Sensory Linguistics : Language, perception and metaphor

Description

"One of the most fundamental capacities of language is the ability to express what speakers see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Sensory Linguistics is the interdisciplinary study of how language relates to the senses. This book deals with such foundational questions as: Which semiotic strategies do speakers use to express sensory perceptions? Which perceptions are easier to encode and which are 'ineffable'? And what are appropriate methods for studying the sensory aspects of linguistics? After a broad overview of the field, a detailed quantitative corpus-based study of English sensory adjectives and their metaphorical uses is presented. This analysis calls age-old ideas into question, such as the idea that the use of perceptual metaphors is governed by a cognitively motivated 'hierarchy of the senses'. Besides making theoretical contributions to cognitive linguistics, this research monograph showcases new empirical methods for studying lexical semantics using contemporary statistical methods"--  Read more... Sensory linguistics : introduction to the book -- The five senses folk model -- Sensory semiotics -- Ineffability -- The embodied lexicon hypothesis -- Synesthesia and metaphor -- Synesthetic metaphors are not metaphorical -- The hierarchy of the senses -- Explaining the hierarchy of the senses -- Methodological foundations -- Norming the senses -- Dominance relations and specialization of sensory words -- Correlations and clusters -- Semantic preferences of sensory words -- Frequency, semantic complexity and iconicity -- The evaluative dimension -- Re-evaluating the hierarchy of the senses.