Samuel Akinbo

Samuel Akinbo is an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics. His research primarily focuses on how the structural components of real‑world events and entities influence phonological structures. This work draws on phonological alternations motivated by iconicity, understood as the perceived resemblance between form and meaning. As language‑external evidence for iconicity and resemblance‑based mapping more generally, Dr. Akinbo also investigates how musical traditions in West Africa map linguistic structures onto music (e.g., via talking drum, xylophone, flute, etc.) and vice versa (e.g., vocal imitation of music) for expressive purposes. He explores the implications of these musical and linguistic practices for linguistic theory, particularly the idea that the source of linguistic knowledge and representation is a language‑specific cognitive capacity. Because grammaticalized iconicity and form‑meaning relationships in music are underdocumented, a key component of their research is language documentation and description. Thus, Samuel Akinbo’s research program sits at the intersection of phonology, phonetics, music, and language documentation and description, with a specific focus on African languages.