The Alveolar Trill Is Perceived as Jagged/Rough by Speakers of Different Languages - CNRS - Centre national de la recherche scientifique
Pré-Publication, Document De Travail (Preprint/Prepublication) Année : 2024

The Alveolar Trill Is Perceived as Jagged/Rough by Speakers of Different Languages

Résumé

Typological research shows that across languages, trilled [r] sounds are more common in adjectives describing rough as opposed to smooth surfaces. Here, we follow up on this lexical research with an experiment with speakers of 28 different spoken languages from 12 different families. Participants were presented with pictures of a jagged line and a straight line and asked to imagine running their finger along each one. They were then played audio recordings of an alveolar trill [r] and an alveolar approximant [l] and asked to match each sound to one of the lines. Participants showed a strong tendency to match [r] with the jagged line and [l] with the straight line, even more consistently than what has been observed for a comparable cross-cultural investigation of the bouba/kiki effect. An analysis of presentation order shows the pattern is strongest for matching [r] to the jagged line, but also very strong for matching [l] to the straight line. While we found this effect with speakers of languages with different phonetic realizations of the rhotic sound, it was weaker for those with a trilled [r] as the primary variant. One interpretation of this finding is that when a sound is used phonologically to make systemic meaning contrasts, its iconic potential may be more limited. Our findings extend our understanding of iconic cross-modal correspondences, highlighting deep-rooted connections between auditory perception and touch/vision.

Domaines

Linguistique

Dates et versions

hal-04701781 , version 1 (18-09-2024)

Identifiants

Citer

Aleksandra Ćwiek, Rémi Anselme, Dan Dediu, Susanne Fuchs, Shigeto Kawahara, et al.. The Alveolar Trill Is Perceived as Jagged/Rough by Speakers of Different Languages. 2024. ⟨hal-04701781⟩
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