Sensations into symbols

If there is some kind of onomatopoeic 'something' then it seems to me that there is a basis for thinking that some forms of sounds will tend to have certain connotations unless syntax or semantics overtake them. This would seem to be the basis for some of the phenomena of poetry relating to things like the use of voiceless plosives to 'echo' things like wood chopping, or sibilants for water. This is related to the idea of motivated signs in semiology. So it's interesting to see research adding credibility to what we might begin to think ought to be the case.

There is, none the less, a growing body of evidence that colours, shapes, sounds and smells do have meanings. Wolfgang K�hler's delightfully simple 1929 experiment asked volunteers to match a pair of abstract figures to one of two nonsense words, "maluma" and "takete". Immediately, and virtually without exception, people matched maluma to the soft round figure and takete to the sharply angular one. Some sort of shared symbolism related the sounds to the shapes.

Perhaps Kandinsky was barking up the right tree, after all.
Sensations into symbols | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited: Filed in: language, universals, research, colour, symbolism