Perceptual links between sound and shape may unlock origins of spoken
words

Date:
November 17, 2021
Source:
University of Birmingham
Summary:
Most people around the world agree that the made-up word 'bouba'
sounds round in shape, and the made-up word 'kiki' sounds pointy --
a discovery that may help to explain how spoken languages develop,
according to a new study. Language scientists have discovered that
this effect exists independently of the language that a person
speaks or the writing system that they use, and it could be a clue
to the origins of spoken words.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
Most people around the world agree that the made-up word 'bouba' sounds
round in shape, and the made-up word 'kiki' sounds pointy -- a discovery
that may help to explain how spoken languages develop, according to a
new study.


========================================================================== Language scientists have discovered that this effect exists independently
of the language that a person speaks or the writing system that they use,
and it could be a clue to the origins of spoken words.

The research breakthrough came from exploring the 'bouba/kiki effect',
where the majority of people, mostly Westerners in previous studies, intuitively match the shape on the left to the neologism 'bouba' and
the form on the right to 'kiki'.

An international research team has conducted the largest cross-cultural
test of the effect, surveying 917 speakers of 25 different languages representing nine language families and ten writing systems -- discovering
that the effect occurs in societies around the world.

Publishing their findings in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society B,the team, led by experts from the University of Birmingham
and the Leibniz- Centre General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin, says that
such iconic vocalisations may form a global basis for the creation of
new words.

Co-author Dr Marcus Perlman, Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics
at the University of Birmingham, commented: "Our findings suggest that
most people around the world exhibit the bouba/kiki effect, including
people who speak various languages, and regardless of the writing system
they use." "Our ancestors could have used links between speech sounds
and visual properties to create some of the first spoken words -- and
today, many thousands of years later, the perceived roundness of the
English word 'balloon' may not be just a coincidence, after all."


==========================================================================
The 'bouba/kiki effect' is thought to derive from phonetic and
articulatory features of the words, for example, the rounded lips of the
'b' and the stressed vowel in 'bouba', and the intermittent stopping
and starting of air in pronouncing 'kiki'.

To find out how widespread the bouba/kiki effect is across human
populations, the researchers conducted an online test with participants
who spoke a wide range of languages, including, for example, Hungarian, Japanese, Farsi, Georgian, and Zulu.

The results showed that the majority of participants, independent of
their language and writing system, showed the effect, matching "bouba"
with the rounded shape and "kiki" with the spiky one.

Co-author Dr Bodo Winter, Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Linguistics at
the University of Birmingham, commented: "New words that are perceived
to resemble the object or concept they refer to are more likely to be understood and adopted by a wider community of speakers. Sound-symbolic mappings such as in bouba/kiki may play an important ongoing role in
the development of spoken language vocabularies." Iconicity -- the
resemblance between form and meaning -- had been thought to be largely
confined to onomatopoeic words such as 'bang' and 'peep', which imitate
the sounds they denote. However, the team's research suggests that
iconicity can shape the vocabularies of spoken languages far beyond the
example of onomatopoeias.

The researchers note that the potential for bouba/kiki to play a role
in language evolution is confirmed by the evidence they collected. It
shows that the effect stems from a deeply rooted human capacity to
connect speech sound to visual properties, and is not just a quirk of
speaking English.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Birmingham. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Aleksandra Ćwiek, Susanne Fuchs, Christoph Draxler, Eva
Liina Asu,
Dan Dediu, Katri Hiovain, Shigeto Kawahara, Sofia Koutalidis,
Manfred Krifka, Pa"rtel Lippus, Gary Lupyan, Grace E. Oh, Jing
Paul, Caterina Petrone, Rachid Ridouane, Sabine Reiter, Nathalie
Schu"mchen, A'da'm Szalontai, O"zlem U"nal-Logacev, Jochen Zeller,
Marcus Perlman, Bodo Winter. The bouba/kiki effect is robust
across cultures and writing systems. Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2021; 377 (1841)
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0390 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211117100114.htm

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