Pleased to share that our paper has been published in Child Dev. When caregivers use more iconic speech, infants are more engaged. Iconic caregiver speech is also associated with heightened IDS but effects on infant engagement remain after controlling for this. academic.oup.com/chidev/artic...

Caregivers' use of iconic words is associated with high positive engagement by both caregivers and infants

Abstract. Iconic words are more frequent in infant-directed speech, but it is not known why. We examine whether caregivers use iconic words to engage infan

academic.oup.com

Our paper tinyurl.com/3duukb2w shows that iconicity in adults' speech may facilitate infant language development through heightened interactional engagement. When parents use highly iconic words, infants are more engaged with the interaction and the parental speech is more strongly infant-directed.

Want to do an experimental PHD on the evolution of human language? Only one more week left to submit your application!

Limor Raviv 🐘🤗🦒🍄🦄@limorraviv.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I'm hiring! 📢 Fully funded 4-year PhD position in Language Evolution using Communication Games at @mpi-nl.bsky.social. Come work with me on how different social pressures shape the evolution of new communication systems in the lab! Deadline for application is May 18th! share.google/fGTKbFS4v4Gb...

Evolvable AI paper here with some major Darwinians 'threats of a new major transition in evolution' This builds on Szathmary's 'major transitions' (with Maynard Smith) and Luc Steels' work with embodied robots. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2527700123

Out now: The full proceedings volume of this year's #Evolang @evolangconf.bsky.social - 575 pages full of interdisciplinary research on the origins and evolution of language! doi.org/10.17617/2.3...

Excited to share our new paper in Child Dev! 🎉 We taught children names for 'monster' toys. Some names matched the sounds they made, some didn't. Children, especially 3-yr-olds, learned matching names more easily. Iconic words support word learning. Read here: track.smtpsendmail.com/9032119/c?p=...

Young children benefit from iconicity when learning novel onomatopoeia

Abstract. Iconic words, especially animal onomatopoeia, are more prevalent in infant- than adult-directed speech, possibly because iconicity bootstraps wor

track.smtpsendmail.com

New paper with Svetlana Kuleshova, @acwiek.bsky.social, @symbolicstorage.bsky.social, Marta Sibierska, Marek Placiński, Johan Blomberg, Przemysław Żywiczyński, Sławomir Wacewicz: Exploring the guessing-game experimental paradigm doi.org/10.1111/cogs...

Exploring the Guessing‐Game Experimental Paradigm: Inferences From Closed‐ Versus Open‐Ended Semantic Space

How we measure success in signal comprehension experiments fundamentally shapes our conclusions. Two recent studies have demonstrated that humans can guess the meanings of novel vocalizations and ape...

doi.org

"Do Great Apes Use Iconic Gestures?" Insightful, detailed discussion by @mperlman.bsky.social. Great to see a bunch of threads of evidence—including comparison to human children—in one place. wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Do Great Apes Use Iconic Gestures?

Iconicity is increasingly recognized as a core property of language, raising the evolutionary question of whether great apes use iconic gestures. This article challenges current theories of ape gestu...

wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

📣📣📣Job alert Multimodal Language Department Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics MAX PLANCK RESEARCH GROUP LEADER POSITION (W2 BBESG) lnkd.in/eaq5MW9a

Very interesting attempt to trace back the early evolution of a “system of conventional signs” (proto-writing system) 🧪✍️ www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Humans 40,000 y ago developed a system of conventional signs | PNAS

As humans, we store and share information. This allows us to distribute knowledge necessary for survival and to coordinate large groups. Our homini...

pnas.org

A surprising new study shows that baby chickens react the same way that humans do when tested for something called the "bouba-kiki effect," which has been linked to the emergence of language. n.pr/4rBdZgj

Baby chicks link certain sounds with shapes, just like humans do

A surprising new study shows that baby chickens react the same way that humans do when tested for something called the "bouba-kiki effect," which has been linked to the emergence of language.

n.pr

Just published in Science, baby chickens show the bouba-kiki effect! In an accompanying Perspective, @bodowinter.bsky.social and I argue a broader, multimodal framework of iconicity is needed to illuminate the origins of language. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In search of meaning

The origins of language are not found in the bouba-kiki effect

science.org

This new paper in Science is also accompanied by a cool perspective piece by @mperlman.bsky.social & @bodowinter.bsky.social! #language #linguistics www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In search of meaning

The origins of language are not found in the bouba-kiki effect

science.org

Simon Fisher@profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 6mo ago

“Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords kiki & bouba with spiky & round shapes, respectively...We tested the bouba-kiki effect in baby chickens. Similar to humans, they spontaneously chose a spiky shape when hearing a kiki sound & a round shape when hearing a bouba.”😲🧪

So excited to see the Oxford Handbook of Iconicity in Language come out!! Here is my chapter on Experimental approaches to sound symbolism: academic.oup.com/edited-volum...

Experimental approaches to sound symbolism

AbstractThis chapter explores the phenomenon of sound symbolism: associations between language sounds and particular perceptual and/or semantic properties.

academic.oup.com

Our paper (w/ @bodowinter.bsky.social and @mperlman.bsky.social) is finally out, officially 🥳. In it, we set ourselves the lofty goal of defining iconicity, focusing on its subjectivity, context-dependence, and gradability. Let us know if you agree with our definition? 🤔 doi.org/10.1093/oxfo...

Really nice to see this reappraisal of "design features for language". Our book "A Multimodal Language Faculty" also discusses design features, and I believe presents the only model of language that satisfies the type of linguistic framework that they advocate www.bloomsbury.com/us/multimoda...

A Multimodal Language Faculty

Natural human communication is multimodal. We pair speech with gestures, and combine writing with pictures from online messaging to comics to advertising. This…

bloomsbury.com

Limor Raviv 🐘🤗🦒🍄🦄@limorraviv.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Super proud of this fabulous team for challenging old comparative frameworks and rethinking what makes language language. Read more in the thread below 👇 or here 📖😊: www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

Super proud of this fabulous team for challenging old comparative frameworks and rethinking what makes language language. Read more in the thread below 👇 or here 📖😊: www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

The ‘design features’ of language revisited

Language is often regarded as a defining trait of our species, but what are its core properties? In 1960, Hockett published ‘The origin of speech’ enumerating 13 design features presumed to be common ...

cell.com

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🚨NEW PUBLICATION ALERT!🚨 The 'Design Features' of Language Revisited (w/ @mperlman.bsky.social @glupyan.bsky.social Koen de Reus & @limorraviv.bsky.social) Feature Review out now in #OpenAccess in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! #language #linguistics Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

🚨NEW PUBLICATION ALERT!🚨 The 'Design Features' of Language Revisited (w/ @mperlman.bsky.social @glupyan.bsky.social Koen de Reus & @limorraviv.bsky.social) Feature Review out now in #OpenAccess in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! #language #linguistics Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

Very excited to announce that yesterday I submitted my PhD thesis: The Linguistic Life of the Kufr Qassem Deaf Community: Language Emergence, Variation, Change, and Persistence. I dedicate this thesis to my people: the resilient Palestinian people

Super excited to share our new multimodal corpus analysis, "Iconic Words Are Associated With Iconic Gestures" 🥳 Project led by our PhD student Ell Wilding and in collab w/ @jeannettel.bsky.social & @mperlman.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1111/cogs...

Iconic Words Are Associated With Iconic Gestures

Iconicity ratings studies have established that there are many English words which native speakers judge as “iconic,” that is, as sounding like what they mean. Here, we explore whether these iconic E...

doi.org

And it comes together with a reply! It was an interesting and fruitful discussion about the iconicity of different type of r-sounds :) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reply to: Not just the alveolar trill, but all “r-like” sounds are associated with roughness across languages, pointing to a more general link between sound and touch - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Reply to: Not just the alveolar trill, but all “r-like” sounds are associated with roughness across languages, pointing to a more general link between sound and touch

nature.com

Dan Dediu@ddediu.bsky.social · last yr.

Remember the cool finding by @bodowinter.bsky.social et al. that the "trilled r" [r] is associated with roughness? Well, Rémi Anselme, François Pellegrino (@laboratoireddl.bsky.social) & myself show in www.nature.com/articles/s41... that this seems more general and applies to all "r-like" sounds.

Remember the cool finding by @bodowinter.bsky.social et al. that the "trilled r" [r] is associated with roughness? Well, Rémi Anselme, François Pellegrino (@laboratoireddl.bsky.social) & myself show in www.nature.com/articles/s41... that this seems more general and applies to all "r-like" sounds.

Not just the alveolar trill, but all “r-like” sounds are associated with roughness across languages, pointing to a more general link between sound and touch - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Not just the alveolar trill, but all “r-like” sounds are associated with roughness across languages, pointing to a more general link between sound and touch

nature.com

New review/theory/argumentative paper is out: "The size and shape of sound: The role of articulation and acoustics in iconicity and crossmodal correspondences". The paper delves deeply into what phonetic and cognitive mechanisms underpin spoken language iconicity. Link: doi.org/10.1121/10.0...

Susanne Fuchs@susfuchs.bsky.social · last yr.

@bodowinter.bsky.social has a comprehensive review out. I really enjoyed reading it. There is an old debate on acoustic or articulatory targets and Bodo masters this very well. pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/art...

My latest article, "Vocal gestures in early multimodal communication: A commentary on Karadöller, Sümer and Özyürek", is now available to read in First Language. There is a paywall, but I can share the electronic version with anyone who needs it. doi.org/10.1177/0142...

Sign Language Contact, Variation, and Change 2025 conference at the University of Birmingham, UK: we are now inviting abstracts on any topic related to language contact/translanguaging, sociolinguistic variation, and language change in signing communities. sites.google.com/view/slcvc-w...

SLCVC2025 Conference - Call for papers

Call for papers We are inviting abstracts on original research on any topic related to language contact/translanguaging, sociolinguistic variation, and language change in signing communities. All su...

sites.google.com

JOB ALERT! Come work with me! 34-Month Postdoc Position here at the Center for Language Evolution Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in my project "Paths to Polysemy" Job offer here: www.umk.pl/en/jobs/?tas... Please repost & share widely!

Very much enjoyed presenting my poster at #TISLR15 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia today! One important message in our poster is that factors like methodology, researcher's background, and language documentation may affect one's result. Happy to share/discuss more via DM or Email!

New paper out today in Frontiers in AI! The sociolinguistic foundations of language modelling We argue sociolinguistics provides a foundation for understanding LLMs and addressing many challenges www.frontiersin.org/journals/art... doi.org/10.3389/frai... techxplore.com/news/2025-01...

Frontiers | The sociolinguistic foundations of language modeling

frontiersin.org

I'm excited to see this study published in Gesture, led by @kirstyrgreen.bsky.social. We get deep into the nitty-gritty of infants' early production of iconic gestures.

@kirstyrgreen.bsky.social · 2y ago

In my paper with @mperlman.bsky.social and Sotaro Kita (published in Gesture last week benjamins.com/catalog/gest...) we show that infants can create their own iconic gestures, producing their first iconic gesture between 12 and 20 months! Gestures varied in level of conceptual difficulty.

‘From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong’ Please join us for the inaugural lecture of Professor @bodowinter.bsky.social on Friday 21 February 2025 (16:00-17:00) in the Alan Walters Building, University of Birmingham.

From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong

From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong - Professor Bodo Winter's Inaugural Lecture

birmingham.ac.uk