Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter': synaesthetic metaphors and cognition

Synaesthetic metaphors exhibit a robust, universal, tendency to use the `lower-tohigher' structure more frequently than the inverse one. This robust pattern was found across genres (poetic and non-poetic discourse), language boundaries (e.g. English, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Indone...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language and literature (Harlow, England) England), 2008-05, Vol.17 (2), p.107-121
Main Authors: Yeshayahu Shen, Aisenman, Ravid
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arabic language
Chinese languages
Cognitive linguistics
Conceptual metaphor
Context
English language
Hebrew language
Indonesian language
Japanese language
Naturalness
Synesthesia
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Summary:Synaesthetic metaphors exhibit a robust, universal, tendency to use the `lower-tohigher' structure more frequently than the inverse one. This robust pattern was found across genres (poetic and non-poetic discourse), language boundaries (e.g. English, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian) and historical periods. A cognitive account of this pattern is introduced, according to which this lower-to-higher mapping reflects a cognitively simpler and more basic directionality than the inverse one. Several predictions that follow from this account were tested, using various psychological measures (recall, difficulty in context generation, and naturalness judgments). In accordance with the present account, it was found that the lower-to-higher structure is judged as more natural than its inverse, is better recalled and is judged as easier to construct a context for.
ISSN:0963-9470
1461-7293
DOI:10.1177/0963947007088222