeia

*Words which, when spoken, sound kind of like the things they represent*

* (See also the idea of an [Ideophone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideophone))

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### Onomatopoetic Words in English

Gurgle

Woof

Snip

Whoosh

Tweet

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### <danger>What's your favorite onomatopoetic word?</danger>

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### Onomatopoeia differs across languages 
		
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<img class="big" src="img/rooster.jpg">

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### A rooster says...

cock-a-doodle-doo (English)

kukko kiekuu (Finnish)

chicchirichí (Italian)

kuklooku (Urdu)

kukuriku (Hungarian)

Sourced from [this awesome site](http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/animal.html)

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(So, different languages can't even map sounds onto sounds uniformly)

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Sometimes, the meaning comes from *how* you say it

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## Suprasegmental Changes

*The changes you can make to a pronunciation without changing the sequence of phonemes used.*

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### Types of Suprasegmental Changes

Pitch of the voice

Duration of sounds/words

Voicing type (Breathy, Creaky)

Articulatory Setting

**How could we use each of these to express iconic meaning?**

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... but meaning doesn't have to come from iconicity at all!

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# Meaning by Analogy

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### Phonological Analogy

*Mental links between words which sound similar to each other in some way*

"Meaning by association/spreading activation"

Most relevant to neologisms

Sometimes morphologically analyzable

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## Meaning-by-analogy is *everywhere*

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<section data-background="img/hogwarts.jpg">
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### Analogy at Hogwarts

Slytherin House

Severus Snape

Luna Lovegood

Voldemort

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### Analogy in PR Crises

Altria   <small>(Formerly Philip Morris)</small>

Academi    <small>(Formerly Blackwater)</small>

Xfinity    <small>(Formerly Comcast)</small>

VALIC    <small>(Spun off from AIG)</small>

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### Analogy in Antidepressants

Elavil

Surmontil

Zoloft

Paxil

Wellbutrin

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### Analogy in Cosmetics

* Re-Nutriv

* Eternicils

* Amplicils

* Orchidee imperiale

* lol

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### Analogy in other products

Volkswagen Jetta

Febreze

Rogaine

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## ... but sometimes, whole groups of words sound alike

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# Meaning by Emergent Groupings (Phonaesthemes)

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## An Experiment

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### "Would you like to buy a new Glimp?  It..."

a) Sharpens knives.

b) Lights up your house.

c) Tastes good.

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### "Damnit, I left my meb in the car!"

a) I won't be able to sew as well.

b) I'll be unable to fill my bird feeders

c) What if there's a fire?!

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### "Have you seen my snofter?..."

a) My nose is sore.

b) I dropped a glass.

c) It's cold in here.

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### "I got diabetes.  It must be from drinking all that..."

a) Blurge cola

b) Murple cola

c) Slize cola

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### "You Mom is plafty."

a) "Them's fighting words."

b) "Maybe?"

c) "Thanks!"

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### "Your Mom is slafty."

a) "Them's fighting words."

b) "Maybe?"

c) "Thanks!"

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### Phonaesthemes

*"Frequently recurring sound-meaning pairings that are not clearly contrastive morphemes"*

(definition from [Bergen 2004](http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/language/v080/80.2bergen.pdf))

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### Phonaesthemes in English

gl- ‘light, vision’ *glimmer, glisten, glitter, gleam, glow, glint*, etc.

sn- ‘nose, mouth’ *snore, snack, snout, snarl, snort, sniff, sneeze*, etc.

sl - 'pejorative', *slack, slouch, sludge, slime, slash, sloppy, slug, sluggard, slattern, slut, slang, sly, slither, slow, sloth*, etc.

b_l - 'expand abnormally', *blimp, bulge, bulk, balloon, blip*

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### Phonaesthemes aren't morphemes!

in- *'inedible', 'inconceivable', 'indelible', 'incorrect'* is a morpheme, not a phonaestheme!

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## If they're not morphemes, what are they?

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### Emergence

*Complex systems and patterns which arise through simple interactions*

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### Langton's Ant

At a white square, turn 90° right, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit

At a black square, turn 90° left, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit

![](img/langtonsant2.gif)

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### Emergence is useful in language

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### It could account for phonological phenomena

* Bug -> Bugs

* Tug -> Tugs

* Rug -> Rugs

* Wug -> ???

* Note that there's no "rule" here

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### It could account for constructions in Syntax

* She cut her way through the jungle

* She fought her way through the orcs

* She bribed her way through the Senate

* She resected her way through the abdominal cavity.

* Construction Grammar is an emergent flavor of syntax.

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### It could account for phonaesthemes!

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### How could phonaesthemes emerge?

![](img/bergentable.png)

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## How real are phonaesthemes?

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### Bergen 2004

[Bergen 2004](http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/language/v080/80.2bergen.pdf) tested this by playing pairs of words which were:

Phonaesthemes (glitter:glow)

Similar sounding (druid:drip)

Similar meaning (cord:rope)

Similar sound/meaning, but not a group (crony:crook)

Baseline (frill:barn)

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### How real are phonaesthemes?

Reaction times were faster after a phonaestheme than after any other condition!

> These results very clearly indicate that targets are responded to much more quickly when they share a phonaestheme with their prime than when they share form, meaning, both, or nothing with it.

So, they sure act real...

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## Phonaesthemes in language

They can attract new members (drag, flag, lag, and *sacke* -> "sag")

[According to Keith McCune](http://books.google.com/books/about/The_internal_structure_of_Indonesian_roo.html?id=8kwHAQAAIAAJ), most Indonesian language words have phonosemantic components.

Japanese has a rich system of phonosemantics (according to [this guy](http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/infolib/meta_pub/G0000003gakui_D1004724))

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### ... but all of these deal with relations between words.

## Do sounds themselves actually have meanings?

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# The Meaning of Sounds

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## There are two sides to this coin:

Psuedoscience "sound meanings"

Actual cognitive phenomena

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### Sound Symbolism Silliness

["Sound Symbolism and your Business Name"](http://www.brandroot.com/resources/item/11-sound-symbolism-and-your-business-name)

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<img src="img/symbolismvowels.png">

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### "Sound symbolism" in product naming

"BlackBerry" (Fast segments, nicely timed)

"Dasani" (CVCVCV, simple syllables)

"Swiffer" (Psuedo-phonestheme, onomatopoetic)

People pay [Lexicon Branding](http://www.lexiconbranding.com) lots of money to do this.

LOL

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### There are some real phenomena...

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## An experiment!

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![](img/boubakiki.png)

<h1 style="float: right;padding-right: 150px">Bouba</h1>

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### The Bouba/Kiki Effect

First observed on Tenerife (in Spanish) by Wolfgang Köhler in 1929.  There, it was "Takete" vs. "Baluba".

Repeated with US and Tamil Undergrads by V.S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard. [95% labeled them as expected](http://cbc.ucsd.edu/pdf/Synaesthesia%20-%20JCS.pdf).

[2.5 year old kids show a Bouba/Kiki effect too!](http://psych.mcmaster.ca/maurerlab/Publications/Maurer_bouba.pdf)

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### Why Kiki and Bouba?

Perhaps it's mouth-shape related (high vowels vs. lower vowels?  Lip rounding?)

Perhaps direct sensory integration.

[Autistic Children do not show a Bouba/Kiki effect](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470910701563681)

But it's clearly more complicated than the marketers think.

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# Problems with Phonosemantics

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![](img/paperbag.jpg)

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### Phonosemantic Problem #1

* Neologisms (new words) aren't uniform.

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### Phonosemantic Problem #2

* Different languages use different sounds to describe the same meaning.

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## If these effects exist, they're not that strong.

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# So, do sounds have meaning?

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### Words and speech can have iconic meaning

Onomatopoeia

Iconic Suprasegmentals

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### Words can pick up meaning from near neighbors

Similar sounding words can prime meanings

Spreading activation of meaning

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### Groups of words can sound alike

Phonaesthemes are groups of semantically and phonologically related words.

Phonaesthemes emerge from lexical statistics

Words with phonaesthemes will inherit the meaning of the group.

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### Sounds can have meaning

![](img/boubakiki.png)

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### ... but not nearly as often as the marketers wish!

One concept, many words

It's most certainly not deterministic

These effects are the exception, not the rule.

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### So, sounds have meaning, but...

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### Other phonosemantics resources

[Margo's Magical Letter Page](http://www.trismegistos.com/MagicalLetterPage/)

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<huge>Thank you!</huge>

Will Styler - will@savethevowels.org

http://savethevowels.org/talks/
	 
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