1Takeluma: An Exploration of Sound, Meaning, and Writing

Modern linguistic theory suggests that the sign is arbitrary, that the relationship between signifi er and signifi ed has no discernible pattern. (“Dog ” could mean cat, and vice versa.) Marketing experts and advertisers, those who create names for new products, think otherwise, that the sounds of words and neologisms can evoke images which elicit an emotional impact. Different sounds can “feel ” sharp or dull, for example; they can give a phenomenological response. Poets, of course, realize that the sounds words make can be used towards expressive means. While morphemes—roots, prefi xes and suffi xes—have generally been considered the base level of meaning, some studies suggest that phonemes can infl uence meaning on a subconscious level, perhaps resulting from the physiology of how we produce different sounds in speech. In this paper and accompanying project, I am interested in the relationship between spoken and written language and will look at examples in which meaning plays a integral role in how speech and writing are represented. I will be looking at cases in which the signifi er and signifi ed connect in ways Saussure would not hav