Chemotherapy as language: Sound symbolism in cancer medication names

Gregory A. Abel and Lewis H. Glinert

Social Science & Medicine, 2008, vol. 66, issue 8, 1863-1869

Abstract: The concept of sound symbolism proposes that even the tiniest sounds comprising a word may suggest the qualities of the object which that word represents. Cancer-related medication names, which are likely to be charged with emotional meaning for patients, might be expected to contain such sound-symbolic associations. We analyzed the sounds in the names of 60 frequently-used cancer-related medications, focusing on the medications' trade names as well as the names (trade or generic) commonly used in the clinic. We assessed the frequency of common voiced consonants (/b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /z/; thought to be associated with slowness and heaviness) and voiceless consonants (/p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /s/; thought to be associated with fastness and lightness), and compared them to what would be expected in standard American English using a reference dataset. A Fisher's exact test for independence showed the chemotherapy consonantal frequencies to be significantly different from standard English (p = 0.009 for trade; pÂ

Keywords: Sound; symbolism; Psycholinguistics; Oncology; Marketing; Cancer; Chemotherapy; Medications (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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