A Study of Relationship between Visual and Sound Image for Foreign Students in Sound Symbolism of Japanese Morae

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the sound symbolism of Japanese morae. Japanese sense the Japanese morae integrating their visual and sound image, and foreigners cannot fully integrate those. Therefore, two surveys were carried out. On the first survey about the image of 46 Japanese morae (conducted on Japanese) three principle sound symbolism characteristics were extracted - “inorganic - organic”, “comfortable - uncomfortable” and “tranquillo - rough”. On the other hand, the second survey for foreign students indicated clear difference between visual and sound image. I report some interesting findings on Japanese sound symbolism characteristics, such as the high correlation with visual and sound image on “inorganic - organic”.