Coming hot on the heels of my article a week ago about the universal sounds for pain, a recent study [open access- yay] spanning 28 languages found that trilled [or rolled] Rs—a sound many struggle to master—consistently evoke a sense of jaggedness.
Participants were shown a jagged line & a smooth line, then listened to a trilled R & an L sound. Across both online (88% agreement) & in-person trials (98%), the rolled R was overwhelmingly matched with the jagged line, while the L was linked to smoothness.
This builds on the idea of sound symbolism—where sounds evoke meaning beyond words. The famous bouba/kiki effect in which people were shown to associate the titular nonsense words with round & soft shapes. It’s obvious which is which, isn’t it?
However, this study goes further, calling the trilled R/jaggedness link one of the strongest cases of sound symbolism ever documented.
The findings:
- Cross-Linguistic Consistency: Unlike bouba/kiki, which varies across cultures, this effect held across all 28 languages tested, from Zulu to Japanese to Spanish.
- Rough Resonances: The trilled R creates rapid amplitude modulations [i.e. rapid movements of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, causing a series of repetitive closures & openings] that resemble rough textures, much like a crinkle-cut crisp! Presumably, the similarity between the auditory “roughness” of the R & the tactile “roughness” of certain surfaces is why people consistently associate the sound with jagged or rough shapes.
- Cultural Nuance: Speakers of languages where trilled Rs are common (like Spanish) showed slightly weaker associations. This may be because when sounds carry a heavy linguistic load, their symbolic connections become less salient. In other words, the more a sound is used for specific linguistic purposes, the less it’s perceived in a broader, symbolic way.
Historical linguistics seems to back up the study’s findings. Words describing rough textures, like rugged or rugoso, often contain Rs. This suggests the link between Rs & roughness has deep roots in our perception & language systems.
Teacher Takeaways?:
As is often the case with such studies, I don’t think it will result in us rushing out & changing our classroom practice, but it could give rise to some interesting Cross-Language Comparisons: Compare sound-symbolic patterns across students’ native languages for a discussion on cultural & linguistic universals.
What sounds do your students find challenging or symbolic? Do you ever explore these connections in class?
Leave a Reply