(Phon)aesthetics Beyond Sound: Sociocultural Associations, Aesthetic Appeal, and Perceived Valence in Sign Languages

Aesthetic evaluations of languages depend not only on the linguistic signal but also onlanguage-external factors, notably familiarity with a language and the socioculturalassociations triggered by recognising it. For spoken languages, these factors are hard toseparate, because languages evoking strong cultural associations are usually also familiar. Weused sign languages to isolate the influence of sociocultural associations, testing hearing nonsignerswho were unfamiliar with American (ASL) and French (LSF) Sign Language butfamiliar with the associated cultures. Participants rated 64 signs (32 ASL, 32 LSF; halfpositively, half negatively valenced) for aesthetic appeal, perceived valence and, once giventhe meaning, perceived iconicity. Half of participants were told which language each signbelonged to, whereas the other half received no such information. Appeal ratings for ASL andLSF differed only when the languages were indicated: the more participants liked Frenchrelative to US-American culture, the more appealing they found LSF relative to ASL, and viceversa. No such pattern emerged without this information. Sociocultural associations can thusshape aesthetic evaluation of a language independently of direct linguistic experience.Additionally, although participants did not know the signs’ meanings, positively valenced signswere rated as more positive and, particularly in ASL, more appealing than negatively valencedsigns. This suggests that aesthetic and affective evaluations of signs are closely linked. Finally,more iconic signs received valence ratings more closely aligned with their actual valence. Toour knowledge, this is the first extension of (phon)aesthetic research to sign languages.