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Article published In: Gesture
Vol. 14:3 (2014) ► pp.320–350

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Iconicity in vocalization, comparisons with gesture, and implications for theories on the evolution of language

 | University of Wisconsin-Madison
 | San José State University
Published online: 21 January 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.14.3.03per
Scholars have often reasoned that vocalizations are extremely limited in their potential for iconic expression, especially in comparison to manual gestures (e.g., Armstrong & Wilcox, 2007; Tomasello, 2008). As evidence for an alternative view, we first review the growing body of research related to iconicity in vocalizations, including experimental work on sound symbolism, cross-linguistic studies documenting iconicity in the grammars and lexicons of languages, and experimental studies that examine iconicity in the production of speech and vocalizations. We then report an experiment in which participants created vocalizations to communicate 60 different meanings, including 30 antonymic pairs. The vocalizations were measured along several acoustic properties, and these properties were compared between antonyms. Participants were highly consistent in the kinds of sounds they produced for the majority of meanings, supporting the hypothesis that vocalization has considerable potential for iconicity. In light of these findings, we present a comparison between vocalization and manual gesture, and examine the detailed ways in which each modality can function in the iconic expression of particular kinds of meanings. We further discuss the role of iconic vocalizations and gesture in the evolution of language since our divergence from the great apes. In conclusion, we suggest that human communication is best understood as an ensemble of kinesis and vocalization, not just speech, in which expression in both modalities spans the range from arbitrary to iconic.
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Lister, Casey J. & Nicolas Fay
2017. How to create a human communication system. Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems 18:3 ► pp. 314 ff. DOI logo
Marino, David, Paul Bucci, Oliver S. Schneider & Karon E. MacLean
2017. Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, ► pp. 753 ff. DOI logo
Massaro, Dominic W. & Marcus Perlman
2017. Quantifying Iconicity’s Contribution during Language Acquisition: Implications for Vocabulary Learning. Frontiers in Communication 2 DOI logo
Perlman, Marcus
2017. Debunking two myths against vocal origins of language. Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems 18:3 ► pp. 376 ff. DOI logo
Winter, Bodo, Marcus Perlman, Lynn K. Perry & Gary Lupyan
2017. Which words are most iconic?. Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems 18:3 ► pp. 443 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2019. Sensory Linguistics [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 20], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2019. Conclusion. In Sensory Linguistics [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 20], ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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