Form-Meaning Interactions: Effects of Phonology on Semantic Judgements in Monolingual and Bilingual Language Processing

Language can alter our mental conceptions of space, time, and categories. While there is compelling evidence that thought can be shaped by syntactic, morphological, and lexical features of a language, less is known about the impact of phonology on thought. This dissertation uses novel objects (alien cartoon figures) and pseudoword names in three experiments to investigate whether phonological similarity in newly acquired object labels influences perceived semantic associations of objects. Experiment 1 provides preliminary support for the influence of phonology on meaning in monolinguals. The experiment was designed so that phonological similarity in the pseudoword names highlighted either color or shape commonalities between alien figures. Results showed that when same-shape aliens had names that overlapped at word onset (e.g., Bonmet, Boncas, and Bondil), participants gave higher visual similarity ratings to them after name learning compared to before. Similarly, same-color aliens were rated as more visually similar after participants learned color-biased names. These findings demonstrate that phonological similarity in linguistic labels could strengthen semantic associations by raising the salience of existing perceptual commonalities between alien figures. However, the lack of a phonological effect in the friendship likelihood rating task and group sorting task suggests that when more salient perceptual features are in place, effects of linguistic features may be harder to observe. Experiment 2 examined how bilingual language experience influences the degree to which semantic processing is affected by phonology. Spanish-English bilinguals were tested on the same tasks as Experiment 1, and their performance was compared to that of monolinguals. The results from Experiment 2 revealed that bilinguals may be more resistant than monolinguals to both phonological and perceptual biases when making semantic association judgements about newly encountered objects. Bilinguals did not show increases in visual similarity ratings for same-shape [-color] aliens after learning shape- [color-] biased names as monolinguals. Instead, they demonstrated a greater tendency to overcome initial visual biases on semantic association judgements after word learning. It is possible that bilinguals' heightened awareness of symbolic arbitrariness and increased inhibitory control have made them more resistant to lower-level influences on semantic associations. To test the hypothesis that shared phonological features can strengthen conceptual links even between objects that share no visual features, Experiment 3 eliminated shape and color as reliable cues of category membership and explored the role of phonology in the construction of meaning. The effect of phonology was observed in the friendship likelihood rating task and the group sorting task, where phonologically similar aliens were rated as more likely to be friends and more often sorted together into groups (no effect of phonology was observed in the visual similarity rating task, likely because aliens' perceived friendliness was a more salient perceptual bias than phonology). These findings extend existing theories on the interaction between phonological, lexical, and semantic processing, and indicate that common visual features may not be necessary for linguistic features to influence the associations between semantic representations. Taken together, the results from this dissertation shed light on the linguistic relativity hypothesis and inform our understanding of general mechanisms of monolingual and bilingual language processing. Conclusions may be drawn that how we conceptualize the world is influenced by the speech sounds we use to denote objects and ideas. Unbeknownst to us, phonological similarity between object labels may lead us to develop closer semantic associations between otherwise unrelated concepts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]