Crouch, K (2026) Children's interpretations of sound symbolism: an analysis of children’s psycholinguistic processing and the influence of multi-sensory stimuli. PhD thesis, University of the West of England.
Abstract
Background: Researchers do not currently fully understand how children make sense of their encounters with sound symbolism, i.e. linking angular objects with kiki, and rounded shape with bouba (Köhler, 1975). A research gap exists around the data collection methods previously used when exploring the kiki bouba effect with children. The current doctoral study identified and targeted these methodological gaps in knowledge through the exploration of children's thought processes when introduced to a range of novel multimodal sound symbolic stimuli. Methods: A pragmatic approach to methodology was employed, which enabled a data rich exploration of sound symbolism with children. The pragmatic and adaptive approach to research methods, enabled discussions with children regarding their interpretations of sound symbolism. A mixed methods approach was employed to explore both statistical significance and children's voices. Results: It was found that children learn from ‘concrete’ experiences which take place in their linguistic environments (Kolb,1984). They use their previous experiences to make links to new encounters and apply schematic sound symbolic rules to this new understanding. As children develop through the stages of toddlerhood (24-30 months) to formal schooling (60-72 months) these rules and explanations become significantly more consistent and congruent in sound symbolic pairings. Decision making was based upon the individual’s systematic phonological and then phonemic understandings. Discussion: Children in the study were able to articulate their meta-cognition; thinking and meta-linguistic; language rules, when encountering a range of multisensory cues. Children demonstrated a range of susceptibility to a variety of sensory stimuli. The responses from children indicate how they applied their phonological awareness and patterns in print, leading to phonemic awareness and grapheme to phoneme knowledge, aligning with children’s emergent literacy acquisition. The novel results of this study can be used to inform how we support children with their knowledge development of sound symbolism as part of their phonological and phonemic awareness. This will also inform future studies into the field of the causality behind sound symbolism with children.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | sound symbolism, kiki bouba, children’s voices, phonology, phonemes, graphemes |
| Divisions: | School of Education |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Jan 2025 17:27 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Jun 2026 10:30 |
| URN: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/16830 |
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