Chapter 7 Conclusion
7.2 Implications and Prospects
In terms of methodology, by adopting three synesthetic metaphorical forms in the examination of crossmodal expressions of flavor, we are able to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the conceptualization of flavor in language. Moreover, three aspects examined through our theoretical framework respectively correspond to previous findings in researches on flavor descriptions, namely, synesthetic metaphor, zone activation, and imagistic simile in relation to the image schema and prototype effect. In fact, abundant perceptually and conceptually metaphorical expressions are determined according to these three aspects.
Again, the consequent findings of conceptual metaphors and crossmodal mappings through the utilization of these three synesthetic metaphorical forms all have their origins in such
concepts in cognitive semantics and pragmatics as the ICM, active zone, image metaphor, and the Metaphor Identification Procedure of Crossmodal Metaphor and Metonymy (CMMIP).
In discussing the metaphors involved in the study of perceptual descriptions, conceptual metaphor works as a reflection of perception, sensation, and culture. Indeed, as indicated by Ackerman’s (2004) “metaphor isn't just decorative language,” especially in the perceptual mappings of linguistic expressions, although “colorful language threatens some people” at first, it is essential “to help us detail how we feel, what we once felt, what we can feel.”
However, taking an overall look at cognitive semantics and contextual environments, we have discovered some issues that still require further development. Besides accounts of conceptual and cultural backgrounds, scientific concerns of flavor as a combination of both taste and smell are included as the main factors in crossmodal expressions. We thus propose that synesthetic metaphors are not simply hard-wired and innate perceptual analogies, “but are generated through semantic processes and fashioned by time and cultural elements, much like other metaphors” (Day, 1996). Human cultures and experience, in this sense, are the foundations for “flavoring” our percept of smell, taste, and flavor.
Lastly, the present study achieves a breakthrough in the construction of a framework for understanding the conceptualization of language and perception. As the speakers of the cupping events are common Taiwanese people, rather than coffee cupping experts, we can gain clear insight into the possible mechanisms of synesthetic expressions, and how they are applied by regular people. Moreover, we propose a potential directionality of crossmodal interactions in flavor expressions, and classify literary synesthesia into three types according to their degree of mapping. Based on our review of previous researches, only a few researches
have focused on the metaphorical mappings of flavor in the target domain, and linguistic studies are rarely concerned with the comparisons between flavor and other perceptions in Taiwan Mandarin. We thus reaffirm that the significance of the study lies in the investigation of flavor conceptualization and metaphorization in terms of conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and synesthetic metaphors in Taiwan Mandarin. More importantly, since previous studies have not reached a consensus on which lower and higher modalities of perceptions are transferred in crossmodal mappings (Paradis & Eeg-Olofsson, 2013), our proposal of crossmodal transfers in flavor expressions certainly turns over a new leaf in the analysis of literary synesthesia and conceptual metaphors.
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