EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE PHONOSEMANTIC POTENTIAL OF FICTIONAL LEXIS

Abstract

The article discusses the results of a psycholinguistic experiment that is part of a broader study of iconicity in fictional languages. The research is carried out in accordance with the ideas of St Petersburg School of Phonosemantics, founded by S. V. Voronin, which asserts the presence, in many cases, of both universal and specific non-conventional correspondence between the sound form and the semantics of linguistic units. Iconic words of fictional languages, selected in the course of phonosemantic analysis, were presented to the participants in their sound form. The subjects had to choose the most appropriate meaning for the sound complexes from the contrasting meanings offered in the questionnaire. These constituted designations of size, shape, sound, etc, which are characteristic of i conic language signs. The respondents were native speakers of Russian and English. The survey was conducted remotely. The analysis of the data obtained shows that the respondents react to the word-stimuli in accordance with their universal iconic properties, and the speakers of both non-closely related languages demonstrate similar reactions. In 17 out of 20 cases, they were able to choose the meaning originally conceived by the author of the fictional language. The respondents’ correct choices embrace both the designations of acoustic events and the sound-symbolic names of physiological processes and non-acoustic properties of the signified. Thus, the hypothesis about the non-random selection of sound forms for the transmission of meanings by authors of fictional languages is confirmed, and this, apparently, is determined by the universal iconic properties of linguistic systems. Refs 33.