Main description:
How to speak of colors and odors? In many cases, we have to think about an adequate description of a perceived odor or shade of color. Words are not fluently available.The contributions discuss color and odor perception and its linguistic representation from different disciplinary angles: from neurobiology, neuropsychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics and philosophy. They show that linguistic representation of colors and odors depends highly on cultures of communication. Experts are skilled in discerning finer differences between their sense impressions and have at their disposal a special language which non-experts do not master. The color and odor vocabulary is rare, if there is no cultural habit to communicate the very sense impression. In cases where individuals have to speak of their sensory experiences more precisely they often turn to metaphors. The contributions discuss the lack of inter-individual conventions of naming and describing odors - compared to the more expanded linguistic representation of colors.
Table of contents:
- 1. Speaking of colors and odors
- 2. Color smell, and language. The semiotic nature of perception and language
- 3. How can language cope with color? Functional aspects of the nervous system
- 4. Color perception, color description and metaphor
- 5. Attractiveness and adornment
- 6. Color terms between elegance and beauty. The verbalization of color with textiles and cosmetics
- 7. Color names and dynamic imagery
- 8. From blue stockings to blue movies. Color metonymies in English
- 9. Odor memory
- 10. From psychophysics to semiophysics
- 11. Cognition, olfaction and linguistic creativity. Linguistic synesthesia as poetic device in cologne advertisement
- 12. Understanding synesthetic expressions
- 13. Olfactory and visual processing and verbalization
- 14. Contributors
- 15. Index
How to speak of colors and odors? In many cases, we have to think about an adequate description of a perceived odor or shade of color. Words are not fluently available.The contributions discuss color and odor perception and its linguistic representation from different disciplinary angles: from neurobiology, neuropsychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics and philosophy. They show that linguistic representation of colors and odors depends highly on cultures of communication. Experts are skilled in discerning finer differences between their sense impressions and have at their disposal a special language which non-experts do not master. The color and odor vocabulary is rare, if there is no cultural habit to communicate the very sense impression. In cases where individuals have to speak of their sensory experiences more precisely they often turn to metaphors. The contributions discuss the lack of inter-individual conventions of naming and describing odors - compared to the more expanded linguistic representation of colors.
Table of contents:
- 1. Speaking of colors and odors
- 2. Color smell, and language. The semiotic nature of perception and language
- 3. How can language cope with color? Functional aspects of the nervous system
- 4. Color perception, color description and metaphor
- 5. Attractiveness and adornment
- 6. Color terms between elegance and beauty. The verbalization of color with textiles and cosmetics
- 7. Color names and dynamic imagery
- 8. From blue stockings to blue movies. Color metonymies in English
- 9. Odor memory
- 10. From psychophysics to semiophysics
- 11. Cognition, olfaction and linguistic creativity. Linguistic synesthesia as poetic device in cologne advertisement
- 12. Understanding synesthetic expressions
- 13. Olfactory and visual processing and verbalization
- 14. Contributors
- 15. Index