Friday, November 4, 2016

Arbitrariness and Sound Symbolism

A concept that we discussed as a design feature of language is arbitrariness. This is defined as the lack of an intrinsic relationship between the sounds of a word and the meaning of that word (Salzmann, et al., 2015). For example, with the English word “dog,” there is no inherent meaning in its sounds that would suggest it refers to this animal. However, some evidence exists that a degree of sound symbolism—“an association between sound and meaning”—may be present across languages (Salzmann, et al., 2015, pg. 300).

The “Bouba-Kiki effect” is a commonly cited example of this: the names “Bouba” (pronounced “bobo”) and “Kiki” are associated with rounded and angular shapes respectively (Bremner, A.J., et al., 2012, pg. 166). However, A.J. Bremner, et al., note that the association between sounds and letter shapes is “common to languages using the Latin alphabet” (2012, pg. 166). This could be due to the spread of English, as many cultures have been affected by the Latin alphabet.

Bremner, et al., tested this idea with a group of participants from the Himba in rural Namibia—a remote culture with extremely minimal contact with Westerners and their “artifacts” (2012, pg. 167). They also lack a written language, circumventing effects from letter shapes. Thirty-four Himba were tested, with an age ranging between 16 and 39 years. The results were surprising: despite their isolation and lack of written language, 28 of the 34 participants associated “Bouba” with the rounded shape and “Kiki” with the angular shape (Bremner, A.J., et al., 2012, pg. 168). This suggests that some inherent (albeit very abstract) meaning could exist across cultures in a handful of “basic” sounds. More research into whether humans have assigning meaning to other sounds would be fascinating and could provide clues to the development of language.

References
Bremner, A.J., Caparos, S., Davidoff, J., de Fockert, J., Linnell, K.J, & Spence, C. (2012). Bouba and kiki in Namibia? Cognition, 126(2013), 165-172.
Salzmann, Z., Stanlaw J., & Adachi, N. (2015). Language, culture, and society (6th ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

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