Skip to main content

Mandarin Visual, Auditory, and Olfactory Adjectives

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
  • 199 Accesses

Part of the book series: Frontiers in Chinese Linguistics ((FiCL,volume 10))

Abstract

The synaesthetic data from the Sinica corpus shows that vision, hearing, and smell exhibit much lower degrees of synaesthetic participation than touch and taste in Mandarin (see Chap. 2). In addition, there are only four auditory adjectives and two olfactory adjectives identified with synaesthetic uses (see Chap. 2).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Williams (1976) also established the transfer direction between color and dimension for English sensory adjectives, where dimension adjectives can transfer to color, but not vice versa. This study confirms that pattern for Mandarin sensory adjectives. Mandarin color adjectives do not transfer to dimension, while dimension adjectives do appear with color uses, such as 大红 da4 hong2 ‘bright red’ and 浅绿 qian3 lv4 ‘light green’. However, intra-sensory mappings are not the focus of this study, so they will not be discussed in depth.

References

  • Caballero, Rosario, and Carita Paradis. 2015. Making sense of sensory perceptions across languages and cultures. Functions of Language 22 (1): 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drury, Heather A., David C. Van Essen, Charles H. Anderson, Chris W. Lee, Thomas A. Coogan, and James W. Lewis. 1996. Computerized mappings of the cerebral cortex: A multiresolution flattening method and a surface-based coordinate system. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 8: 1–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibbs, Raymond W. 2005. Embodiment and cognitive science. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hong, Chengyu (洪成玉). 1989. A study on wen2 [释 “闻”]. Beijing Normal College (Social Science Edition) [北京师范学院学报(社会科学版)] 5: 107–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marks, Lawrence, Robin Hammeal, Marc Bornstein, and Linda Smith. 1987. Perceiving similarity and comprehending metaphor. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 52 (1): 1–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Popova, Yanna. 2005. Image schemas and verbal synaesthesia. In From perception to meaning: Image schema in cognitive linguistics (cognitive linguistics research 29), ed. Beate Hampe and Joseph Grady, 395–420. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Shen, Yeshayahu. 1997. Cognitive constraints on poetic figures. Cognitive Linguistics 8 (1): 33–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stokes, Dustin, and Stephen Biggs. 2015. The dominance of the visual. In Perception and its modalities, ed. Stokes Dustin, M. Matthen, and Stephen Biggs, 350–378. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viberg, Åke. 1983. The verbs of perception: A typological study. Linguistics 21 (1): 123–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang, Weihui (汪维辉) and Hiroyuki Akitani (秋谷裕幸). 2014. Synchronic distribution and diachronic development of words encoding “to smell” in Chinese [汉语“闻/嗅”义词的现状与历史]. Language and Linguistics [语言暨语言学] 15(5): 699–732.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, Ying (王锳). 1997. The meaning extension based on synaesthesia: A case study on wen2 [试论“通感生义”——从“闻”字说起]. Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies [语言教学与研究] 4: 23–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, Jamie, Brett Huckstep, and Elias Tsakanikos. 2006. Sound-colour synaesthesia: To what extent does it use cross-modal mechanisms common to us all? Cortex 42 (2): 264–280.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Joseph. 1976. Synaesthetic adjectives: A possible law of sematic change. Language 52 (2): 461–478.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winter, Bodo. 2016a. The sensory structure of the English lexicon. Merced, CA: University of California, Merced dissertation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, Qingqing (赵青青) and Chu-Ren Huang (黄居仁). 2018. Mapping models and underlying mechanisms of synaesthetic metaphors in Mandarin [现代汉语通感隐喻的映射模型与制约机制]. Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies [语言教学与研究] 1: 44–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, Qingqing, Chu-Ren Huang, and Yat-mei Sophia Lee. 2018c. From linguistic synaesthesia to embodiment: Asymmetrical representations of taste and smell in Mandarin Chinese. In Chinese lexical semantics (LNAI 10709), ed. Yunfang Wu, Jia Fei Hong, and Qi Su, 406–413. Gewerbestrasse: Springer International Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qingqing Zhao .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Peking University Press

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Zhao, Q. (2020). Mandarin Visual, Auditory, and Olfactory Adjectives. In: Embodied Conceptualization or Neural Realization. Frontiers in Chinese Linguistics, vol 10. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9315-1_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9315-1_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-32-9314-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-32-9315-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics