2016 Volume 31 Issue 6 Pages AI30-N_1-8
The perceptual domain of taste presents a symbol-grounding problem in which language does not capture the target domain straightforwardly. We suggest that analogy, defined as a process of finding relevance in a metaphorical expression, is a key to handling the problem in the domain of taste. In this study, we took up sound symbolism as a case of expressing the tastes of wine and sake, and did a quantitative text analysis to demonstrate how sound symbolic expressions function in the description of wine and sake (word count of wine text: 201,294; word count of sake: 50,147). The text analysis showed both similarities and differences between the two texts. In both texts, sound symbolism is used as a means of increasing the expressive power of general and abstract words referring to the tastes of wine and sake. In the sake text, however, the use of sound symbolism was dominant in the pre-taste and post-taste stages, while in the wine text, expressions of complex tastes were highly sound symbolic. The different functions of sound symbolism presumably correspond to the differences between wine and sake in terms of the manner of tasting.
