Re: Verbal imitations of everyday sounds

["Ballas, Jim (CIV, NRL)" <james.ballas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Guillaume,

I did a study awhile back in which I asked subjects to verbally imitate 
the sounds of 20 events, and afterwords provide written descriptions of 
the sounds they had produced.
The objective was to try to get some information about their mental 
representation of these sounds. 
Certain sounds were consistently represented in the verbal imitations 
and written descriptions (doorbell, telephone, ducks).  Others weren't 
(water drip, helicoptor, footstep).

I'll scan the report to a pdf and send it to you, as it was never published.
I still have the recordings, but shouldn't release them, but the report 
has a description of the dominant imitation in phonetic notation (as 
best we could do).
I also only found the Lass work.
Jim


> Date:    Fri, 4 May 2007 11:26:14 +0200
> From:    Guillaume Lemaitre <Guillaume.Lemaitre@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Verbal imitations of everyday sounds
>
> Dear list,
> We are currently starting a new project aiming at studying how people
> verbally imitate everyday sounds, when they have to communicate to
> another person what they have heard (onomatopoeia, or non-standardized
> verbal imitations).
> I must say that we have found very few literature on this topic, safe
> from the work of Lass et al. in the early 80's. So I would greatly
> appreciate if someone could provide me with with some references on such
> verbal imitations (phonological, acoustical, linguistic, cognitive
> studies) ?
> Thank you very much indeed !
> Best regards
> Guillaume Lemaitre
> --=20
>
> --------------------------------------
> Guillaume Lemaitre, Ph.D.
> /Charg=E9 de recherches/Researcher/
> Equipe Perception et Design Sonores /
> Sound Perception and Design Team
> IRCAM - 1, place Igor Stravinsky F-75004 Paris - FRANCE
> tel  : (+33 1) 44.78.48.38
> fax : (+33 1) 44.78.15.40
> e-mail  : lemaitre@xxxxxxxx
> --------------------------------------
>
>   


--
James A. Ballas, Ph.D.

Naval Research Laboratory
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