Sound symbolism in color modality : case of Arabic speaking children at guiri brothers primary school-Algeria

Abstract EN

The present paper addresses the phenomenon of sound-color symbolism in Arabic language, specifically the concept of brightness on children.

Thus, the study samples eighteen monolingual Arabic speaking children equally dichotomized into males and females.

By performing a free-choice task that employs auditory stimuli made of vowels-only, consonants-only, then CV strings; and physical stimuli made of eleven colored balls.

Children were asked to match the auditory stimuli they hear with the colored ball it represents.

Through chi-square results, it is elicited that sound-color relations are valid in Arabic language where voiced consonants and back vowels match dark colors, while voiceless consonants and front vowels match bright colors.

Also, salience in sound-color relations in Arabic is attributed to vowels and consonants alike, as it falls into the hierarchical sonority order by Parker (2002).

Finally, the gender-related differences are indexed as limited.

These results are discussed and contemplated throughout the study.