Sound-meaning relationships in speakers of Urdu and English: Evidence for a cross-cultural phonetic symbolism

Abstract

Twelve English- and 12 Urdu-speaking males, ranging in age from 18 to 30 years, were asked to assign pure-tone frequencies as a "best fit" to visually presented shapes. Six basic figures were employed (circle, ellipse, right triangle, isosceles triangle, along with two historical psycholinguistic forms--uloomu and takete) and varied on three dimensions of size, complexity, and density. The results of the study indicate that there was consistency in the assignment of pure-tone frequencies to the dimensions of the figures and that the pattern of assignment was generally similar for both English- and Urdu-speaking subjects alike. Specifically, for both language groups, round figures (circles and ellipses) were assigned significantly lower frequencies than other stimuli. Also, complex and dense figures (i.e., those designed to simulate "visual depth" and "visual texture," respectively) received significantly higher frequency settings than those stimuli not possessing these dimensions. Additional analyses revealed several factors that may have contributed to the observed pattern. For example, Urdu subjects of the English proficiency produced frequency assignments that closely resembled those of the English-speaking subjects, while subjects of low English proficiency produced a pattern that was somewhat different, particularly with regard to round, complex figures. Length of residency in the United States (6 months, 1 year, or 2 years), however, did not significantly influence frequency assignments for the Urdu subjects. These results are discussed in terms of "cross-cultural" versus "language-specific" phonetic symbolism.

Phonological and orthographic influences in the bouba–kiki effect

“…A later study testing the Songe of Papua New Guinea-who were likely illiterate-reported not finding the effect at all (Rogers & Ross, 1975). Finally, one other study showing similarities between speakers of Urdu and English in an adapted version of the bouba-kiki task (O'Boyle, Miller, & Rahmani, 1987) might also be accounted for by orthographic influence. Although Urdu has its own non-Roman script, it also has a Romanised version (Roman Urdu), and there is no information about whether participants were familiar with this.…”

Recall and recognition of brand names: A comparison of word and nonword name types

“…Research in phonetic symbolism also suggests that speakers of a language make associations based on particular sounds (Tarte, 1982). Phonemes may connote a particular size (e.g., large vs. small) (Fitch, 1995;Roper, Dixon, Ahern, & Gibson, 1976;Tarte & Barritt, 1971), a particular shape (e.g., round vs. angular) (DeVito & Civikly, 1972;O'Boyle, Miller, & Rahmani, 1987;O'Boyle & Tarte, 1980;Tarte & Barritt, 1971) and/or some other qualities. More specifically, English speakers judge the phoneme /i/ as small, light, soft, and harmonious, the phoneme /a/ as large, heavy, hard, dull, and rough, and the phoneme /u/ as slow, dull, and low (Tarte, 1982) (e.g., compare the connotations elicited by the nonwords nish, nash, and nush).…”

26. Word-creation

“…For an excellent overview of the problem and the older literature cf. also O'Boyle, Miller and Rahmani (1987) with further references. An in-depth empirical psycholinguistic study is presented by Ertel (1969), a variety of languages are contrasted in Fischer-Jørgensen (1978) and Ultan (1978), cf.…”