What’s in a villain’s name?
Sound symbolic values of voiced obstruents and bilabial consonants
Ryoko Uno | Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Kazuko Shinohara | Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Yuta Hosokawa | Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Naho Atsumi | Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Gakuji Kumagai | Meikai University
Shigeto Kawahara | Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies
This paper reports two case studies of sound symbolism using the naturalistic name corpora of characters from Disney and Pokémon. Building upon previous studies of sound symbolism, we tested two hypotheses: (1) voiced obstruents, which are generally associated with negative images, are favored in villainous characters’ names, while (2) bilabial consonants, which are symbolically associated with cuteness, are disfavored in such names. The results show that these tendencies hold in our corpora, suggesting that a concept that is as complex as “villain” can be signaled via sound symbolism. Theoretical implications for cognitive linguistics based on our results are discussed.
Keywords: sound symbolism, evil/good, naming, obstruents, bilabials
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Theoretical background
- 2.Sound symbolism in proper names
- 2.1The current study
- 3.Names of villainous Disney characters
- 3.1Method
- 3.2Results
- 4.Names of villainous Pokémon characters
- 4.1Method
- 4.2Results
- 5.General discussion and conclusions
- Notes
-
References -
Tools and Corpus (on the Web)
Published online: 04 December 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00066.uno
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00066.uno
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.