Japanese Sound-Symbolism Facilitates Word Learning in English-Speaking Children

Sound-symbolism is the nonarbitrary link between the sound and meaning of a word. Japanese-speaking children performed better in a verb generalization task when they were taught novel sound-symbolic verbs, created based on existing Japanese sound-symbolic words, than novel nonsound-symbolic verbs (Imai, Kita, Nagumo, & Okada, 2008). A question remained as to whether the Japanese children had picked up regularities in the Japanese sound-symbolic lexicon or were sensitive to universal sound-symbolism. The present study aimed to provide support for the latter. In a verb generalization task, English-speaking 3-year-olds were taught novel sound-symbolic verbs, created based on Japanese sound-symbolism, or novel nonsound-symbolic verbs. English-speaking children performed better with the sound-symbolic verbs, just like Japanese-speaking children. We concluded that children are sensitive to universal sound-symbolism and can utilize it in word learning and generalization, regardless of their native language.

[1]  Shoko Hamano.  The sound-symbolic system of Japanese , 2000 .

[2]  E. Sapir.  A study in phonetic symbolism. , 1929 .

[3]  W. Köhler.  Gestalt psychology , 1967 .

[4]  G. Miller,et al.  Cognitive science. , 1981, Science.

[5]  R. W. Brown,et al.  Phonetic symbolism in natural languages. , 1955, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[6]  G. Vigliocco,et al.  How does it hurt, kiri-kiri or siku-siku? Japanese mimetic words of pain perceived by Japanese speakers and English speakers , 2007 .

[7]  S. Kita,et al.  Sound symbolism facilitates early verb learning , 2008, Cognition.

[8]  D. Ladd,et al.  Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and Microcephalin , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[9]  E. Kako,et al.  First contact in verb acquisition: defining a role for syntax. , 1993, Child development.

[10]  G. Tucker Childs.  Where have all the ideophones gone? The death of a word category in Zulu , 1996 .

[11]  Gert Westermann,et al.  The shape of words in the brain , 2010, Cognition.

[12]  D. C. Howell.  Statistical methods for psychology, 3rd ed. , 1992 .

[13]  F. Newmeyer.  Iconicity and generative grammar , 1992 .

[14]  S. Kita,et al.  CHILDREN LEARN SOUND SYMBOLIC WORDS BETTER: EVOLUTIONARY VESTIGE OF SOUND SYMBOLIC PROTOLANGUAGE , 2010 .

[15]  E. Markman,et al.  Children's use of mutual exclusivity to constrain the meanings of words , 1988, Cognitive Psychology.

[16]  SOTARO KITA,et al.  Two-dimensional semantic analysis of Japanese mimetics , 1997 .

[17]  Sotaro Kita,et al.  World-View of Protolanguage Speakers as Inferred from Semantics of Sound Symbolic Words: A Case of Japanese Mimetics , 2008 .

[18]  R. Davis.  The fitness of names to drawings. A cross-cultural study in Tanganyika. , 1961, British journal of psychology.

[19]  C. Westbury.  Implicit sound symbolism in lexical access: Evidence from an interference task , 2005, Brain and Language.

[20]  L. Nygaard,et al.  Sound to meaning correspondences facilitate word learning , 2009, Cognition.

[21]  V. Ramachandran,et al.  Synaesthesia? A window into perception, thought and language , 2001 .

[22]  D. C. Howell.  Statistical Methods for Psychology , 1987 .

[23]  Mutsumi Imai,et al.  Mapping novel nouns and verbs onto dynamic action events: are verb meanings easier to learn than noun meanings for Japanese children? , 2005, Child development.

[24]  J. Ohala.  Sound symbolism: The frequency code underlies the sound-symbolic use of voice pitch , 1995 .

[25]  S. Kita.  Semantic schism and interpretive integration in Japanese sentences with a mimetic: A reply to Tsujimura , 2001 .

[26]  Willard Van Orman Quine,et al.  Word and Object , 1960 .

[27]  John J. Ohala,et al.  Sound symbolism: The biological bases of sound symbolism , 1995 .

[28]  Asli Ozyurek,et al.  Early links between iconic gestures and sound symbolic words: Evidence for multimodal protolanguage [Abstract] , 2010 .

[29]  D. Maurer,et al.  The shape of boubas: sound-shape correspondences in toddlers and adults. , 2006, Developmental science.

[30]  Sotaro Kita,et al.  Language-specific and universal influences in children’s syntactic packaging of Manner and Path: A comparison of English, Japanese, and Turkish , 2007, Cognition.

[31]  Yau-Huang Huang,et al.  Determinants of Success in Matching Word Pairs in Tests of Phonetic Symbolism. , 1971 .

[32]  J. Ohala,et al.  An Ethological Perspective on Common Cross-Language Utilization of F₀ of Voice , 1984, Phonetica.