La fonosemantica è la branca della linguistica che studia il rapporto tra la fonetica e la semantica delle lingue naturali. La fonosemantica descrive e interpreta le diverse forme di iconismo fonologico presenti nella lingua, ad esempio quelle in cui un suono si presenta come un'immagine del senso che veicola (iconismo figurativo), o quelle in cui la differenza tra due o più suoni si presenta come un'immagine della differenza tra i loro sensi (iconismo diagrammatico). (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonosemantica)

Il fonosimbolismo o simbolismo fonetico è la proprietà, che i suoni linguistici possiedono, di simboleggiare, mediante le loro qualità acustiche ed articolatorie, il valore semantico che veicolano. (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonosimbolismo)

Sound symbolism or phonosemantics is a branch of linguistics and refers to the idea that vocal sounds have meaning. In particular, sound symbolism is the idea that phonemes (the written representations of sounds, transcribed between slashes like this: /b/) carry meaning in and of themselves. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_symbolism)

Sound symbolism or phonosemantics is an obscure branch of linguistics and refers to the idea that vocal sounds have meaning. An important concept for understanding this idea is phoneme: Phonemes are written between slashes like this /b/. (http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Phonosemantics/)

Ideophones are a type of words used by speakers to convey a vivid impression of a certain sensation or sensory perception, e.g. smell, color, shape, sound, action, or movement. Ideophones are attested in all languages of the world, however, languages differ in the extent to which they make use of them. Because of this, some linguists do not think it is useful to talk about a universal 'class' of ideophones, and maintain that the concept makes sense only within the context of an individual language. In this narrow sense, the validity of the class of ideophones is rarely disputed. The word class of ideophones is often called phonosemantic to indicate that it is not a grammatical word class in the traditional sense of the word (like 'verb' or 'noun'), but rather a grouping based on form and meaning. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideophone)

Phonosemantics is a branch of psycholinguistics. It is based on the assumption that every sound and every letter may be pleasant or unpleasant, round or sharp, hot or cold. The results of the experiments in phonosemantics show how the phonetic forms of brand names or trademarks are correlated with the commercial product they represent. (http://www.almex.net/randd/phonosemantics/index.php)

Phonosemantics is a portmanteau word which suggests the meaning that comes from sounds. The idea that individual vocal sounds have meaning is not a new idea. You can find precedents in the Upaniṣads and in Plato. However it is not a popular idea amongst linguists who deny the possibility of such a relationship. (http://visiblemantra.org/phonosemantics.html)