A Cognitive Study Of Taste Synaesthetic Metaphors In Chinese And English

Synaesthesia has been discussed in many fields such as neurology(e.g.,Cytowic,1989),psychology(e.g.,Rogowska,2011)and linguistics(e.g.,Ullmann,1957).Under the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics,synaesthesia is regarded not only as a rhetorical device of language but,more importantly,as a metaphor enabling people to conceptualize one sense in terms of another(Shen,1997;Popova,2005).In recent years,numerous researchers(e.g.,Ullmann,1957;Strik Lievers,2015;Zhao et al.,2018)have focused on the general model of the directionality in synaesthetic transfers based on literary works,while they have paid less attention to the synaesthesia of a specific sense.Since taste is one of the most fundamental and important perceptual abilities of humans,the research on taste synaesthetic metaphors can shed new light on the way humans perceive the outside world.Taste synaesthetic metaphors are ubiquitous in Chinese and English.Previous comparative studies on taste synaesthesia mostly focus on the description of synaesthetic expressions,but they rarely focus on the exploration of the cognitive motivations and the cognitive mechanism of synaesthetic metaphors.Additionally,the quantitative research method is seldom involved in earlier researches.Under the guidance of theories in Cognitive Linguistics such as Conceptual Metaphor Theory(CMT),this study explores the synaesthetic usage of basic taste words in Chinese and English based on the following two corpora:the Beijing Language and Culture University Corpus(BCC)and the Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA),so as to make a relatively quantitative and qualitative analysis of taste synaesthetic metaphors.To make the research more feasible and scientific,this study adopts adjective-noun combinations as the search form for data collection and adopts Pragglejaz Metaphor Identification Procedure(MIP)to identify synaesthetic metaphors.The current study intends to answer the following questions:(1)What are the sources and targets of taste synaesthetic metaphors in Chinese and English?(2)What are the directionalities in taste synaesthetic transfers in Chinese and English?(3)What are similar and different taste synaesthetic expressions in Chinese and English?What are the cognitive motivations behind the similarities and differences?(4)What is the main cognitive mechanism of taste synaesthetic metaphors?The major findings of the present study are as follows:Firstly,taste features as a particularly prominent source modality in synaesthetic metaphors in Chinese and English.When the source is taste,hearing and sight are more likely to be targets in Chinese,and hearing is more likely to be the target in English.Secondly,the directionalities in taste synaesthetic transfers between Chinese and English share more similarities than differences.Directionality from a hierarchically"lower" sensory modality(taste)to a "higher" one(i.e.,smell,vision or hearing)exists in both languages.Several opposite transfers also appear in both languages(e.g.,transfers from the taste domain to the touch domain),which indicates that the synaesthetic directionality is about asymmetry rather than unidirectionality,and taste synaesthetic transfers do not completely follow the "low-to-high" transfer pattern.This study holds that the observed directionality is perception-based.Based on perceptual experience,senses can be classified according to the degree of embodiment,and the hierarchically "lower"sensory modality is more embodied,which indicates that concepts from hierarchically"lower" senses are more accessible to humans.People usually understand less accessible concepts with the help of more accessible ones,so transfers from hierarchically "lower"senses to "higher" ones are more frequent than backward transfers at the language level.In addition,directionality may also be influenced by the high emotionality of taste words.Thirdly,since the synaesthetic data of taste as the source domain are much more than those of taste as the target domain,this study centers on the metaphorical usage of taste adjectives to discuss similar and different taste synaesthetic expressions.Similar taste synaesthetic metaphors are shown in both languages,such as PLEASANT SOUND OR MUSIC IS SWEET/TIAN(甜/sweet).There also exist culturally specific expressions,for example,SINCERE WORDS ARE KU(苦/bitter).For the causes of the similarities and differences,the similarities can be attributed to three elements:universal bodily experience,common cognition and similar neural associations among senses,while differences are mainly caused by different cultures,different social backgrounds and different geographical backgrounds.Fourthly,this thesis proves that Conceptual Blending Theory(CBT)is more competent to explain the cognitive mechanism of synaesthetic metaphors.CBT can not only explain the bidirectionality of synaesthetic transfers which Conceptual Metaphor Theory(CMT)is unable to explain,but also circumvent the thorny problem of distinction in metonymy analysis.Essentially,synaesthetic metaphors are the result of conceptual integration between different sensory domains.This study makes a relatively quantitative and qualitative analysis based on corpora,which compensates for the lack of data evidence in earlier researches.Furthermore,the use of MIP instead of the intuition of researchers for metaphor identification makes the study more scientific.In addition,the study reinforces relevant theories and ideas in Cognitive Linguistics such as CMT,embodiment thesis and CBT,and brings some enlightenment to vocabulary teaching,translation as well as intercultural communication.