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A role for onomatopoeia in early language: evidence from phonological development

Part of: Iconicity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2019

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Abstract

Onomatopoeia appear in high quantities in many infants’ earliest words, yet there is minimal research in this area. Instead, findings from the wider iconicity literature are generalised to include onomatopoeia, leading to the assumption that their iconic status makes them inherently learnable, thereby prompting their early production. In this review we bring together the literature on onomatopoeia specifically and iconicity more generally to consider infants’ acquisition from three perspectives: perception, production, and interaction. We consider these findings in relation to Imai and Kita’s (2014) ‘sound symbolism bootstrapping hypothesis’ to determine whether their framework can account for onomatopoeia alongside other iconic forms.

Keywords

onomatopoeiaphonological developmenticonicitylexical developmentlanguage acquisition
Type
Special Issue on Iconicity
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 11 , Issue 2: Special Issue on Iconicity , June 2019 , pp. 173 - 187
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Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2019 

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