Abstract:
The 1960s saw the emergence of the Taylorian lexical feedback theory of phonetic symbolism, a theory that calls into question the preventive value of non-words--which has traditionally been taken for granted since Sapirin terms of lexico-semantic interferences in speakers' perceptual judgements. Few linguists, however, have investigated the soundness of this epistemological reappraisal. This paper revisits this chapter in the history of phonetic symbolism. By demonstrating that the lexical feedback theory of phonetic symbolism is not a given, I seek here to legitimatize the experimental use of non-words.
