37.3279, Confs: Workshop at SLE 2027 - Shaping Iconicity: Are Language-Specific Sound Symbolic Vocalizations Examples of Universal Tendencies? (Slovakia)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3279. Tue Oct 13 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.3279, Confs: Workshop at SLE 2027 - Shaping Iconicity: Are Language-Specific Sound Symbolic Vocalizations Examples of Universal Tendencies? (Slovakia)

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Date: 09-Oct-2026
From: Sonja Dahlgren [sonja.dahlgren at helsinki.fi]
Subject: Workshop at SLE 2027 - Shaping Iconicity: Are Language-Specific Sound Symbolic Vocalizations Examples of Universal Tendencies?

Workshop at SLE 2027 - Shaping Iconicity: Are Language-Specific Sound
Symbolic Vocalizations Examples of Universal Tendencies?
Short Title: SLE 2027

Date: 25-Aug-2027 - 28-Aug-2027
Location: Košice, Slovakia

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Phonetics; Phonology;
Typology

Submission Deadline: 10-Nov-2026

Convenors:
Sonja Dahlgren (University of Helsinki)
Gerd Carling (Goethe University)
Axel Ekström (Umeå University)
Keywords: iconicity, language-specificity, sound symbolism,
arbitrariness, linguistic universality
Abstracts: Please send provisional abstracts of max. 100 words (excl.
references) in PDF format by November 10th 2026 to:
sonja.dahlgren at helsinki.fi
carling at em.uni-frankfurt.de or
axel.ekstrom at umu.se.
On approval of the workshop, authors are asked to submit an abstract
of 500 words according to the SLE guidelines.
Workshop Description:
In the realm of phonological representation, are there biases skewing
speakers toward imitating sounds similarly, regardless of the native
language? Theoretically this should be possible, as humans have
similar (if not the same; see Blasi et al. 2019) anatomical capacity
to produce sounds regardless of their native language, and there are
many cases where sound symbolism violates L1 phonotactics
(Körtvélyessy 2025: 87-115). Alternatively, are sound symbolic
relationships shaped differently by environmental factors: the
presence of certain animal species, climate conditions (e.g., Everett
2017), or other cultural factors?
Questions concerning cross-linguistic regularities have been central
to the study of sound symbolism and iconicity from the early stages of
the field. This has been reflected in many fundamental studies: for
example, iconicity in demonstrative pronouns has been studied
extensively with slightly varying results, but mostly connectable to
Ohala’s (1994) frequency code theory on size sound-symbolism (Ultan
1978; Ohala 1984; Woodworth 1991; Traunmüller 1994; Johansson & Zlatev
2013). In recent decades, there has been a surge in research on
language-specific coding of iconicity. Imai and Kita (2014) showed
that Japanese and English comparisons differ according to the nature
of their sound symbolism; Dahlgren & Kittilä (2026) found that
language-specific patterns contribute to the sound symbolic coding of
the distance distinction in demonstratives; Flaksman & Kilpatrick
(2025) have shown that language-specificity in imitative words can
increase over time as iconicity decreases.
The level of cultural adaptation of iconicity is difficult to
determine based on data from individual languages. A cross-linguistic
study of 215 Italian and Polish participants listening to words of
four unknown languages (Finnish, Japanese, Swahili, Tamil) gave
uncertain results regarding how identifiable foreign sound symbolic
words are. Interestingly, Finnish and Japanese gave significant
results while Swahili and Tamil were barely above chance level
(D’Anselmo et al. 2019). A prior study by Dingemanse et al. (2016)
also showed that people with no knowledge of Japanese can match
Japanese ideophones with their meaning above chance level.
These combined results raise questions: what is general and/or
cognitively preferred, what is language-specific and dependent on
cultural adaptation?  Are iconic mappings in some languages more
transparent to non-speakers, and if so, why? For instance, Japanese
and Finnish phonotactics favour the use of open syllables and restrict
the use of complex consonant clusters, so the elements changing to
mark iconicity may be easy to perceive (see Körtvélyessy 2025:
118-130). We ask: can the full extent of such interactions be
reconciled in a common framework?
Main Aims :
The linguistic phenomenon of (vocal) iconicity would benefit from
being scrutinized from the perspectives of cognitive preference,
anatomy of the vocal tract, typological tendencies, and patterns of
production and perception. We want to examine the interplay between
the perceptual and articulatory pressures underlying iconicity,
language-specific phonological constraints on its realisation, and
environmental and cultural factors shaping cultural-specific
iconicity.
Language-specific coding of iconicity. In Dahlgren & Kittilä (2026),
we found language-specific coding of the proximal/distal distinction,
manifested in three strategies: front-back vowel distinction,
front-back consonants, and length differences. We also found
reverse-coding of these distinctions in all categories, a phenomenon
previously discussed by Johansson and Carlsson (2015): some languages
code smallness with back or low vowels, and largeness with front or
high vowels, contrary to Ohala’s (1994) theory (e.g., many Asian
languages like Bahnar in Vietnam; Diffloth 1994; see also McLean 2026:
2,1-22). In Dahlgren & Kittilä (accepted), we found language-specific
coding of onomatopoeia in animal sound imitatives. In a study of six
animals in 62 languages, there were cross-linguistic differences for
all animal sounds; especially dog barks had language-specific
phonological variation (Finnish (FU) hau hau [hɑu]; Arabic (AA) haw
haw/hab hab [haw, hab]). Duck sounds had less variation but still
frequently followed the language’s phonotactic system in their
representation (e.g. Hawaiian kakā [kakaː] while Germanic languages
have a Kwak Type).
Environmental or cultural factors. For animal onomatopoeia, there are
differences between how domestic and non-domestic animal sounds are
coded; furthermore, there are differences between pet sounds. Cats
meow uniformly across languages while dogs have a world of variation,
also related to the size differences of dog breeds (Ekström & Dahlgren
submitted). Global distribution of species may in part affect the
onomatopoeia of non-domestic animals: frogs in Thai (op-op [ʔɔp])
sound different from frogs in Dutch (kwak kwak [kwɑk]). Also language
contact has a role in the distribution of animal sounds, such as how
elephants sound cross-linguistically (Albanian (IE) tyy, trryy [tyː,
trːyː], English (IE) toot [tuːt]; Dahlgren & Kittilä accepted).
Despite the differences in the language’s phonological systems or the
local species, however, transgressions of phonotactic boundaries are
surprisingly rare for the sound symbolic coding of onomatopoeia.
>From the examples above it seems that while there are some general
tendencies within sound symbolism, there are also examples of
language-specific coding of sound symbolism and iconicity.
Körtvélyessy (2025) suggests that the question of universal and
language-specific nature of phonaestemes in onomatopoeia would better
be treated as a scale with two opposite ends. McLean (2026: 21)
emphasises “flexibility of iconicity”: that iconicity does not need to
be universal to influence language as if iconicity is flexible, it can
adapt more readily to language change. Dahlgren & Kittilä (2026) show
that while sound symbolic coding in demonstratives is often
language-specific, it seems to be equally iconic cross-linguistically.
We welcome abstracts on the topics below (but not limited to them); we
are particularly interested in typological and theoretical studies.
 - Phonotactics – when do languages cross the line for sound
symbolism, when not?
 - Do writing systems affect sound symbolism? Is the Arabic production
haw/hab for a dog bark a real (language-specific) perception of the
dog bark for Arabic speakers, or just a way to write /hau/ in the
consonantal writing system?
 - Sound symbolism overlaps with phonological typology e.g. for
demonstratives. What is the relationship between phonological typology
and sound symbolism?
 - Is the relationship between universal and language-specific
iconicity a scale with opposite ends, or can the concept of
‘universal’ be extended to a universally motivated iconicity that is
filtered through language-specific phonology?
References:
Blasi, Damian E., Steven Moran, Scott R. Moisik, Paul Widmer, Dan
Dediu, & Balthasar Bickel. 2019. Human sound systems are shaped by
post-Neolithic changes in bite configuration. Science 363(6432).
eaav3218.
Dahlgren, Sonja & Kittilä, Seppo. 2026. A phonological typology of
demonstratives: A study in iconicity. Linguistics 64(3). 431-471.
https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2021-0114.
Dahlgren, Sonja & Seppo Kittilä. Accepted. Our pigs say noef:
Cross-linguistic variation and language-specific phonemic biases in
onomatopoeia. In Valenti Iride, Emmi Tiziana, Sabina Fontana &
Salvatore Menza (eds.), Proceedings of XIV International Conference on
Iconicity in Language and Literature (ILL 14). Iconicity in Language
and Literature. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
D’Anselmo, Anita, Giulia Prete, Przemysław Zdybek, Luca Tommasi, &
Alfredo Brancucci. 2019. Guessing meaning from word sounds of
unfamiliar languages: A cross-cultural sound symbolism study.
Frontiers in Psychology 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00593.
Difflor, Gérard. 1994. i: big, a: small. In Hinton, Leanne, Johanna
Nichols & John J. Ohala (eds.), Sound symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dingemanse, Mark, Will Schuerman, Eva Reinisch, Sylvia Tufvesson &
Holger Mitterer. 2016. What sound symbolism can and cannot do: Testing
the iconicity of ideophones from five languages. Language. 92(2).
e117-e133.
Ekström, Axel G. & Sonja Dahlgren. Submitted. On the acoustic and
perceptual bases of onomatopoeia: A case study of cat meows and dog
barks. In Joo, Ian, Kimi Akita & Hinano Iida (eds.), Fifteenth
Symposium on Iconicity in Language and Literature (ILL 15). Iconicity
in Language and Literature. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
Everett, Caleb. 2017. Languages in drier climates use fewer vowels.
Frontiers of Psychology 8.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01285
Flaksman, Maria, and Alexander Kilpatrick. 2025. Against the tide: How
language-specificity of imitative words increases with time (as
evidenced by Surprisal). SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics
22(2). 78.
Imai, Mutsumi & Sotaro Kita. 2014. The sound symbolism bootstrapping
hypothesis for language acquisition and language evolution.
Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society B 369. 20130298.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0298.
Johansson, Niklas Erben, Andrey Anikin, Gerd Carling & Arthus Holmer.
2020. The typology of sound symbolism: Defining macro-concepts via
their semantic and phonetic features. Linguistic Typology 24(2).
253-310.
Johansson, Niklas & Gerd Carling. 2015. The de-iconization and
rebuilding of iconicity in spatial deixis: An Indo-European case
study. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 47(1). 4-32.
Johansson, Niklas & Jordan Zlatev. 2013. Motivations for sound
symbolism in spatial deixis: A typological study of 101 languages.
Public Journal of Semiotics 5 (1). 3-20.
Körtvélyessy, Lívia. 2025. Onomatopoeia. The Colorful World of Sounds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McLean, Bonnie. 2026. Arbitrary by Accident, Iconic by Design: On the
role of motivation in the nature and development of lexicons (Doctoral
dissertation, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis).
Ohala, John. 1994. The frequency code underlies the sound-symbolic use
of voice pitch. In Leanne Hinton, Johanna Nichols & John J. Ohala
(eds.), Sound symbolism, 325–347. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Ohala, John. 1984. An ethological perspective on common cross-language
utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica 41(1). 1–16.
Traunmüller, Hartmut. 1994. Sound symbolism in deictic words. In Hans
Aili & Peter af Trampe (eds.), Tongues and texts unlimited: Studies in
honour of Tore Jansson on the occasion of his sixtieth anniversary,
213–234. Stockholm: Stockholm University.
Ultan, Russel. 1978. Size-sound symbolism. In Joseph H. Greenberg
(ed.). Universals of human language, vol. 2, Phonology, 525–568. Palo
Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Woodworth, Nancy L. 1991. Sound symbolism in proximal and distal
forms. Linguistics 29(2). 273–300.

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