AUTHOR=Kilpatrick Alexander , Ćwiek Aleksandra , Lewis Eleanor , Kawahara Shigeto TITLE=A cross-linguistic, sound symbolic relationship between labial consonants, voiced plosives, and Pokémon friendship JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1113143 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1113143 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=Introduction

This paper presents a cross-linguistic study of sound symbolism, analysing a six-language corpus of all Pokémon names available as of January 2022. It tests the effects of labial consonants and voiced plosives on a Pokémon attribute known as friendship. Friendship is a mechanic in the core series of Pokémon video games that arguably reflects how friendly each Pokémon is.

Method

Poisson regression is used to examine the relationship between the friendship mechanic and the number of times /p/, /b/, /d/, /m/, /g/, and /w/ occur in the names of English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German, and French Pokémon.

Results

Bilabial plosives, /p/ and /b/, typically represent high friendship values in Pokémon names while /m/, /d/, and /g/ typically represent low friendship values. No association is found for /w/ in any language.

Discussion

Many of the previously known cases of cross-linguistic sound symbolic patterns can be explained by the relationship between how sounds in words are articulated and the physical qualities of the referents. This study, however, builds upon the underexplored relationship between sound symbolism and abstract qualities.