Synaesthetic sound iconicity
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Jan Auracher
Abstract
This paper reports results from an empirical study in synaesthetic sound iconicity, a specific form of phonosemantics defined as implicit and systematic associations of acoustic features of phonemes with non-acoustic phenomena. I argue that acoustic features of phonemes are implicitly associated with one pole or the other (e.g., high level or low level) of bipolar semantic concepts such as activity or dominance. Based on this assumption, it was hypothesized that pseudo-words consisting of plosive consonants and back vowels are associated with the emotion of anger, whereas pseudo-words consisting of sonorant consonants and front vowels are associated with the emotion of fear. This hypothesis was tested in an experimental setting, applying a speeded classification paradigm.
Abstract
This paper reports results from an empirical study in synaesthetic sound iconicity, a specific form of phonosemantics defined as implicit and systematic associations of acoustic features of phonemes with non-acoustic phenomena. I argue that acoustic features of phonemes are implicitly associated with one pole or the other (e.g., high level or low level) of bipolar semantic concepts such as activity or dominance. Based on this assumption, it was hypothesized that pseudo-words consisting of plosive consonants and back vowels are associated with the emotion of anger, whereas pseudo-words consisting of sonorant consonants and front vowels are associated with the emotion of fear. This hypothesis was tested in an experimental setting, applying a speeded classification paradigm.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgements vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction 1
-
General
- Three paradigms of iconicity research in language and literature 13
- Iconicity of logic - and the roots of "iconicity" concept 35
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Sound Meets Meaning
- Iconic inferences about personality 57
- Phonemes as images 71
- Synaesthetic sound iconicity 93
- What’s in a mimetic? 109
- Iconicity in the syntax and lexical semantics of sound-symbolic words in Japanese 125
- A corpus-based semantic analysis of Japanese mimetic verbs 143
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Language Meets Literature
- Iconicity in translation 163
- The days pass … 185
- Visual, auditory, and cognitive iconicity in written literature 207
- Don’t read too much into the runes 219
-
Grammar Meets Iconicity
- Iconicity in question 241
- Rethinking diagrammatic iconicity from an evolutionary perspective 259
- Author index 275
- Subject index 277
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgements vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction 1
-
General
- Three paradigms of iconicity research in language and literature 13
- Iconicity of logic - and the roots of "iconicity" concept 35
-
Sound Meets Meaning
- Iconic inferences about personality 57
- Phonemes as images 71
- Synaesthetic sound iconicity 93
- What’s in a mimetic? 109
- Iconicity in the syntax and lexical semantics of sound-symbolic words in Japanese 125
- A corpus-based semantic analysis of Japanese mimetic verbs 143
-
Language Meets Literature
- Iconicity in translation 163
- The days pass … 185
- Visual, auditory, and cognitive iconicity in written literature 207
- Don’t read too much into the runes 219
-
Grammar Meets Iconicity
- Iconicity in question 241
- Rethinking diagrammatic iconicity from an evolutionary perspective 259
- Author index 275
- Subject index 277
