Summary: A new study examined vocal expressions of emotion across 131 languages, exploring similarities in emotional interjections and comparing them to non-linguistic sounds like cries and laughter. The research aimed to understand whether shared vocal patterns exist globally and if these patterns relate to our evolutionary roots in vocal communication.
The team found that vocal expressions of pain, like “Ouch!”, showed consistent vowel forms across languages, while disgust and joy did not. This insight could deepen our understanding of why humans evolved speech while other primates did not. Expanding this work to include more emotions and cultures could uncover additional links between human language and emotional expression.
Key Facts:
- Pain-related interjections, like “Ouch!”, share similar vowel patterns across cultures.
- Joyful and disgusted sounds lacked consistent patterns, contrasting with non-linguistic vocalizations.
- This research provides clues on the origins of human language evolution.
Source: American Institute of Physics
There are an estimated 7,000 languages spoken worldwide, each offering unique ways to express human emotion. But do certain emotions show regularities in their vocal expression across languages?
In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, an interdisciplinary team of linguists and bioacousticians led by Maïa Ponsonnet, Katarzyna Pisanski, and Christophe Coupé explored this by comparing expressive interjections (like “wow!”) to nonlinguistic vocalizations (like screams and cries) across the globe.
Pisanski explained how studying cries, screams, and laughter can shed light on the origins of speech.
“Why did we humans start to speak, and other primates didn’t? We all produce laughter, and hundreds of species produce playlike vocalizations,” said Ponsonnet.
“Yet we are the only species that evolved spoken language. Looking at these commonalities across species can help us understand where humans diverged and how.
“Critically, by comparing interjections to vocalizations expressing the same emotions, we can test whether the acoustic patterns we observe in interjections can be traced back to vocalizations.”
The researchers analyzed vowels in interjections from 131 languages, comparing them with nearly 500 vowels from vocalizations produced in joyful, painful, or disgusting contexts.
They predicted that the vocalizations’ acoustic forms reflect their adaptive or social functions.
“We believe that many vocal expressions have a function. For example, babies’ cries tend to be loud and harsh, evolving to annoy parents enough to stop the aversive signal. We expect vocal expressions of pain, disgust, and joy to reflect their functions too,” said Pisanski.
The researchers found evidence to support this for vocalizations: Each of the three emotions yielded consistent and distinct vowel signatures across cultures.
Pain interjections also featured similar open vowels, such as “a,” and wide falling diphthongs, such as “ai” in “Ayyy!” and “aw” in “Ouch!”
However, for disgusted and joyful emotions, in contrast to vocalizations, the interjections lacked regularities across cultures. The researchers expressed surprise at this latter finding.
The team aims to expand this research across more cultures and emotions to better understand how widespread vocal expressions arise and where they come from.
About this language and neuroscience research news
Author: Hannah Daniel
Source: American Institute of Physics
Contact: Hannah Daniel – American Institute of Physics
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Vowel signatures in emotional interjections and nonlinguistic vocalizations expressing pain, disgust and joy across languages” by Maïa Ponsonnet et al. JASA
Abstract
Vowel signatures in emotional interjections and nonlinguistic vocalizations expressing pain, disgust and joy across languages
In this comparative cross-linguistic study we test whether expressive interjections (words like ouch or yay) share similar vowel signatures across the world’s languages, and whether these can be traced back to nonlinguistic vocalizations (like screams and cries) expressing the same emotions of pain, disgust, and joy.
We analyze vowels in interjections from dictionaries of 131 languages (over 600 tokens) and compare these with nearly 500 vowels based on formant frequency measures from voice recordings of volitional nonlinguistic vocalizations.
We show that across the globe, pain interjections feature a-like vowels and wide falling diphthongs (“ai” as in Ayyy! “aw” as in Ouch!), whereas disgust and joy interjections do not show robust vowel regularities that extend geographically.
In nonlinguistic vocalizations, all emotions yield distinct vowel signatures: pain prompts open vowels such as [a], disgust schwa-like central vowels, and joy front vowels such as [I].
Our results show that pain is the only affective experience tested with a clear, robust vowel signature that is preserved between nonlinguistic vocalizations and interjections across languages. These results offer empirical evidence for iconicity in some expressive interjections.
We consider potential mechanisms and origins, from evolutionary pressures and sound symbolism to colexification, proposing testable hypotheses for future research.
