壹蘋派生活美語　波巴奇奇效應揭開聲音的奧祕

　　The Bouba-Kiki effect is interesting because it reveals a connection between sound, image, and meaning. Many scientists and linguists are interested in understanding whether or not language has meaning beyond what we assign to it. There are other experiments that have been conducted in this field. In 1933, a study tested English speakers on their ability to match Japanese words with their meanings. For example, participants were presented with the words heiwa and tatakai, and they had to guess which one means “war” and which one means “peace.”

　　波巴奇奇效應很有趣，因為它透露了聲音、圖像和意義之間的關聯。許多科學家與語言學家都對了解語言是否具有超出我們賦予的意義感興趣。另有其他與此領域相關的實驗被執行。1933 年，一項研究測試了英語母語者將日文單字與其字義配對的能力。例如，參與者被展示了 heiwa 與 tatakai 兩個詞，他們必須猜出哪個表示「戰爭」、哪個表示「和平」。

 

生活必備字詞：

reveal　vt. 揭露，透露

assign　vt. 將……歸屬於

match A with B　　將 A 與 B 配對

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本文節錄自《常春藤生活英語》雜誌，完整內容請見七月號。