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.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by a grant from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (RG-12-D-16) and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Central Research Grant G-YBGM.
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Appendix The distribution of Mandarin synaesthetic gustatory adjectives based on the Sinica Corpus
Source domain | Target domains | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
TASTE | SMELL | VISION | HEARING | TOUCH |
Intensity adjectives | ||||
淡 dàn ‘not salty/ of mild taste’ | 27 | 247 | 78 | 0 |
濃 nóng ‘of intense taste’ | 29 | 175 | 2 | 0 |
醇 chún ‘of intense taste’ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
濃醇 nóng-nóng ‘of intense taste’ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Quality adjectives | ||||
甜 tián ‘sweet’ | 11 | 11 | 5 | 0 |
甘甜 gān-tián ‘sweet’ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
甜美 tián-měi ‘tasty’ | 0 | 28 | 26 | 0 |
甘 gān ‘sweet’ | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
甘美 gān-měi ‘tasty’ | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
鮮 xiān ‘tasty’ | 1 | 84 | 0 | 0 |
鮮美 xiān-měi ‘tasty’ | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
辛 xīn ‘hot (in taste)’ | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
辣là ‘hot (in taste)’ | 0 | 89 | 0 | 2 |
辛辣 xīn-là ‘hot (in taste)’ | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
鹹 xián ‘salty’ | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
苦 kǔ ‘bitter’ | 1 | 84 | 1 | 1 |
酸 suān ‘sour’ | 8 | 0 | 0 | 66 |
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