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Sensory adjectives in English express multisensory meanings of an emotional and bodily-internal nature
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Perception and psychophysics.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0897-8911
Number of Authors: 12024 (English)In: A wide net of meaning / [ed] David Pagmar, Stockholm: Formularum , 2024, p. 51-65Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Sensory expressions such as bright in bright light have traditionally been assumed to adhere to the Aristotetolian division of the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Usages ofsensory terms outside of their primary sensory domain, such as in sweet melody where the taste term sweet describes a sound, have accordingly been seen as metaphorical and infrequent. However, recent research have questioned the notion of sensory metaphors, and findings from my own research indicate that the use of sensory terms in multiple sensory domains is pervasive. I suggest that sensory expressions often express multisensory meanings related to experiences of an emotional and bodily-internal nature (e.g., emotional evaluation, intensity or familiarity) that are shared between the senses. Investigating English sensory adjectives that are most strongly assiociated to the sensory domains in actual language use, I find that sensory adjectives of all sensory domains are highly multisensory, with one third of sight sensory adjectives and four fifths of smell adjectives being used in at least one more sensory domain. I also find that those sensory adjectives that are most multisensory, and thus describes sensory input in several sensory domains, express bodily-internal or interoceptive experiences to a higher degree. These findings indicate that sensory expressions reflect deeper underlying connections between the senses of an emotional nature. Further investigations of multisensory language may thus reveal how perceptual and cognitive-emotional processing is connected.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Formularum , 2024. p. 51-65
Keywords [en]
sensory adjectives, English, multisensory meanings, emotional, bodily-internal nature
National Category
Specific Languages General Language Studies and Linguistics Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)
Research subject
Linguistics; Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-235052ISBN: 978-91-988133-2-6 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-235052DiVA, id: diva2:1908902
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2021-03440Available from: 2024-10-29 Created: 2024-10-29 Last updated: 2025-01-03

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Hörberg, Thomas

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