The Sound of an Utterance and Its Meaning - Essay Example

? The Sound of an Utterance and its Meaning Introduction Linguistic aesthetics, or sound symbolism, is the term that represents relationship between sound and its meaning, and how humans respond to those meanings psychologically. The role of sound symbolism in language has strengthened its roots with research and scientific findings from scientists like Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Margaret Magnus. In this paper, we will study the sound of an utterance and its meaning, along with a special focus on the theory of phonosemantics, phonaesthetics and conventional sound symbolism, and the typology of sound symbolism. 2. What is the Theory of Phonosemantics? The theory of phonosemantics states that phonemes and meanings are inter-related, or that “phonemes are signs in some sense” (Gudwin & Queiroz 2007:177), which is a concept known as sound symbolism. Let’s first understand how mind interprets meaning of a word. Sign is something that refers to a property of an object, and when interpreted, leaves an effect on the interpreter’s mind. This effect is called meaning. If we talk about human language, words and phonemes (/st-/, /gl-/, /-ump/, /-at/) are the signs that leave an effect on humans’ brains, linking a specific meaning to the word. The study of this link between phonemes and meanings is called phonosemantics. It states that our minds process sounds quite unconsciously, like the invoking of emotions on the sound of music without the interpreter even understanding it. The hypothesis that the theory of phonosemantics holds is that, the relationship between phonemes and meanings must be arbitrary since every language has its own words for the same object or its properties. This arbitrariness is to be understood only in the sense that words acquire meanings randomly, and such words form connections with other similar-sounding or similar-meaning words with the passage of time. Once a word has acquired a meaning, both will stay interconnected forever for a specific language. 3. What is Sound Symbolism? Chan (1996:1) states that, “Sound symbolism is the study of the direct relationship between the sound of an utterance and its meaning. It is a special nature of human language, that the utterance of sound can be linked with some meaning. The sound of a child’s cry refers to his wanting attention. A loud scream refers to somebody who is in danger. Clearing the throat refers to one’s attempt to start communication. The name called to grab a person’s attention matches the acoustic restrictions of the environment in which it is being called, like we call a name unintentionally loudly if there is noise in surroundings. Sound symbolism is pervasive to human language, and plays a very important role in linguistics, “especially at the affective level” (Chan 1996:2). It explains a symbolic or metaphoric link between sounds and meanings because when we hear a sound, we interpret it and associate it with images and concepts, and respond to them emotionally. Phonosemantics goes one step further in claiming that even distinct sounds (like scream) have meanings, which are vague and metaphoric in nature. Sound symbolism involves two types of words: phonaesthetic words, and imitative words. Imitative words will be defined later. 3.1. Phonaesthetic words Phonaesthesia is the concept, originally presented by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (Fisher 2011:85), that describes the link between phonaesthemes or phonaesthetic words and specific meanings (Trask 2000:252). Trask gives the example of “slime, slope, slush, sludge, slip slide, slosh, slurry and slug.” All of these words start with /sl-/ and give off an idea of wet and slippery. These are phonaesthemes because they have the element of wetness in them, like when we hear these words, a kind of watery feeling comes into our minds. Hence, phonaesthetic words usually have the same combination of alphabets or consonant clusters at the beginning or ending of the words. Smith (2002:3) has given many good examples in his paper, like “glisten, glimmer, glitter, glow, gleam, glint, glare”, all of which start with /gl-/ and have an element of light in them; or “lump, bump, rump, hump, stump, mumps”, all of which end at /-ump/ and refer to a swelling or something rising from its surface. Eden (2010:40) has stated that Tolkien studied phonaethetics to describe the sheer coincidence of words’ innate meanings and their collocation (sheer coincidence means that word-meaning connection is arbitrary, that forms randomly over time), like the connection between the concept of curling or curving and these words starting with /cr-/: “cramp (German krampf), crumpet, crumple, crummie (German krumm), cringe, creep (German kriechen), crawl, crinkle, creek, croup, cradle” (Eden 2010:39). Let’s take some more examples. Look at this group of words starting with /fl-/: flash, flame, and flicker. All of these words have an element of light in motion. Now, look at these words which have the same beginning sound /fl-/, but have an element of air in them, like when we hear these words, we relate them to air unconsciously: flip, flap, flop, and flutter. Another example of phonaesthetic words is words ending with ‘er’, for example, shimmer, flicker, flimmer, and dimmer. We relate these phonemes or phonaesthemes with the concept or phenomena they seem to express. Smith (2002:3), in his paper, has listed a few researchers whose works have provided enough verified evidence that makes us believe that “the phonetic nature of words is entirely arbitrary.” This entirety of arbitrariness will be argued in section 4.4 paragraph 2, and section 5 of this paper. Smith has admired the efforts of Sapir and others, Margaret Magnus who is the author of Gods of the Word, and the neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran. 4. Categories of sound symbolism There are four categories of sound symbolism, as described by Hinton, Nichols and Ohala (2006). We shall describe three of them shortly, while focusing, in detail, on conventional sound symbolism, because an understanding of conventional sound symbolism helps better understand phonaesthetic words and phonosemantics. 4.1. Corporeal Sound Symbolism This kind of sound symbolism involves the physical or mental state of the speaker. It describes such sounds or “emotive signs” (Fischer 2001:87), that are not linguistic but are very much meaningful utterances expressing the internal status of the speaker (Berman et al. 2004:101). Examples are crying of a child, scream, clearing the throat to gain attention, and sigh. These sounds originate from the physical state of the person uttering the sound. However, emotional state is represented in the pitch of the sound, its loudness, and tempo with which it is generated. For example, calling a person with name in an environment which is too noisy represents corporeal sound symbolism, where the pitch of the name being called gets automatically high. (I had to mention this category of sound symbolism because it is one kind of sound symbolism like other kinds) 4.2. Imitative Sound Symbolism (Onomatopoeia) Hinton, Nichols and Ohala (2006:3) assert in their book that imitative sound symbolism discusses the relationship between the environmental sounds of “onomatopoeic” words and their meanings. In other words, imitative words are those which replicate sounds of animals or other non-human objects, like air. Examples are environmental sounds: swish, roar, bang, boom and beep. Imitative sound symbolism involves environmental sounds, which make use of such sound patterns which are non-conventional and cannot be expressed by way of writing easily (like how can we write the actual sound of scream? So, when we write the word scream, we actually assign a meaning to this word, which the interpreter understands, right away). Sounds of animals that we can express in English are also forms of imitative sound symbolism, for example, meow-meow, woof-woof and buzz. These utterances are not parts of conventional speech. This form of imitative sound symbolism is, however, “much better represented in the linguistic literature than corporeal sound symbolism, because so much onomatopoeic vocabulary does become conventionalized” (Hinton, Nichols & Ohala 2006:3). 4.3. Synesthetic Sound Symbolism Ramachandran and Hubbard (2001) defined synesthesia as a neurological condition, in which two types of sensory information are firmly coupled together. This condition perceives words and numbers as having color, taste, and even shape. It also describes cross-sensory metaphors, and talks about the imitation of non-acoustic phenomena with speech sounds. We can say that synesthetic sound symbolism symbolizes a thing that is not a sound. For example, when we mention a large thing, we utter a deeper voice to symbolize the largeness. Similarly, shapes, like triangle, square, oval, are psychologically perceived as having certain properties such as color, motion, size, shape, vividness, feel, pace, etc. Hence, there is a sensory signal that is being generated by everything. The Bouba/Kiki effect (described in section 5) is an example of synesthesia. 4.4. Conventional Sound Symbolism If the reader has understood the concept of phonaesthetic words described in section 3.1, he will have no difficulty understanding conventional sound symbolism. Hinton, Nichols and Ohala (2006:5-6) defined conventional sound symbolism as the analogical connection of “certain phonemes and clusters with certain meanings.” One good example is of words ending with /-tch/: catch, snatch, and glitch. All of these words have the same ending cluster, and refer to the same meaning of some sort of pressure being exerted to get something. Hurford (2011:128) gives the example of words starting with /sn-/ cluster that refer to the same idea of unpleasantness: “sneak, snigger, snide, snot, and snarl”. Words ending with /-ash/ often depict violent contact: smash, crash, bash, lash. Words ending with /-ag/ often refer to slow motion: drag, lag, sag. These examples help understand the sound-meaning association as described in conventional sound symbolism. However, these analogical associations are language specific, as asserted by Chan (1996:9), who, like Hinton et al., has agreed upon the arbitrariness of this kind of sound symbolism. The reason why these analogical associations are language-specific leading to the arbitrariness of this concept is that all phonemes and clusters are not present in every language. In the above example given by Hinton et al., the cluster of /gl-/ is associated with the meaning of brightness in English, but this cluster is not present in those languages that lack consonant clusters (Chan 1996:9). Hence, in the above example, the analogical association of cluster and the referred idea is mostly arbitrary. Hartman (2005:3) states that this “arbitrary sound-meaning connections in language is an example of a self-organizing system- a situation in which seemingly random events over time form a pattern.” According to her, sound symbolism is, by origin, a kind of arbitrary concept that associates certain words with certain meaning, and this sound-meaning connection, over time, forms connections with other similar-sounding or similar-meaning words. With the passage of time, these words “become more similar phonetically or semantically, which increases the attraction of that particular sound-meaning correlation for other words” (Hartman 2005:3). 5. The Bouba/Kiki effect One of the important examples researchers (e.g. Robertson & Sagiv 2005:179; Ziemke, Zlatev & Frank 2007:225) give to explain sound symbolism, is the Bouba/Kiki effect. Although this example comes under synaesthesia, yet is very helpful in understanding human brain’s everyday perceptions of images. The Bouba/Kiki effect was presented by Wolfgang Koehler in 1929. It consists of two shapes, one angular and the other rounded, and asks the interpreter/viewer to tell which one is bouba and which one is kiki (see Fig.1). Fig. 1: The Bouba/Kiki Effect Most people, across all language groups, answered that kiki is the angular, and bouba is the rounded one. This may be so because uttering the sound of kiki makes the mouth go into a squeaky, angular shape; while, when we say bouba, our mouth goes into a rounded shape to say, bouba. It may also be the concept of sharp versus soft (Ziemke, Zlatev & Frank 2007:225) that generates this answer. The generation of sound /b-/ supported with the following /-ou-/ gives a soft, rounded feeling to the lips; while the generation of sound /k-/ supported with /-i-/ gives a sharp, angular feel to the lips. This example shows how human brain associates sounds with objects and their properties. Hence, it is proved that sounds possess inherent meanings (inherent because sounds inherit meanings over time in an arbitrary process), which are symbolic and metaphorical in nature, and not literal or linear. However, this example does not relate with conventional linguistic theories which state that sound symbolism is arbitrary, because if it was so, then the answers to the Bouba/Kiki Effect from different language groups would not be same. Hence, we prove that sound symbolism is MOSTLY arbitrary, as different languages link different meanings with their language specific words. 6. Conclusion In this paper, we analyzed how the sound of an utterance has a meaning. We related this concept to the theory of phonosemantics and conventional sound symbolism. Phonaesthetics and conventional sound symbolism state that words that start or end with similar phonemes may refer to the similar idea, thus possessing same meanings. However, the concept of sound symbolism is mostly arbitrary because it is language-specific, since different languages use different words for the same thing. The bottom-line is that there is an analogical association between sound of an utterance and some specific meaning, and the study of this relationship is called sound symbolism. References Berman, R.A, Stromqvist, S, Slobin, D.I, & Verhoeven, L.T 2004, ‘Sound symbolism’, Relating Events in Narrative: Typological and contextual perspectives, Routledge, USA. Chan, M.K.M 1996, Some thoughts on the typology of sound symbolism and the Chinese language, Proceedings of the Eighth North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics, vol. 2, pp. 1-15, viewed 26 February 2012, Eden, B.L 2010, Middle-Earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien, McFarland, Great Britain. Fischer, O 2001, The Motivated Sign, Iconicity in Language and Literature 2, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Netherlands. Fisher, J 2011, Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays, McFarland, U.K. Gudwin, R & Queiroz, J 2007, Semiotics and Intelligent Systems Development, Idea Group Inc (IGI), USA. Hartman, S 2005, ‘Sound symbolism’, Sound Symbolism in Alaskan Athabascan Languages, viewed 2 Mar 2012, Hinton, L, Nichols, J, & Ohala, J.J 2006, Sound Symbolism, Cambridge University Press, USA. Hurford, J 2011, ‘Conventional sound symbolism’, Language in the Light of Evolution II: The Origins of Grammar, Oxford University Press Inc., New York. Ramachandran, V.S, & Hubbard, E.M 2001, Synaesthesia– a window into perception, thought, and language, Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol. 8, pp. 3-34. Robertson, L.C & Sagiv, N 2005, Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience, Oxford University Press, USA. Smith, R 2002, Fitting Sense to Sound:Linguistic Aesthetics and Phonosemantics in the Work of J.R.R. Tolkien, viewed 2 March 2012, Trask R.L 2000, The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics, Routledge, USA. Ziemke, T, Zlatev, J, & Frank, R.M 2007, Body, Language, and Mind, Walter de Gruyter, USA. Read More