{"title":"Articulatory features of phonemes pattern to iconic meanings: evidence from cross-linguistic ideophones","authors":"A. Thompson, Thomas Van Hoey, Youngah Do","doi":"10.1515/cog-2020-0055","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Iconic words are supposed to exhibit imitative relationships between their linguistic forms and their referents. Many studies have worked to pinpoint sound-to-meaning correspondences for ideophones from different languages. The correspondence patterns show similarities across languages, but what makes such language-specific correspondences universal, as iconicity claims to be, remains unclear. This could be due to a lack of consensus on how to describe and test the perceptuo-motor affordances that make an iconic word feel imitative to speakers. We created and analysed a database of 1,860 ideophones across 13 languages, and found that seven articulatory features, physiologically accessible to all spoken language users, pattern according to semantic features of ideophones. Our findings pave the way for future research to utilize articulatory properties as a means to test and explain how iconicity is encoded in spoken language. The perspective taken here fits in with ongoing research of embodiment, motivation, and iconicity research, three major strands of research within Cognitive Linguistics. The results support that there is a degree of unity between the concepts of imitative communication and the spoken forms through cross-domain mappings, which involve physical articulatory movement.","PeriodicalId":51530,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Linguistics","volume":"32 1","pages":"563 - 608"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cognitive Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2020-0055","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Abstract Iconic words are supposed to exhibit imitative relationships between their linguistic forms and their referents. Many studies have worked to pinpoint sound-to-meaning correspondences for ideophones from different languages. The correspondence patterns show similarities across languages, but what makes such language-specific correspondences universal, as iconicity claims to be, remains unclear. This could be due to a lack of consensus on how to describe and test the perceptuo-motor affordances that make an iconic word feel imitative to speakers. We created and analysed a database of 1,860 ideophones across 13 languages, and found that seven articulatory features, physiologically accessible to all spoken language users, pattern according to semantic features of ideophones. Our findings pave the way for future research to utilize articulatory properties as a means to test and explain how iconicity is encoded in spoken language. The perspective taken here fits in with ongoing research of embodiment, motivation, and iconicity research, three major strands of research within Cognitive Linguistics. The results support that there is a degree of unity between the concepts of imitative communication and the spoken forms through cross-domain mappings, which involve physical articulatory movement.
期刊介绍:
Cognitive Linguistics presents a forum for linguistic research of all kinds on the interaction between language and cognition. The journal focuses on language as an instrument for organizing, processing and conveying information. Cognitive Linguistics is a peer-reviewed journal of international scope and seeks to publish only works that represent a significant advancement to the theory or methods of cognitive linguistics, or that present an unknown or understudied phenomenon. Topics the structural characteristics of natural language categorization (such as prototypicality, cognitive models, metaphor, and imagery); the functional principles of linguistic organization, as illustrated by iconicity; the conceptual interface between syntax and semantics; the experiential background of language-in-use, including the cultural background; the relationship between language and thought, including matters of universality and language specificity.