What Can Descriptions of Music Tell us about Synesthetic Metaphors?

Drawing on 189 album descriptions, this study examines synesthetic metaphors, and cross sensory transfers to sound in particular. The result shows a hierarchy of four types of cross perceptual transfers to sound from sight, touch, taste, and smell, in the order from the most to the least frequent. B...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe linguistics journal Vol. 14; no. 2; p. 185
Main Authors Shen, Tien-Tein, Tseng, Ming-Yu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Sydney Time Taylor Publishing 01.12.2020
Subjects
Creativity
Hearing
Metaphor
Music
Perceptions
Smell
Synesthesia
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Summary:Drawing on 189 album descriptions, this study examines synesthetic metaphors, and cross sensory transfers to sound in particular. The result shows a hierarchy of four types of cross perceptual transfers to sound from sight, touch, taste, and smell, in the order from the most to the least frequent. By appealing to all the sensory modalities, the adoption of different types of synesthetic metaphors expands the scope of the perceptual experience and makes the hearing of music an event involving multi-sensory experience. This paper also identifies several relatively rare synesthetic metaphors that involve the transfer from the olfactory perception to sound. The musical context of the data justifies the focus on the auditory experience to which smell is transferred. The creative nature of album descriptions and the abstract nature of music encourage the use of synesthetic metaphor.
ISSN:1718-2298
1718-2301