Does the name say it all? Investigating phoneme-personality sound symbolism in first names.

Sidhu, David M.; Deschamps, Kristen; Bourdage, Joshua S.; Pexman, Penny M.

doi:10.1037/xge0000662

Cited by 35 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 97 publications

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“…CSBBCS MID-CAREER AWARD 7 Figure 1. Associations between round-sounding (e.g., Lou, Megan) and sharp-sounding (e.g., Eric, Kate) names and each of the HEXACO personality factors (Lee & Ashton, 2004), across Experiments 2 and 4 in Sidhu et al (2019).…”

Section: Principle 1: Not So Arbitrarymentioning

confidence: 99%

How does meaning come to mind? Four broad principles of semantic processing.

Pexman¹

2020

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

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When we see or hear a word, we can rapidly bring its meaning to mind. The process that underlies this ability is quite complex. Over the past two decades, considerable progress has been made towards understanding this process. In this paper, I offer four broad principles of semantic processing derived from lexical-semantic research. The first principle is that the relationship between form and meaning is not so arbitrary and I explore that by describing efforts to understand the relationship between form and meaning, highlighting advances from my own lab on the topics of sound symbolism and iconicity. The second principle is that more is better and I summarize previous research on semantic richness effects, and how those effects reveal the nature of semantic representation. The third principle is the many and various properties of abstract concepts. I point to abstract meaning as a challenge for some theories of semantic representation. In response to that challenge, I outline what has been learned about how those meanings are acquired and represented. The fourth principle is that experience matters, and I summarize research on the dynamic and experience-driven nature of semantic processing, detailing ways in which processing is modified by both immediate and long-term context. Finally, I describe some next steps for lexical-semantic research.

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Section: Principle 1: Not So Arbitrarymentioning

confidence: 99%

How does meaning come to mind? Four broad principles of semantic processing.

Pexman¹

2020

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

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“…Nevertheless, there are cases in which systematic associations between sounds and meanings hold; these patterns are known as “sound symbolism.” One well‐known example is the observation that speakers of many languages feel nonce words containing [a] (e.g., [mal]) to be larger than those containing [i] (e.g., [mil]) (Berlin, 2006; Newman, 1933; Sapir, 1929; Shinohara & Kawahara, 2016; Ultan, 1978). Another well‐known case is the takete‐maluma effect (Köhler, 1947), in which names with voiceless obstruents tend to be associated with angular shapes, while names with sonorants tend to be associated with round shapes (Sidhu, Deschamps, Bourdage, & Pexman, 2019). These sound symbolic effects are observed in experimental settings as well as in the form of statistical skews in the lexicon (see the overview papers cited below).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sound symbolism and theoretical phonology

Kawahara

2020

Language and Linguist. Compass

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A received wisdom in modern linguistic theories is that the relationships between sounds and meanings are generally arbitrary. However, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that in some cases sounds and meanings have systematic relationships—patterns known as “sound symbolism.” Yet most of these studies are conducted by psychologists, cognitive scientists, or cognitive linguists, and currently, only a few theoretical phonologists pay serious attention to sound symbolism. This paper reviews major studies on sound symbolism and argues that sound symbolism can be an interesting topic of exploration for theoretical phonologists. This paper also demonstrates that insights gained by phonological research can shed light on some important issues in the studies of sound symbolism, and vice versa. Overall, I hope that this paper is informative for both theoretical phonologists and researchers who work on sound symbolism.

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“…Thus, these results demonstrate that the maluma/takete effect, and sound symbolism more broadly, will emerge even when examined using stimuli with existing associated information. This is notable as some have speculated that when linguistic stimuli are associated with existing semantics, effects of sound symbolism may be attenuated (for discussions see [18, 21]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite this work, the extent to which non-onomatopoeic iconicity can affect processing is still somewhat unclear. Studies that have directly examined sound symbolic associations such as the maluma/takete effect in existing language have been equivocal [5, 18–20] with some authors speculating that when linguistic stimuli are associated with existing semantic information, this might diminish effects of sound symbolism (see [18, 21]). That is, when a word has meaning associated with it, the activation of that meaning during processing could interfere with sound symbolic associations evoked by its phonemes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is un stylo sharper than une épée? Investigating the interaction of sound symbolism and grammatical gender in English and French speakers

2019

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While the arbitrariness of language has long been considered one of its defining features, there is growing evidence that non-arbitrariness also plays an important role. Here we investigated two sources of non-arbitrariness: systematicity (via grammatical gender) and iconicity (via shape sound symbolism). We manipulated these two elements orthogonally, allowing us to examine the effect of each. In Experiment 1, we found that French speakers associated nonwords containing feminine (masculine) endings with round (sharp) shapes. French speakers also associated nonwords containing round-sounding (sharp-sounding) phonemes with round (sharp) shapes. This was repeated using auditory presentation with both an English-speaking (Experiment 2a) and French-speaking (Experiment 2b) sample. As predicted, the English speakers showed no effects of grammatical gender, while the French speakers did. These results demonstrate that speakers of a language with grammatical gender associate different properties to words belonging to different genders. The results also show that sound symbolism can emerge in stimuli with existing associated information (i.e., endings indicative of grammatical gender, and the association that they evoke). Finally, while previous studies have looked at effects of arbitrary and non-arbitrary mappings contained in a single stimulus, this is the first study to demonstrate that different kinds of non-arbitrary mappings can have an effect when appearing in the same stimulus. Together these results add to our understanding of the importance of non-arbitrariness in language.

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Does the name say it all? Investigating phoneme-personality sound symbolism in first names.

Cited by 35 publications

References 97 publications

How does meaning come to mind? Four broad principles of semantic processing.

How does meaning come to mind? Four broad principles of semantic processing.

Sound symbolism and theoretical phonology

Is un stylo sharper than une épée? Investigating the interaction of sound symbolism and grammatical gender in English and French speakers

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