36.2783, Confs: Workshop at SLE 2026: When Sounds Speak: Toward a Typology of Sound Symbolism and Iconicity (Germany)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2783. Wed Sep 17 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2783, Confs: Workshop at SLE 2026: When Sounds Speak: Toward a Typology of Sound Symbolism and Iconicity (Germany)

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Date: 16-Sep-2025
From: Thomas Van Hoey [thomas.vanhoey at kuleuven.be]
Subject: Workshop at SLE 2026: When Sounds Speak: Toward a Typology of Sound Symbolism and Iconicity


Workshop at SLE 2026: When Sounds Speak: Toward a Typology of Sound
Symbolism and Iconicity
Short Title: SLE 2026
Theme: When Sounds Speak: Toward a Typology of Sound Symbolism and
Iconicity

Date: 26-Aug-2026 - 29-Aug-2026
Location: Osnabrück, Germany
Meeting URL: https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2026/

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology; Semantics; Typology

Submission Deadline: 31-Oct-2025

Convenors: Lívia Körtvelyessy and Thomas Van Hoey
Workshop title: When Sounds Speak: Toward a Typology of Sound
Symbolism and Iconicity
Abstract:
The idea of sound symbolism or iconicity as “inmost, natural
similarity association[s] between sound and meaning” (Jakobson and
Waugh 2002: 182) in onomatopoeia and, more broadly, in ideophones, has
a long tradition. As noted by Akita, “the large majority of studies
agree that languages involve sound symbolism, and speakers of the
languages can more or less sense this.” Widely known is Humboldt’s
view (1836: 79) that unlike direct imitation, “[l]anguage chooses to
designate objects by sounds which partly in themselves, partly in
comparison with others, produce on the ear an impression resembling
the effect of the object on the mind.”
While the idea underlying terms like sound symbolism and iconicity
seems to be simple and unambiguous, i.e., that a combination of
sounds, retrieved from the phonological stock of a particular
language, stands for a meaning, the opposite is true. Hinton, Nichols
and Ohala (1994: 1) refer to the wide scope of sound symbolism when
pointing out that “[t]he term ‘sound symbolism’ has been used for a
wide array of phenomena in human languages, related but each with its
own distinguishing characteristics.” They distinguish (i) corporeal,
(ii) imitative, (iii) synesthetic, and (iv) conventional sound
symbolism. Another strand of research finds direct parallels between
form and meaning on many different levels of language; indeed, within
the lexicon (onomatopoeias, ideophones), but also in morphology
(Jakobson 1965) and syntax (Haiman 1985). Such findings fly in the
face of one of the design features of language, namely arbitrariness
(de Saussure 1916; Hockett 1960). As noted by Pharies (1985: 88)
“[w]ith the possible exception of the arbitrariness question, no topic
in linguistics is more controversial than ‘sound symbolism’.”
This situation leads Johansson et al. (2020: 255) to conclude that
“[d]espite the progress made in the field of sound symbolism and
iconicity... our understanding of sound symbolism and its mechanisms
remains patchy” in spite of the fact that “[o]ver the roughly
twenty-year period of renewed interest in non-arbitrary associations
between sound and meaning, … the area has gone from a poorly
understood field residing on the fringes of linguistics and semiotics
to an area extensively studied from a range of perspectives and
through a wide array of methods” (2020: 254-255). The methods range
from experimental approaches (the iconicity toolbox, see Motamedi et
al. 2019; the kiki-bouba paradigm, see Ramachandran & Hubbard 2001;
Ćwiek et al. 2022) to list-based approaches (Blasi et al. 2016; Joo
2019; Erben Johansson et al. 2020; Thompson et al. 2021) to
corpus-based observations (Akita 2009; Nuckolls 2020) to ratings
(McLean et al. 2023; Van Hoey et al. 2023; Winter et al. 2023) and so
on. The most recent overview can be found in Sidhu (2025). Terms like
sound symbolism and iconicity cover a wide array of interests and
approaches, precisely because they have so long been marginalized
within linguistics.
No wonder, then, that typological research into sound symbolism is
still in its infancy and that the views of its both language-specific
and universal relevance and significance vary. While Elsen assumes
that sound symbolism appears to be a universal phenomenon but
linguists tend to neglect it, and that “sound symbolism exists, but it
may be latent without being active all the time” (Elsen 2017:
491-492), Langacker is of the view that “[s]ound symbolism is not
imaginary, but neither is it very powerful (1973: 25).” Ahlner &
Zlatev (2010: 312) are also of the view that “proponents of sound
symbolism, from Cratylus onwards, seem to have overstated their
claims”. Based on their experiments, Dingemanse et al. (2016:
e117-e118) confirm the existence of sound symbolism in ideophones,
however, they prefer a more moderate view of “ideophones as words that
combine a significant degree of arbitrariness with weak iconicity.” By
implication, they reject two extreme positions that appear in the
literature on sound symbolism: one of them downplays its role and the
other, the so-called, strong iconicity assumption exaggerates it by
claiming that the forms of ideophones are direct phonetic
representations of meaning.
This brief yet reasonably comprehensive overview of various
perspectives and claims illustrates that iconicity and sound symbolism
have been revived as a central topic of interest for linguists in the
past few decades. Some might even say that it is as old as linguistic
science itself, and any study of sound symbolism inevitably takes into
account Plato’s Cratylus. Additionally, one of the most frequently
cited sources on the typology of sound symbolism, Sound Symbolism by
Hinton et al., was published over 30 years ago. But since then, the
field has been continuously evolving and expanding. It is time to take
stock.
The aim of the proposed workshop is to establish a new platform for
discussing the relevance of this concept from both language-specific
and universal perspectives.  Therefore, the workshop will focus on
four primary topics, framed by the following questions:
1. Are sound symbolism and iconicity (in their various types and
terms) universal phenomena, or are they language-specific? Are there
sound-symbolic patterns that occur frequently across languages?
Conversely, are there unique or rare manifestations of sound
symbolism?
2. Sound symbolism and iconicity can be realized in multiple ways. How
do languages vary in this regard, and what similarities do they share?
3. What methods can we use to detect sound symbolism and iconicity
within or across languages? How can we strike a balance between the
language-particular and the cross-linguistic?
4. At what levels of granularity can we compare manifestations of
lexical iconicity or sound symbolism? How does multimodality relate to
the typical comparison of sound symbolism in spoken words? And how do
sign languages fit into these typological considerations?
We welcome studies that examine sound-symbolic phenomena in individual
languages, in language groups, or across geographic areas, as well as
studies that address theoretical aspects of the typology of sound
symbolism and iconicity, engaging with one or more of the four
questions listed above.
Instructions:
Please, send an abstract of maximally 300 words length (incl.
examples, but exclusive of references) by 31 October 2025 to either
convenor, Lívia Körtvelyessy (livia.kortvelyessy at upjs.sk) or Thomas
Van Hoey (thomas.vanhoey at kuleuven.be). Please indicate your
affiliation, e-mail, and 4-5 keywords.
Once the workshop is established, you will have to submit a 500-word
abstract (deadline 15 January 2026), but that comes later.



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