This book focuses on linguistic synaesthesia in a hitherto less-studied language - Mandarin Chinese - and adopts a corpus-driven approach to support the analysis and argumentation. The study identifies directional tendencies and underlying mechanisms for Mandarin synaesthetic adjectives. By doing so, it not only provides an added layer of understanding for theories of linguistic synaesthesia, but also offers evidence to help refine previous theories, such as Embodiment Theory and Conceptual Metaphor Theory. In brief, the book makes a significant contribution to the development of Cognitive Linguistics. The intended readership includes, but is not limited to, graduate students in linguistics and researchers interested in Chinese linguistics in particular, and in lexical semantics and cognitive linguistics in general.

Autorentext

Dr Qingqing Zhao received her PhD from the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Her main research interests are lexical semantics and cognitive linguistics, topics on which she has published more than ten papers in high-impact SCI/SSCI journals and prestigious CSSCI journals, including Linguistics, PLoS ONE, Zhongguoyuwen, and so on.

Inhalt

PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CHAPTER 1Introduction to synaesthesia 1.1 Linguistic synaesthesia 1.1.1 Transfer patterns 1.1.2 Underlying mechanisms 1.1.3 The nature of linguistic synaesthesia 1.2 Linguistic synaesthesia in Chinese 1.3 Research issues 1.4 Overview of the book CHAPTER 2Methodology: A corpus-driven approach 2.1 A linguistic synaesthesia identification procedure 2.1.1 Identification of basic sensory meanings 2.1.2 Classification of human sensory modalities 2.1.3 Data collection of synaesthetic expressions 2.2 Overview of extracted data 2.2.1 Distributions of synaesthetic data 2.2.2 Synaesthetic participation 2.2.3 Sensory associations 2.3 Summary of the chapter CHAPTER 3Mandarin tactile adjectives 3.1 Data distributions 3.2 Tactile adjectives of intensity 3.3 Tactile adjectives of quality 3.3.1 Temperature 3.3.2 Hardness 3.3.3 Sharpness 3.3.4 Dampness 3.3.5 Smoothness 3.3.6 Physical force 3.3.7 Pain 3.3.8 Summary 3.4 Synaesthetic tendencies of Mandarin tactile adjectives CHAPTER 4Mandarin gustatory adjectives 4.1 Gustatory adjectives of intensity 4.2 Gustatory adjectives of quality 4.3 Synaesthetic tendencies of Mandarin gustatory adjectives 4.4 Directionality between touch and taste CHAPTER 5Mandarin visual, auditory, and olfactory adjectives 5.1 Visual adjectives 5.1.1 Color 5.1.2 Dimension 5.1.3 Visual situation 5.1.4 Synaesthetic tendencies of Mandarin visual adjectives 5.1.5 Directionality among touch, taste, and vision 5.2 Auditory adjectives 5.2.1 Synaesthetic tendencies of Mandarin auditory adjectives 5.2.2 Directionality among touch, taste, vision, and hearing 5.3 Olfactory adjectives 5.3.1 Synaesthetic tendencies of Mandarin olfactory adjectives 5.3.2 Directionality among touch, taste, vision, hearing, and smell 5.4 Embodiment of five senses CHAPTER 6Mandarin compound adjectives combining different modalities 6.1 Synaesthetic patterns 6.2 Compound adjectives combining touch, taste, and vision 6.3 Comparisons with adjectives involving one modality CHAPTER 7From linguistic synaesthesia to Conceptual Metaphor Theory and embodiment 7.1 Mandarin synaesthesia and theoretical models 7.1.1 Directionality and perceived similarity 7.1.2 Universality and biological connections 7.1.3 An incorporated theoretical model 7.2 The nature of linguistic synaesthesia revisited 7.3 A finer-grained account of embodiment 7.4 Summary of theoretical implications CHAPTER 8Conclusion LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Appendix 1. Distributions of synaesthetic uses of Mandarin tactile adjectives in the Sinica corpus Appendix 2. Distributions of synaesthetic uses of Mandarin gustatory adjectives in the Sinica corpus Appendix 3. Distributions of synaesthetic uses of Mandarin visual adjectives in the Sinica corpus Appendix 4. Distributions of synaesthetic uses of Mandarin auditory adjectives in the Sinica corpus Appendix 5. Distributions of synaesthetic uses of Mandarin olfactory adjectives in the Sinica corpus References