How to express evolution in English Pokémon names

Linguistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigeto Kawahara ◽  
Jeff Moore

Abstract This paper contributes to the studies of sound symbolism, systematic relationships between sounds and meanings. Specifically, we build on a series of studies conducted within a research paradigm called “Pokémonastics,” which uses the Pokémon universe to explore sound symbolic patterns. Inspired by a study of existing English Pokémon names, two experiments were conducted in which English speakers were provided with pairs of pre-evolution and post-evolution Pokémon characters, the latter of which were larger. The participants were given two name choices whose members were systematically different in some phonological properties. The results show the following sound symbolic patterns to be productive: (1) names with higher segment counts are more likely to be associated with post-evolution characters than names with lower segment counts, (2) names containing [a] are more likely to be associated with post-evolution characters than names containing [i], (3) names containing [u] are more likely to be associated with post-evolution characters than names containing [i], and (4) names containing coronal consonants are more likely to be associated with post-evolution characters than names containing labial consonants. Overall, the current results suggest that phonological considerations come into play when English speakers name new fictional creatures. Implications of the current results for the theories of sound symbolism are discussed throughout the paper.

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 386-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigeto Kawahara ◽  
Mahayana C. Godoy ◽  
Gakuji Kumagai

AbstractAncient writers, including Socrates and the Upanishads, argued that sibilants are associated with the notions of wind, air and sky. From modern perspectives, these statements can be understood as an assertion about sound symbolism, i.e., systematic connections between sounds and meanings. Inspired by these writers, this article reports on an experiment that tests a sound symbolic value of sibilants. The experiment is a case study situated within the Pokémonastics research paradigm, in which the researchers explore the sound symbolic patterns in natural languages using Pokémon names. The current experiment shows that when presented with pairs of a flying-type Pokémon character and a normal-type Pokémon character, Japanese speakers are more likely to associate the flying-type Pokémons with names that contain sibilants than those names that do not contain sibilants. As was pointed out by Socrates, the sound symbolic connection identified in the experiment is likely to be grounded in the articulatory properties of sibilants – the large amount of oral airflow that accompanies the production of sibilants. Various implications of the current experiment for the sound symbolism research are discussed throughout the article.


Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Eddington ◽  
Nuckolls

This paper offers cross-experimental verification of a previous study that found that English speakers considered velars, palatals, glides, and high vowels to be sound-symbolic of light and jerky movements. Heavy and smooth movements, by contrast, were associated with affricates, glottals, laterals, and non-high vowels. The present study sought to evaluate these findings through a novel experiment with English speaking subjects, who were asked to choose appropriate sound-symbolically constructed nonce verbs for sentences describing light, heavy, smooth, or jerky manners of motion. Our results support many of Saji et al.’s findings and also offer original insights. We find complex interactions between a sound’s potential for sound-symbolic effects, and its position in initial or second syllables of disyllabic nonce words.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigeto Kawahara ◽  
Gakuji Kumagai

AbstractThere has been a growing interest in sound symbolic patterns in natural languages, in which some sounds are associated with particular meanings. Previous corpus-based research identified some specific sound symbolic relationships in Pokémon naming patterns in Japanese (Kawahara et al. 2018b). One of the main findings was that the names of Pokémon characters are more likely to contain voiced obstruents, and are longer in terms of mora count, when the Pokémon characters undergo evolution (e.g.nyoromo→nyorozo; poppo→pijotto). The current study reports three experiments that test whether (i) these patterns are productive in the minds of general Japanese speakers, and whether (ii) the same tendency holds with English speakers. The results show that the effect of phonological length was clearly observed both with Japanese and English speakers; the effects of voiced obstruents were observed clearly with Japanese speakers, but less clearly with English speakers. Along the way, we address other general issues related to sound symbolism: (iii) to what extent the sound symbolic effects identified in Kawahara et al. (2018b) rely on familiarity with Pokémon, and (iv) whether word-initial segments invoke stronger images than word-internal segments. In addition to its research value, we emphasize that this general project on Pokémon names can be useful for undergraduate phonetics education.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Pogacar ◽  
Agnes Pisanski Peterlin ◽  
Nike K. Pokorn ◽  
Timothy Pogačar

Abstract Readers may infer that literary characters are sympathetic or unsympathetic based on the perceived phonetics of character names. Drawing on brand name literature in marketing, we investigate whether Slovene and English speakers can identify sympathetic and unsympathetic characters in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist based solely on their names, despite being unfamiliar with the novel. Both Slovene and English speakers can make this distinction, suggesting that sound symbolism may help communicate Dickens’s intended characterizations. Dickens’s documented focus on creating meaningful names suggests the sound symbolism in his characters’ names is likely intentional. These findings are relevant to the translating convention of preserving proper names, which leaves spelling intact (given similar alphabets). Preserving the original names in translation may be justified for readers fluent enough to perceive the original name sounds. However, not altering character names in translation may sometimes lead to different phonetic perceptions, which alter the sound symbolic meaning.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Andrew Shibata

Prior research on sound symbolism and referent object size establishes that words with front vowels are perceived to refer to smaller objects than do back vowels (Ohala 1997; Klink 2000). Some dialects of American English exhibit vowel movement along the front-back axis which may influence perceived object size. This study focuses on California English /u/-fronting (Hinton et al. 1987) and predicts that shifting from a standardly back vowel [u] to a more front vowel [ʉ] is paired with a shift from a large perceived object size to a smaller perceived object size. This paper describes two experiments in which participants either silently read (reading task) or listened (listening task) to stimulus words and rated perceived object size. California English speakers in the reading task experiment perceived words with /u/ to be smaller than did non-California English speakers. This result suggests that sound symbolic perception is sensitive to fine phonetic variability due to a person’s dialect.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-141
Author(s):  
Cristina Rincon ◽  
Kia Noelle Johnson ◽  
Courtney Byrd

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the frequency and type of speech disfluencies (stuttering-like and nonstuttering-like) in bilingual Spanish–English (SE) children who stutter (CWS) to SE children who do not stutter (CWNS) during narrative samples elicited in Spanish and English to provide further diagnostic information for this population and preliminary data toward an expansion of this study. Method Participants included six bilingual SE children (three CWS, three CWNS) ranging in age from 5 years to 7;5 (years;months) and recruited from the surrounding Houston, Texas area. Participants provided a narrative sample in English and Spanish. The frequency of speech disfluencies was tabulated, and mean length of utterance was measured for each sample. Results Results indicate that both talker groups exceed the diagnostic criteria typically used for developmental stuttering. Regardless of the language being spoken, CWS participants had a frequency of stuttering-like speech disfluencies that met or exceeded the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering that is based on monolingual English speakers. The CWNS participants varied in meeting the criteria depending on the language being spoken, with one of the three CWNS exceeding the criteria in both languages and one exceeding the criteria for percentage of stuttering-like speech disfluencies in one language. Conclusion Findings from this study contribute to the development of more appropriate diagnostic criteria for bilingual SE-speaking children to aid in the reduction of misdiagnoses of stuttering in this population.


Author(s):  
Brenda K. Gorman

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are obligated to judiciously select and administer appropriate assessments without inherent cultural or linguistic bias (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], 2004). Nevertheless, clinicians continue to struggle with appropriate assessment practices for bilingual children, and diagnostic decisions are too often based on standardized tests that were normed predominately on monolingual English speakers (Caesar & Kohler, 2007). Dynamic assessment is intended to be a valid and unbiased approach for ascertaining what a child knows and can do, yet many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) struggle in knowing what and how to assess within this paradigm. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a clinical scenario and summarize extant research on effective dynamic language assessment practices, with a focus on specific language tasks and procedures, in order to foster SLPs' confidence in their use of dynamic assessment with bilingual children.


Author(s):  
Janet Nicol ◽  
Delia Greth

Abstract. In this paper, we report the results of a study of English speakers who have learned Spanish as a second language. All were late learners who have achieved near- advanced proficiency in Spanish. The focus of the research is on the production of subject-verb agreement errors and the factors that influence the incidence of such errors. There is some evidence that English and Spanish subject-verb agreement differ in susceptibility to interference from different types of variables; specifically, it has been reported that Spanish speakers show a greater influence of semantic factors in their implementation of subject-verb agreement ( Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Garrett, 1996 ). In our study, all participants were tested in English (L1) and Spanish (L2). Results indicate nearly identical error patterns: these speakers show no greater influence of semantic variables in the computation of agreement when they are speaking Spanish than when they are speaking English.


Author(s):  
Marc Ouellet ◽  
Julio Santiago ◽  
Ziv Israeli ◽  
Shai Gabay

Spanish and English speakers tend to conceptualize time as running from left to right along a mental line. Previous research suggests that this representational strategy arises from the participants’ exposure to a left-to-right writing system. However, direct evidence supporting this assertion suffers from several limitations and relies only on the visual modality. This study subjected to a direct test the reading hypothesis using an auditory task. Participants from two groups (Spanish and Hebrew) differing in the directionality of their orthographic system had to discriminate temporal reference (past or future) of verbs and adverbs (referring to either past or future) auditorily presented to either the left or right ear by pressing a left or a right key. Spanish participants were faster responding to past words with the left hand and to future words with the right hand, whereas Hebrew participants showed the opposite pattern. Our results demonstrate that the left-right mapping of time is not restricted to the visual modality and that the direction of reading accounts for the preferred directionality of the mental time line. These results are discussed in the context of a possible mechanism underlying the effects of reading direction on highly abstract conceptual representations.


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