Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.
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Thank you so much for coming on to chat today.
Shiri Lev-Ari: Thank you for inviting me.
Feltman: Yeah, well, and in the paper you talk about this concept of iconicity. Could you explain what that is for our listeners?
Lev-Ari: Yeah, so iconicity is when—or at least specifically in spoken language—is when the sounds or the form of a word resemble the meaning. So a few very easy to understand examples: for example, the sound /i/ is really associated with small size. So think about “itsy-bitty” or “tiny,” so those sounds really sound small, and we actually know that across the world’s languages, the word for “small” is much more likely to have the sound /i/ than you’d expect by chance.
Lev-Ari: So usually when people talk about iconicity they really think about inherent iconicity, so when the form of the word always conveys that meaning. So for example, “itsy-bitsy” will always, like, sound small, and it doesn’t matter in which context you’re gonna say “itsy-bitsy”; it’s gonna sound small.
Feltman: Yeah, and so what are the different ways that we can speak in ways that take more effort? Is it just about the length of a word, or is there other stuff that can go on?
Lev-Ari: One thing that is interesting is that there are two factors that really influence how difficult it is to say a word. One of them is how long the word is, so that’s obvious: obviously, you’re gonna spend more time and do more motor action in order to say or type the word. Another factor that really matters is how common the word is. So some words are much more common than others, and it’s actually much easier to say common words. So it was easier to recall them, and even after you recall them it’s actually easier to say, like, more frequent words.
Now, if you also think about the effort for the other person, then long words are perfect. They’re really, really hard to say but actually really, really easy to understand—maybe even more than shorter words because they tend to be more different from other words and you have more time to process them. So it’s great: you’re putting in effort, and actually the listener doesn’t need to put in any effort.
Feltman: Mm, yeah, that makes sense.
So can you talk a little bit about how you approached studying this question?
Feltman: What other questions are you hoping to answer about this topic? Do you have any further research planned?
Lev-Ari: So what I’m trying to look at, actually, right now that is related to this is trying to look at expression of gratitude and requests for help and try to see similarly, “How do people manipulate their speech to really help their message be more effective?”
So even after we ignore which word—like, the meaning that they’re trying to use, how, just by doing things like maybe, for example, using a higher versus a lower pitch to show, like, you know, greater warmth and submissiveness and things like that, how do they similarly show how they feel or their stance versus the other person?
Lev-Ari: Yes, and I think that if we actually really try, it will come naturally, that these are the type of words that we use that are most effective.
Feltman: Well, thank you so much for coming on to talk through this research. It’s been super interesting.
Lev-Ari: Thank you for inviting me. Happy to be here.
Feltman: That’s all for today’s episode. Join us again on Friday to learn about the fraught history of testing how common medications can impact pregnancy.
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!
Rachel Feltman is former executive editor of Popular Science and forever host of the podcast The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week. She previously founded the blog Speaking of Science for the Washington Post.
Fonda Mwangi is a multimedia editor at Scientific American and producer of Science Quickly. She previously worked at Axios, The Recount and WTOP News. She holds a master’s degree in journalism and public affairs from American University in Washington, D.C.
Alex Sugiura is a Peabody and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer, editor and podcast producer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. He has worked on projects for Bloomberg, Axios, Crooked Media and Spotify, among others.
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