September 9, 2016

September 9, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my response to “Sound, Symbolism, and Swearing; an Affect Induction Perspective” (2010) by Yardy. The “Affect Induction model of animal communication offers a natural explanation for some forms of sound symbolism in language” and is evidence for the existence of Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

“According to the Affect Induction model, the physical properties of signals influence receiver affect and behavior in specific ways through relatively direct effects on core sensory, psychological and affective processes.”  The speaker influences the listener with his or her voice, but the speaker also influences him or herself with his or her voice. 

 

In SVB the speaker’s voice is experienced by the listener as an appetitive stimulus, but in NVB the speaker’s voice is experienced as an aversive stimulus. Also the so-called bouba-kiki effect provides evidence for the SVB/NVB distinction. “Ramachandran and Hubbard (2001) showed English speaking participants and Tamil speaking participants a jagged image and a rounded image and asked “Which is bouba? Which is kiki?” Over 95% of participants agreed the angular image belonged with the word kiki and the rounded image with bouba.” 

After the difference between SVB and NVB was demonstrated, 95% of students or mental health clients associate SVB with bouba and NVB with kiki.  If “synesthetic inter-sensory cross-connections drive the bouba kiki effect” then these inter-sensory cross-connections provide us the ability to differentiate between SVB and NVB. “Synesthesia is the phenomenon where stimulation in one sense modality has an automatic sensory experience in another sense modality.” 

Additional evidence for the SVB/NVB distinction comes from Bolinger (1964, 1978), who found that speakers who are unsure, polite or lack confidence use higher or a rising fundamental frequency, while those who are confident, assertive and authoritative, use low or falling fundamental frequency; the former maps onto NVB, the latter maps onto SVB. This so-called “frequency code” (Ohala, 1994) is “biologically grounded, though it requires some experience and learning.” 

Other authors (Dawkins & Krebs, 1978) take on “a broader evolutionary perspective” and argue that “communication can be viewed as simply another means by which an organism can influence others.” On this view the speaker can simply be said to either have a positive or a negative influence on the listener. However, during NVB the superior speaker is unconscious about his or her forceful influence on the inferior listener.

No one is inferior or superior in SVB. The conscious SVB speaker has a positive influence on the listener, who is equal to the speaker and who is allowed to be a speaker as well.  During SVB, the speaker and the listener mutually reinforce each other, but in NVB “the signaler can be viewed as a self-interested actor that uses signals to manipulate and influence others to its own advantage” (Dawkins & Krebs, 1978). 

We can now recognize that although we behave verbally during NVB, the basic phenomenon that determines the outcome of this so-called communication is the aversive sound of the speaker’s voice. In NVB the the speaker is not as verbal as he or she believes him or herself to be.

NVB is the expression of hierarchical relationship in which the speaker behaves non-verbally rather than verbally, as he or she uses his or her voice to demand from the listener whatever it is that he or she wants.

SVB is the expression of heterarchical relationship in which speakers can be truly verbal as their voices induce only an appetitive non-verbal experience in the listener. In SVB the listener is completely at ease as the speaker doesn’t dominate or aversively stimulate him or her.