A Cognitive Study Of Sound Symbolism

The debate of the relationship between sound and its meaning has lasted thousandsof years ever since Plato times. Generally speaking, there are two major controversialthoughts as to this enduring question, namely arbitrariness and non-arbitrariness.Saussure is for the former: the sound and its meaning are arbitrary. This school supportsthe idea that language and reality are quite independent of each other instead ofresembling each other. Alternatively, Jespersen holds the latter that to some extent,sound and meaning resemble each other, which is considered as sound symbolism orphonosemantics. In some cases, language reflects human's thinking mode, representingthe reality internalized by human minds. No matter whether there is a naturalconnection between sound and meaning or not, millions of linguists are obsessed withthis question.With the development of the research on this field, numerous examples have beencome out to prove that to a certain extent, sounds do have some meanings (soundsymbolism or phonosemantics). For instance, the phoneme/fl/denotes the meaning ofmovement, originally flying or flowing movement. So what about the phoneme/t∫/?Does/t∫/carry meanings? If the answer is "Yes", how do these meanings extend?Motivated by the above questions, this thesis intends to focus on the study of soundsymbolism in English, especially on the study of phoneme/t∫/. This thesis contains256words with the phoneme/t∫/from Oxford English Dictionary. On the basis of detailedanalysis of these words, they are divided into five major categories according to theirdifferent meanings, namely1) words related to "small";2) words related to "limit";3)words related to "narrow";4) words related to "mouth";5) words related to "touch". Asto these words which are related to "small", they can also be classified into eightsub-senses, i.e.1) small area,2) low price,3) young age,4) small number,5) simplestructure,6) bad moral,7) low temperature and8) from small to broad area. Then, this thesis tries to explain the meaning extension process of/t∫/through the two meaningextension mechanisms: metaphor and metonymy. As to the rest sample words, thisthesis also gives explanations from the perspective of autantonym, other phonemes'effect and arbitrary effect. At last, the sound-meaning correspondence of/t∫/is exertedin the brand naming area.This thesis does not aim to establish an entirely new theory which runs counter tothe dominant Saussurian's dictum, but to offer enough evidence of sound symbolism tofurther explain that phoneme/t∫/can represent meanings. In addition, sound symbolismhas long been the marginal part for its lack of a rigid, systematic and practical model.This paper tries to provide a model and a methodology of how to analyze the relatedfields in the further study of linguists. Finally, these findings will not only makecontribution to the study of sound symbolism but also be helpful for advertisers tocreate brand naming.