Open AccessPokémonikers: A study of sound symbolism and Pokémon names
Author(s) -
Stephanie S. Shih,
Jordan Ackerman,
Noah Hermalin,
Sharon Inkelas,
Darya Kavitskaya
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
proceedings of the linguistic society of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2473-8689
DOI - 10.3765/plsa.v3i1.4335
Subject(s) - sound symbolism , arbitrariness , linguistics , sound (geography) , key (lock) , sign (mathematics) , psychology , communication , computer science , philosophy , mathematics , acoustics , physics , mathematical analysis , computer security
Sound symbolism flouts the core assumption of the arbitrariness of the sign in human language. The cross-linguistic prevalence of sound symbolism raises key questions about the universality versus language-specificity of sound symbolic correspondences. One challenge to studying cross-linguistic sound symbolic patterns is the difficulty of holding constant real-world referents across cultures. In this study, we address the challenge of cross-linguistic comparison by utilising a rich, cross-linguistic dataset drawn from the Pokémon game franchise. Within this controlled universe, we compare the sound symbolisms of Japanese and English Pokémon names (pokemonikers). Our results show a tendency in both languages to encode the same attributes with sound symbolism, but also reveal key differences rooted in language-specific structural and lexical constraints.