Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Larger communities face more communication barriers. We propose that languages spoken by larger communities adapt and overcome these greater barriers by increasing their reliance on sound symbolism, as sound symbolism can facilitate communication. To test whether widely spoken languages are more sound symbolic, participants listened to recordings of the words big and small in widely spoken and less common languages and guessed their meanings. Accuracy was higher for words from widely spoken languages providing evidence that widely spoken languages harbor more sound symbolism. Preliminary results also suggest that widely spoken languages rely on different sound symbolic patterns than less common languages. Community size can thus shape linguistic forms and influence the tools that languages use to facilitate communication.
Source: Cognitive Science
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13059
Institutions: University of London, Royal Holloway University of London
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3212430640