With the support of the ENEOLI COST Action (CA22126), Anna Bobińska (University of Łódź) presented a paper entitled “Du bruit au mot : créativité lexicale et cris d’animaux” at the 17th International Conference on Argotology (Bestiaire et langage : créativité lexicale, images, traductions et discours), held at the University of Alicante, Spain.

How does a bird’s cry become a word and then, eventually, a metaphor? Drawing on a comparative corpus in French, Polish and Spanish, the paper traced this trajectory across three stages: the integration of animal vocalisations into the lexicon, the word-formation processes through which they generate new lexical forms and grammatical categories, and the figurative meanings they eventually acquire.

The analysis revealed a language-specific interplay between sound and system: each language filters animal cries through its own phonological constraints and cultural perceptions, producing patterns of both convergence and striking divergence. Far from being a marginal, purely imitative phenomenon, sound imitation emerged as a genuinely productive engine of lexical innovation.

The paper resonated directly with ENEOLI’s mission to advance cross-linguistic research on lexical innovation, while opening a wider conversation on how language shapes, and is shaped by, our relationship with the animal world.