What question did this study set out to answer?

To determine whether the sensory directionality principle of synaesthetic metaphors extends beyond poetry to general-purpose language across different languages.

May 1, 2015Functions of Language

Synaesthesia

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Authors

FLFrancesca Strik LieversUniversity of Genoa

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Implication

Corpus analysis reveals predominant sensory transfer patterns in English and Italian, indicating directional constraints reflect association frequencies rather than universal rules.

Key Points

To determine whether the sensory directionality principle of synaesthetic metaphors extends beyond poetry to general-purpose language across different languages.
Applied a semi-automatic extraction method for synaesthetic associations to large general-purpose web corpora of English (ukWaC) and Italian (itWaC).
Most synaesthetic transfers proceed from lower sensory modalities (touch, smell, taste) to higher modalities (sight, hearing), such as 'sweet voice'.
Reverse transfers also occur in corpus data (e.g., 'bitter cold'), indicating that directionality represents statistical frequency rather than a universal cognitive constraint.

Cite This Study

Francesca Strik Lievers (2015) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a1018ea01be78fe81606a43 https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.22.1.04str

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Implication

Corpus analysis reveals predominant sensory transfer patterns in English and Italian, indicating directional constraints reflect association frequencies rather than universal rules.