Sound symbolic word learning in written context

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Abstract

Sound symbolism is the notion that the relation between word sounds and word meaning is not arbitrary for all words, but rather there is a subset of words in the world’s languages for which sounds and their symbols have some degree of correspondence. This research investigates sound symbolism as a possible means of gaining semantic knowledge of unknown words within written context. Two studies assessed adults’ expressive knowledge of word meanings for sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic obsolete words. These words were presented in varying types of contextual surroundings: no context, varied context, unhelpful context, and helpful context. In each study, participants were able to generate more correct definitions for sound symbolic words compared to non-sound symbolic words. It is concluded that sound symbolism is a word property which influences the learning of unknown words.

Introduction

How do people learn new words? The answer to this question is quite complex, as there are several contributors to word learning. First, new words can be learned through direct vocabulary instruction, which can occur through either explicit reference or labeled example. Explicit reference is a case in which another person provides the word learner with the meaning of the unknown word, either through a dictionary or oral instruction. Labeled example is a case in which an object or event is accompanied by a label (Jenkins & Dixon, 1983). It is estimated that anywhere from 300 to 500 words per year can be taught through this type of direct vocabulary instruction (Stahl, 1999). However, rates of vocabulary growth per year, for young word learning children, seem to be at least five times this much (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). As such, direct vocabulary instruction cannot be the main source of word learning. Instead, research has suggested that incidental exposure to unknown words, within both written and oral context, accounts for the majority of word learning (Nagy et al., 1987, Nagy et al., 1985, Swanborn and de Glopper, 1999). Thus, word learning from context allows people to add many new words and their meanings to their vocabulary. Beyond context, however, there are other word level properties which influence word learning, such as the concreteness of an unknown word’s referent and its grammatical part of speech (Brown, 1957, Nagy and Gentner, 1990, Schwanenflugel, 1991).

The present research explores a fairly unexplored word property, sound symbolism, and its influence on the learning of an unknown word presented in written context. Sound symbolism refers to the notion that the relationship between word sounds and word meaning is not arbitrary for all words. Rather sound symbolism is the idea that there are subsets of words for which there is some degree of correspondence between sound and meaning (Hinton, Nichols, & Ohala, 1994). The purpose of the present research was to determine whether adult word learners can utilize the sound symbolic features of words. This research presents sound symbolic words in written context to determine if word learners can gain greater semantic information about an unknown word in context than could be learned through either context or sound symbolism alone.

Sound symbolism’s presence in language has been studied extensively by linguists and anthropologists, (Brown et al., 1955, Ciccotosto, 1991, Hinton et al., 1994, Markel and Hamp, 1960, Sapir, 1929) yet its place in word learning has just begun to be examined. A non-arbitrary relationship between the sounds in a word and its meaning could provide word learners with a cue to help them ascertain the meaning of an unknown word. Sound symbolism then could be a word property which helps word learners faced with numerous possible meanings for an unknown word select one meaning, or at least narrow down the possible meanings.

The noted linguist Sapir (1929) conducted an early experiment on sound symbolism or what he called “phonetic symbolism,” a type of expressive symbolism speakers use in the field of speech dynamics (stress and pitch) and phonetics. Sapir created word pairs using a consonant, vowel, consonant model, (e.g., mal and mil, orally pronounced to participants in that order). He then had participants select the non-word which represented the large and small variety of some arbitrarily selected meaning. For mal and mil, small versus large tables were compared. Sapir found that English speakers intuitively felt the vowel a was symbolic of greater magnitude than the vowel i. His participants, then, thought mil referred to the small table and mal referred to the large table.

More recently researchers have investigated phonological information and its relationship to a word’s grammatical class. Kelly (1992) presents several phonological factors which correlate with grammatical class. For example, findings show that English nouns more often contain back vowels (e.g., house), and English verbs more often contain front vowels (e.g., leave). Also, open class words, or content words, are more likely to be stressed while close class words, or function words, are more likely to be non-stressed. In addition, Cassidy and Kelly (2001) found that children judge tri-syllabic pseudowords (e.g., gebinarf) as nouns and mono-syllabic pseudowords (e.g., varb) as verbs. This finding is consistent with a pattern found in English. These findings suggest that children are not only aware but are able to use their knowledge of the relationship between a word’s grammatical category and phonological information. Children, then, can judge the grammatical class of a word based on the number of syllables the word contains.

The use of phonology to gain semantic information for a word, then, is not a new area of empirical examination. This relationship between phonology and word meaning, however, has historically been ignored based on the traditionally held belief that the link between sound and meaning is arbitrary (Saussure, 1959). Despite this belief, the few linguists and anthropologists studying sound symbolism have been able to compile evidence of sound symbolism’s existence in languages throughout the world. This evidence suggests that sound symbolism is a real phenomenon present in most of the world’s languages.

In one examination of sound symbolism Ciccotosto (1991) gathered language samples from 229 languages, representing 10 of the 17 human language phyla. He searched for examples of sound symbolism in these international languages and found evidence of sound symbolism in almost all the phyla. Its absence in some phyla was explained by a lack of data or an ill-defined definition of sound symbolism.

English itself has been shown to have sound symbols. Bloomfield’s (1933) book entitled Language included this list of sound symbols present in English:

  • [fl-] ‘moving light’: flash, flare, flame, flick-er, flimm-er.

  • [sl-] ‘smoothly wet’: slime, sluch, slop, slobb-er, slip, slide.

  • [kr-] ‘noisy impact’: crash, crack, (creak), crunch.

  • [sn-] ‘breath-noise’: sniff, (snuff), snore, snort, snot.

  • [sn-] ‘quick separation or movement’ : snap (snip), snatch (snitch).

  • [-ejr] ‘big light or noise’: blare, flare, glare, stare.

  • [-omp] ‘clumsy’: bump, clump, shump, dump, frump, hump, lump, rump, stump, slump, thump. (p. 245)

The [sw-] sound in swirl, swivel, swift, swig, sweep, swallow, swarm, swim, swing, swipe, switch, swoosh, swoop, swill, and swoon, as in a swift, or swaying movement is a good example of an English sound symbol. Sound symbolism, then, is not a new phenomenon or a totally new area of research.

Indeed, it has frequently been noted by linguists that there are a small number of words whose relationship to their referent is not arbitrary. Onomatopoeias are defined by linguists as words which imitate the natural sound of the action or object they are associated with, for example words like hiss and buzz (Agnes & Guralnik, 2001). Linguists have noted that a number of children’s earliest words have a non-arbitrary relationship between sound and referent. Children often call trains choo-choos and dogs woof-woofs. Berko-Gleason (2005) notes “it is probably easier for children to learn a word that is obviously related to its referent than one that is totally arbitrary and symbolic” (p. 113). It should be noted, however, that onomatopoeias are just one specific type of sound symbolism. Sound symbolism, as examined in this study, is the general idea that there can be a relationship between a word’s sounds and its meaning. This relationship does not have to be imitative in nature, like onomatopoeias. Thus, sound symbolism is not just onomatopoeia.

It is also the claim of this work that sound symbolism is not just word association based on the sounds of words, or a type of “sound association” (sometimes called “clang associations,” Ervin, 1961). Sound association would be the association of words based purely on similar sounds with no link in meaning. Sound symbolic words would have shared sounds but also a link in meaning.

To illustrate the distinction between onomatopoeias, sound symbolism, and sound association let us examine the following words: click, clack, and clank; claw, clasp, clown, and clue; clamor and clatter. The first three words (click, clack, and clank) are all onomatopoeias. These words are noted as echoic, imitative in sound or onomatopoeias, in Agnes and Guralnik’s Webster’s New World College Dictionary (2001). The second set of words (claw, clasp, clown, and clue) is an example of sound association. These words share the [cl-] sound but do not have a shared meaning component. Sound association, then, is simply the association of words based on similar sounds with no link in meaning. The last two words (clamor, a loud cry or uproar; and clatter to move with a rapid succession of loud noises) are examples of sound symbolic words. These two words both have the [cl-] sound and have the shared meaning component of noise. It is this shared meaning component which distinguishes them from the sound association words. In addition, these words are not noted as echoic in Agnes and Guralnik’s Webster’s New World College Dictionary, and are thus not onomatopoeias. Sound symbolic words, then, are not necessarily onomatopoeic in nature but are words which contain both a shared sound and meaning component.

In a similar fashion it should be noted that sound symbols are not seen as an extinction of morphology but instead are viewed as language sounds, or phonemes, that carry meaning. Traditionally linguists have viewed morphemes as the smallest units of language that carry meaning. For example, in the word “walking” both “walk” and “ing” would be considered morphemes because each part contributes elements of meaning to the word. In this research sound symbols are viewed as a subset of phonology and not morphology for the simple reason that sound symbols are not as consistent in their meaning as morphemes. For example, there are a great many words with the [cl-] sound which do not have a noise meaning associated with them. Thus, sound symbols seem to be more than phonology, as they can be associated with a specific meaning. Sound symbols, however, are less than morphology because the one-to-one relationship between sound and meaning is not as strong or as stable.

When studying sound symbolism it is also important to note a debate in the research as to whether sound symbols are universal or language-specific (see Hinton et al., 1994, Malkiel, 1990). The purpose of this paper is to examine sound symbolism’s role in word learning and as such this paper does not take sides on this debate. Language-specific sound symbols would mean simply that knowledge of one languages sound symbols would facilitate the learning of only words in that particular language. The intent of this paper can be served so long as one accepts the statement of Brown (1958) “there is obviously a community, or language-specific, sound symbolism, the fact of a universal sound symbolism, one which operates across all human languages, … [is] at best difficult to show to exist” (as cited in Kess, 1992, p. 62).

To legitimize the study of sound symbolism as a possible route to word learning one needs to accept only that there are language-specific sound symbols and that this phenomenon is present in most of the world’s languages. If sound symbols were present in only a small percentage of the world’s languages it would mean it is not available for most humans as a route to the learning of new words. The research on sound symbolism to date suggests that at the very least there are language-specific sound symbols in most of the world’s languages (Ciccotosto, 1991). Though sound symbolism has been shown to be present in many of the world’s languages this research will bypass the universal, language-specific debate and examine only words from the English language. Therefore, this research can make no conclusion about the universal or specific nature of sound symbols.

The present research examines sound symbolism’s place in the puzzle of word learning. Two studies using adult participants were conducted. These studies compared the word meanings inferred from sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic obsolete English words presented in different types of contextual (sentence) surroundings. These studies are intended as an extension of previous work by the author on sound symbolism. This earlier work examined sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic words presented in isolation, with no surrounding context (Parault & Schwanenflugel, 2005). In this previous work, three studies examined the guesses adult participants made regarding the potential meanings of sound symbolic words and compared them to those of non-sound symbolic words. In each study, participants were able to generate better definitions for sound symbolic words when compared to non-sound symbolic words. In addition, participants were more likely to recognize the meanings of sound symbolic words in a multiple-choice test. On average participants were 85% better at guessing the meaning of sound symbolic words versus non-sound symbolic words when words were presented in isolation. In addition, they were 33% better at recognizing the meanings of the sound symbolic words in a multiple-choice test.

The present research is intended to integrate this previous research on sound symbolism with other research on vocabulary development, which has shown that exposure to an unknown word within written context accounts for a great deal of vocabulary growth. This previous research on word learning within context has showed that a single exposure to a word within context could produce word learning (Nagy et al., 1985, Nagy et al., 1987). In addition, there have been numerous replications of this significant finding. Swanborn and de Glopper (1999) conducted a meta-analysis of 20 experiments of word learning in context. The effect sizes resulting from the individual experiments used in the meta-analysis ranged in value from .03 to .54 (Gordon et al., 1992, Konopak, 1988). The results revealed, consistent with Nagy et al. (1985), the average probability of word learning within context is .15, with a 95% confidence interval of .11 to .22. Based on this previous vocabulary development work half of the words used in Study 1 were embedded in context, or sentences. The other half of words were presented to participants in isolation, with no surrounding context, to serve as a comparison.

In addition, to the knowledge that exposure to an unknown word within context affects word learning, Beck, McKeown, and McCaslin (1983) found word learning within context was dependent upon the helpfulness of the context or how much information about the unknown word the context provided the reader. They distinguished between four types of context. Directive contexts provide the reader with explicit and detailed information about an unknown word. Generally directive contexts provide the reader with general information about an unknown word. Non-directive contexts were of no use to the reader and misdirective contexts lead the reader to an incorrect meaning for an unknown word. They found that 13 graduate students were able to correctly guess the identity of a missing word, 3, 27, 49, and 86% of the time in the misdirective, non-directive, generally directive, and directive story contexts, respectively. As such, the second study in this research examines sound symbolic words in context differing in levels of helpfulness. In addition, the helpfulness of the context used in Study 1 was balanced across the sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic word types.

This research views sound symbolism as a word level property that may interact with context level information to influence word learning to an extent greater than either context or sound symbolic information alone. Research has identified several other word properties which are important in word learning: grammatical part of speech, word concreteness, morphological transparency, and the conceptual difficulty of the word. Nagy and Gentner (1990) showed that adults use part of speech as a clue for abstracting relevant properties from context. Brown (1957) showed that children are able to use part of speech to correctly guess at a word’s meaning. Brown also found that young children use more concrete nouns and verbs than adults. Schwanenflugel (1991) demonstrated that the discrepancy in concrete and abstract words used by adults and children persists through middle school. Morphological transparency has also been shown to affect word learning. Wysocki and Jenkins (1987) showed that training on one member of a word family led to more word learning for other members of the same word family. Lastly, Nagy et al. (1987) showed that the conceptual difficulty of the word was significantly related to word learning in context. They found a .06 probability of learning a word at the simplest level of word complexity and a −.01 probability at the most difficult level of complexity. This work is intended as a test of whether sound symbolism should be added to this list of word properties which influence word learning.

This research consists of two studies using adult participants. These two studies compared the word meanings inferred from sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic obsolete English words presented in different contextual surroundings. Study 1 examined sound symbolic words presented both in context and in isolation. The contexts in this study were of varying levels of helpfulness. The helpfulness of the context was balanced between the two word types. This study was intended to determine if sound symbolic word information leads to greater word learning than either context or sound symbolism alone. Study 2 examined sound symbolic word learning within more refined context types based on Beck et al.’s (1983) study. For Study 2, all sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic words were embedded in context. For this study, however, both unhelpful and helpful contexts were used. Study 2 was intended to determine how sound symbolic word level information interacts with context of different helpfulness levels.

It should be noted that this research takes the viewpoint of Nagy et al. (1985) that word learning can occur in small increments. In addition, this research takes the view that knowledge of a word’s meaning is on a continuum of total lack of knowledge, to partial knowledge, to full knowledge of a word’s meaning (Durso and Shore, 1991, Shore and Durso, 1990, Schwanenflugel et al., 1997). If sound symbols provide real semantic information to word learners, then participants should be able to make guesses about what a word means that suggest at least partial knowledge of the meaning of the sound symbol.

Section snippets

Study 1

The purpose of Study 1 was to determine whether the combination of information from context and sound symbolism would yield greater knowledge of an unknown word’s meaning than either sound symbolism or context alone. To examine this, Study 1 compared both sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic words presented in context to sound symbolic and non-sound symbolic words presented in isolation, with no surrounding context. If the combination of sound symbolism and context can help college students

Study 2

The results of Study 1 showed an interaction between sound symbolic word information and context. As such an examination of sound symbolism in more refined context types based on the research of Beck et al. (1983) is in order. The purpose of Study 2 was to examine sound symbolic word effects in both helpful and unhelpful contexts. Study 2 had participants generate definitions for the same 26 sound symbolic and 26 non-sound symbolic obsolete words used in Study 1. For Study 2, however, all of

General discussion

Overall, the purpose of this research was to determine if sound symbolic word level information would provide word learners with semantic information from which they could determine the meaning, or partial meaning, of an unknown word. The results of both studies showed that sound symbolic words consistently yielded more accurate word definitions than the non-sound symbolic words in several different contextual settings: the words in isolation, the words embedded in varied context, and words

Future work and conclusion

Future work in this area will examine the influence sound symbolic word information has on children’s word learning. I would like to examine children’s early vocabularies to determine the proportion of early words that are sound symbolic. In addition, I would like to examine how sound symbolism affects children’s vocabulary development and how the ability to use sound symbolism develops with age.

The relationship between phonemic awareness in children, or the ability to hear, identify, and

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    The author acknowledges the invaluable contributions of Paula Schwanenflugel, Patricia Alexander, Heather Rogers Haverback, Sarrit Kovac, Jeri Benson, Steven Stahl, and Brent Berlin.

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