Abstract
This study adopted a corpus-based approach to examine the synaesthetic metaphors of gustatory adjectives in Mandarin. Based on the distribution of synaesthetic uses in the corpus, we found that: (1) the synaesthetic metaphors of Mandarin gustatory adjectives exhibited directionality; (2) the directionality of Mandarin synaesthetic gustatory adjectives showed both commonality and specificity when compared with the attested directionality of gustatory adjectives in English, which calls for a closer re-examination of the claim of cross-lingual universality of synaesthetic tendencies; and (3) the distribution and directionality of Mandarin synaesthetic gustatory adjectives could not be predicted by a single hypothesis, such as the embodiment-driven approach or the biological association-driven approach. Thus, linguistic synaesthesia was constrained by both the embodiment principle and the biological association mechanism.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1167-1194 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Journal | Linguistics |
Volume | 56 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 28 Aug 2018 |
Keywords
- corpus-based
- gustatory adjectives
- Mandarin
- synaesthetic metaphors
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language