An average get are step 1.478 regarding plosive status, step one.forty five from the fricative standing, 1.707 about nose status, and you may step 1.942 about liquids position. The lowest section for the Desk step three summarises the results away from modelling away from Lay 3. The fresh standard is actually the fresh new fricative status, so we opposed the newest plosive versus. fricative requirements, the fresh nose versus. fricative criteria, additionally the liquids versus. fricative conditions. First, the difference between the brand new plosive and you can fricative requirements wasn’t credible, since the 95% CI of this coefficient guess integrated no [?0.06, 0.09]. Next, the fresh nasal vs. fricative and you will water vs. fricative evaluations revealed that each of the latest coefficient rates was in fact self-confident (? = 0.16) (nasal) and you can (? = 0.3) (liquid) and you will each of the fresh new 95% CIs don’t were no ([0.09, 0.24] (nasal) and you can [0.23, 0.38] (liquid)), and thus indicating one to nonce terms which have nasals and you can h2o was indeed judged becoming a lot more kawaii labels compared to those that have fricatives.

Dialogue

The present day studies indicated that (1) labial consonants may feel in the kawaii than coronal and dorsal consonants, (2) high-regularity consonants may become in the kawaii than low-volume consonants, and (3) drinking water /?/ and you will nasal /n/ will be associated with kawaii than just fricative /z/ (and you can plosive /d/). These types of overall performance recommend that the place-of-articulation function associated with the kawaii is actually [labial], together with regularity feature with the kawaii was [high frequency]. The manner-of-articulation feature requires subsequent discussion. Once the consonant proving the best average score try liquids /?/, we can think your styles-of-articulation ability in the kawaii is [liquid]. Yet not, due to the fact Bayesian data showed, nose /n/ is far more apt to be of kawaii than just fricative /z/. Therefore, we can conclude that water and you can nasals, each of which are [sonorant], was of kawaii.

Standard discussion

This study showed that the features of consonants associated with kawaii in Japanese are [labial], [high frequency], and [sonorant]. The motivations for the three features are briefly discussed below. The feature [labial] may be linked to a pouting gesture, that is, a gesture made using both lips can induce Japanese people to feel kawaii (Kumagai, 2020). The feature [labial] may also be linked to the image of babies, in that bilabial consonants are more frequent in the earlier phases of language acquisition (Kumagai and Kawahara, 2020). Thus, it can be said that consonants with feature [labial] can evoke the image of babies, at least in Japanese. The feature [high frequency] may stem from shortness, as the frequency code hypothesis states that high-frequency sounds are associated https://kissbrides.com/sv/jeevansathi-recension/ with smallness (Ohala, 1984, 1994). The feature [sonorant] may be connected to a number of observations on sound symbolic effects in names and shapes. Sonorants are better suited for female names or bulleted shapes (Shinohara and Kawahara, 2013; Asano et al., 2015). To summarise, the factors associated with kawaii may include pouting gesture, babyishness, smallness, femininity, and roundness. It is interesting that some of these factors overlap with the factors noted by Kinsella (1995) for cute characters. She noted that ‘The essential anatomy of a cute cartoon character consists in its being small, soft, infantile, mammalian, round, without bodily appendages (e.g., arms), without bodily orifices (e.g., mouths), non-sexual, mute, insecure, helpless or bewildered’. (p. 226; emphasis mine). Taking the fact into consideration that Kinsella (1995) was published more than 25 years ago, it is inferred that something that evokes kawaii in the minds of Japanese speakers has not changed for at least 25 years.

As noted in the introduction section, it is well known that sound symbolism plays an important role in ; Klink and Wu, 2014). The exploration of what consonants are better suited for kawaii names is an interesting topic. Based on the above discussion, it is inferred that the consonants that induce the feeling of kawaii among Japanese people include /p/, /?/, and /m/, as the first consonant /p/ is specified with [labial] and [high frequency], the second consonant /?/ with [sonorant], and the third consonant /m/ with [labial] and [sonorant]. Based on his kawaii judgment experiment with Japanese speakers, Kumagai (2019) discusses whether /m/, in addition to /p/, is another consonant expressive of kawaii in Japanese, since his study results demonstrated that fewest differences existed regarding average scores between nonce words with /p/ and those with /m/. In Japanese words or character names that seem to be associated with kawaii, we find examples that contain /p/, /?/, or /m/. For example, a mimetic word, or onomatopoeia, purupuru, is used to express something soft or something that trembles like jelly. We also find a cute character name pomupomu purin ‘Pom Pom Purin’, created by Sanrio. Moreover, Kawahara (2019) reported that bilabial consonants and /?/ are often used in girls’ names in a popular Japanese anime PreCure, broadcast since 2004. It is expected that these consonants will prove applicable in naming anime characters or products that are characterised by kawaii.