The emotional symbolism of two English e-sounds: /i/ as in "cheap" is pleasant and /I/ as in "chip" active.
This article aligns the symbolism of the long (/i/) and short (/I/) e sounds in English with the two dimensions of emotional space-Pleasantness and Activation. On the basis of this alignment, the four quadrants of emotional space are labelled Cheerful (high /i/, high /I/), Cheerless (low /i/, low /I/), Tough (low /i/, high /I/), and Tender (high /i/, low /I/). In four phases, data from over 50 samples (mainly, poetry, song lyrics, and names) were plotted and compared in terms of their use of the two e sounds. Significant and meaningful differences among samples were discovered in all phases. The placement of samples in quadrants was additionally informative. Data samples including many long e sounds (/i/) tended to be more Pleasant and those including many short e sounds (/I/) tended to be more Active.
Whissell
Cynthia
C
Psychology Department, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, Canada.
D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music; D009275:Names; D010700:Phonetics; D011037:Poetry as Topic; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012660:Semantics; D012931:Social Environment; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013561:Symbolism