Sound-Symbolic Semantics of Written Japanese Vowels in a Paper-Based Survey Study

Abstract

Verbal sounds can be associated with specific meanings, a phenomenon called sound symbolism. Previous findings of sound symbolism have shown that words including specific consonants or vowels or mouth shapes to pronounce specific vowels associate with specific and subjective physical and emotional evaluations. The purpose of this study was to examine whether each written vowel in a given language was individually associated with specific subjective evaluations. Six hundred and thirteen participants used five-point semantic differential scales for 10 features (size, closeness, thickness, width, weight, height, depth, affection, excitement and familiarity) to rate written Japanese vowels (a, i, u, e, and o). The results showed that the size, closeness, thickness and width of a, u and o were significantly higher than those of i and e, whereas the affection and familiarity of a were higher than the others. These results were consistent with previous findings in which vowels in sound-symbolic words have been associated with physical (i.e., size, closeness, thickness and width) and emotional (i.e., affection) evaluations. Our findings suggest that each written Japanese vowel itself, with its individual characteristics, could individually contribute to specific and subjective physical and emotional evaluations. These findings provide insights on how we could better use letters for communicative relationships among writers and readers.

Pictorial Referents Facilitate Recognition and Retrieval Speeds of Associations Between Novel Words in a Second Language (L2) and Referents

“…For example, when participants judge whether the name of a presented meaningless round figure is bouba (malma) or kiki (takete), they consistently choose bouba as the name of the round figure (bouba-kiki effects; Köhler, 1947;Ramachandran and Hubbard 2001;Westbury, 2005;Aryani et al, 2020). In addition, each sound-symbolic word, each written vowel, or each mouth shape to pronounce a vowel is associated with specific, subjective evaluations (perceptual imageabilities and emotional features; e.g., Namba and Kambara, 2020;Ando et al, 2021;Kambara and Umemura, 2021). Future studies should consider the sound-symbolic effects on the associative learning of words and referents.…”

Vowel Length Expands Perceptual and Emotional Evaluations in Written Japanese Sound-Symbolic Words

“…In addition to sound-symbolic associations between pseudowords (new words) and referents, real words can be sound symbolically associated with perceptual or abstract features [ 11 , 12 ]. Previous findings suggested that the oral shapes to pronounce linguistic features were associated with perceptual and emotional features [ 5 , 13 ], whereas written linguistic features (alphabetic letters and other characters) were also associated with them [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Namba and Kambara (2020) reported that the oral shapes to produce Japanese vowels were connected to specific perceptual and emotional evaluations (e.g., some oral shapes were perceived as bigger, wider, and higher than oral shapes used to produce other vowels) [ 13 ].…”

“…Sound-symbolic relationships could occur from already acquired associations between linguistic and referential features in native languages [ 27 ]. Other studies also reported that linguistic information was specifically associated with perceptually and emotionally subjective evaluations by using semantic differential scales [ 14 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. For example, participants differentially evaluated familiarity, visual imageability, auditory imageability, tactile imageability, emotional valence (preference), and arousal (excitement) of sound-symbolic words including voiced consonants and sound-symbolic words including semi-voiced or unvoiced consonants [ 28 ].…”

“…Previous studies have examined specific associations between perceptual and emotional features of words or pseudowords that included a specific vowel [ 14 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. The vowels of the low second formant (F2) are a , u , and o , whereas vowels of the high F2 are i and e [ 31 , 33 , 34 ].…”

“…The author also showed that the associative relations between vowel length and object length were strong connections, whereas the associative relations between vowel length and object size were weak connections [ 42 ]. Although previous theoretical and experimental studies have shown that vowel length was associated with time (i.e., speed) and distance (i.e., length [ 32 ]) or size [ 42 ], vowel length would be also associated with other perceptual features (e.g., visual imageability, auditory imageability, and tactile imageability) and emotional features (e.g., familiarity, emotional valence, and arousal) based on previous psycholinguistic findings of vowel symbolism [ 14 , 36 ].…”