Acquisition of Sound Symbolic Values of Vowels and Voiced Obstruents by Japanese Children: Using a Pokémonastics Paradigm

Abstract

Recent studies on sound symbolism have demonstrated that the number of voiced obstruents in Japanese Pokémon names is positively correlated with their evolution levels. This correlation is likely to be rooted in the sound symbolic relationship between voiced obstruents and largeness/heaviness/strength. This study shows that when Japanese children are presented with two non-existing names and a pair of pre-evolution and post-evolution Pokémon characters, they are more likely to associate names having voiced obstruents with post-evolution Pokémon characters. The experiment also shows that Japanese children associate post-evolution characters more with [a] than with [i], which shows that they are also sensitive to vocalic sound symbolism.