The relationship between meanings of words and their sound shapes is to a large extent arbitrary, but it is well known that languages exhibit sound symbolism effects violating arbitrariness. Evidence for sound symbolism is typically anecdotal, however. Here we present a systematic approach. Using a selection of basic vocabulary in nearly one half of the world’s languages we find commonalities a...

There are numerous studies demonstrating that people’s judgments about meanings of words can sometimes derive from their sound – a phenomenon often referred to as sound symbolism. A recent comprehensive assessment of English demonstrates that some small amount of systematicity exists between form and meaning. Is this small level of systematicity in language sufficient to drive the observed beha...

Organizational symbolism was a new and exciting topic of management research 15 to 20 years ago. After experiencing a period of much attention from both researchers and practitioners, the topic seemed to fall out of favor. Over the past ten years, there have been few studies devoted to symbolism. I believe this may be due in part to the lack of a cohesive conceptualization. Approaches to the to...

This article aims at historicizing the ‘risk society’ thesis (Ulrich Beck). I first present an important book by Eugène Huzar, La Fin du monde par la science (Paris: Dentu, 1855). The author reflects upon the global catastrophes produced by new technologies and tries to imagine a safer way of governing science and nature. I contextualize this work by providing a series of case studies on variou...

The capability of enemy anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic-missile systems, naturally a matter of intense Interest to us, depends in part on the capability of a number of sub-systems. one of the most important of which is the radars used for target acquisition and tracking. We need to know the parameters of these radars as accurately as possible in order to plan penetration strategy and design th...