Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-285) and index.

Sensory linguistics : introduction to the book -- The five senses fo lk model -- Sensory semiotics -- Ineffability -- The embodied lexicon h ypothesis -- Synesthesia and metaphor -- Synesthetic metaphors are not metaphorical -- The hierarchy of the senses -- Explaining the hierarchy of the senses -- Methodological foundations -- Norming the senses -- D ominance relations and specialization of sensory words -- Correlations and clusters -- Semantic preferences of sensory words -- Frequency, sem antic complexity and iconicity -- The evaluative dimension -- Re-evalua ting the hierarchy of the senses.

"One of the most fundamental capacities of language is the ability t o express what speakers see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Sensory Ling uistics is the interdisciplinary study of how language relates to the s enses. This book deals with such foundational questions as: Which semio tic strategies do speakers use to express sensory perceptions? Which pe rceptions are easier to encode and which are 'ineffable'? And what are appropriate methods for studying the sensory aspects of linguistics? Af ter a broad overview of the field, a detailed quantitative corpus-based study of English sensory adjectives and their metaphorical uses is pre sented. This analysis calls age-old ideas into question, such as the id ea that the use of perceptual metaphors is governed by a cognitively mo tivated 'hierarchy of the senses'. Besides making theoretical contribut ions to cognitive linguistics, this research monograph showcases new em pirical methods for studying lexical semantics using contemporary stati stical methods"-- Provided by publisher.