Sonification is the translation of relationships in data into sound to make these relationship understandable (Kramer et al., 1999; Hermann, 2008; Walker and Nees, 2011). The sonification might also focus on the explaining what these relationships are (Hooker, 2004). Sonification then can be both theoretical and a design practice. As Paul Vickers and Stephen Barrass argue, sonifications facilitate making meaning and inference (Barrass and Vickers, 2011).
More recently, sonification can be considered as a complement to visualisation and to engage non-experts with data (Lenzi and Cucciarelli, 2019). This brings more of a design element to sonification to help the listener understand the data and to create different engagement with it.