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Phonemes and Symbols

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Synonyms

Consonants; Segments; Vowels

Definition

Phonemes are the basic building blocks of speech sounds, which are symbolic in nature.

Introduction

Phonemes are perhaps the most intuitive of the units that constitute the speech sounds of language: They are essentially the consonants and vowels that most people are familiar with. Besides being a product of vocalized speech, current phonological theory views phonemes as abstract mental representations of sounds. Linguistic overviews of the phoneme can be found in classic works such as Sapir (1925), Swadesh (1934), Twaddell (1935), Jones (1967), and a comprehensive modern overview is found in Dresher (2011).

Signs and Phonemes

The modern disciplines of semiotics and linguistics have their roots in Saussure’s “Course in General Linguistics” (Saussure 1972). This important work introduced the notion of the linguistic sign. This idea has given rise to two important concepts that will be explored here: symbols and phonemes. These concepts...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Jason Brown

Authors
  1. Jason Brown
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jason Brown .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

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Brown, J. (2016). Phonemes and Symbols. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3302-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3302-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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