Sound Symbolism in Foreign Language Phonological Acquisition

Magdalena Wrembel

doi:10.2478/v10015-010-0013-6

Authors

Magdalena Wrembel Adam Mickiewicz University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/v10015-010-0013-6

Keywords:

sound symbolism, synaesthetic vowel mappings, pronunciation pedagogy

Abstract

The paper aims at investigating the idea of a symbolic nature of sounds and its implications for in the acquisition of foreign language phonology. Firstly, it will present an overview of universal trends in phonetic symbolism, i.e. non-arbitrary representations of a phoneme by specific semantic criteria. Secondly, the results of a preliminary study on different manifestations of sound symbolism including emotionally-loaded representations of phonemes and other synaesthetic associations shall be discussed. Finally, practical pedagogical implications of sound symbolism will be explored and a number of innovative classroom activities involving sound symbolic associations will be presented.

References

Berlin, B. 2006. Evidence for pervasive synesthetic sound symbolism in ethnozoological nomenclature. In Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.), Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 76-93.
Google Scholar

de Saussure, F. 1966. Course in general linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Google Scholar

Donegan, P. 1985. On the Natural Phonology of Vowels. New York: Garland Publishing.
Google Scholar

Diffloth, G. 2006. i: big, a: small. In Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.), Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 107-114.
Google Scholar

Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala. 2006. Introduction: Sound-symbolic processes. In Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.), Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-14.
Google Scholar

Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.). 2006. Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar

Jakobson, R. 1962. Selected Writings: I Phonological Studies. The Hague: Mouton.
Google Scholar

Jespersen, O. 1933. Symbolic value of the vowel i. Linguistica. Selected Papers in English, French and German. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 283-303.
Google Scholar

Kelly, G. 2000. How to teach pronunciation. Harlow: Longman.
Google Scholar

Lapolla, R. 2006. An experimental investigation into phonetic symbolism as it relates to Mandarin Chinese. In Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.), Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 130-147.
Google Scholar

Laroy, C. 1995. Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Ohala, J. 1984. An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 in voice. Phonetica 41: 1-16. 6204347
Google Scholar

Ohala, J. 2006. The frequency code underlies the sound-symbolic use of voice pitch. In L. Hinton, J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.), Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 325-347.
Google Scholar

Oswalt, R. 2006. Inanimate imitatives in English. In Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.), Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 293-305.
Google Scholar

Rhodes, R. 2006. Aural images. In Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.), Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 276-291.
Google Scholar

Sapir, E. 1927. Language as a form of human behaviour. The English Journal 16: 215-234.
Google Scholar

Sapir, E. 1929. A study of phonetic symbolism. Journal of Experimental Psychology 12: 225-239. doi: 10.1037/h0070931
Google Scholar

Sereno, J. 2006. Phonosyntactics. In Hinton, L., J. Nichols and J. Ohala (eds.), Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 263-275.
Google Scholar

Simner, J., J. Ward, A. Jansari, K. Noonan and D. Oakley. 2005. Non-random associations of graphemes to colours in synaesthetic and non-synaesthetic populations. Cognitive Neuropsychology 22, 1-17.
Google Scholar

Swadesh, M. 1971. The origin and diversification of language. Chicago: Aldine and Co.
Google Scholar

Ultan, R. 1978. Size-sound symbolism. In Greenberg, J. (ed.), Universals of human language, volume 2: Phonology. Stanford: University Press.
Google Scholar

Ward, J., B. Huckstep and E. Tsakanikos. 2006. Sound-colour synaesthesia: to what extent does it use cross-modal mechanisms common to us all? Cortex, 42, 264-280.
Google Scholar

Wrembel, M. 2007. Still sounds like a rainbow - a proposal for a coloured vowel chart. Proceedings of the Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conference PTLC2007 (CD edition). London: UCL, 1-4.
Google Scholar

Wrembel, M. 2009. On hearing colours - cross-modal associations in vowel perception in a non- synaesthetic population. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 45(4), 595-612. ThomsonISI: http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=000274330500007&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=b7bc2757938ac7a7a821505f8243d9f3
Google Scholar

Wrembel, M. and K. Rataj. 2008. Sounds like a rainbow - sound-colour mappings in non-synaesthetic population. In Botinis, A. (ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd ISCA Workshop on Experimental Linguistics, ExLing 2008, Athens: University of Athens, 237-240.
Google Scholar