2. Color smell, and language: The semiotic nature of perception and language
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Wolfgang Wildgen
Abstract
The historical roots of the propositional versus the imagistic view on meaning in perception and language can be found in Aristotle’s Categories and in the medieval and Renaissance models for mnemonic networks of sign systems (Lullus, Bruno). The architecture of sensibility and meaning has been sketched in Condillac’sTraité des sensations (1754) and it demonstrates a fundamental conflict between sensation on one side and communication/ language on the other. Their relation has been further specified after Darwin in the context of an evolutionary theory of human cognition and language. In the final section, the contributions of different disciplines (neurophysiology, psychology, ethnology, linguistics, art history) to the question are compared in order to conceive a strategy of synthesis.
Abstract
The historical roots of the propositional versus the imagistic view on meaning in perception and language can be found in Aristotle’s Categories and in the medieval and Renaissance models for mnemonic networks of sign systems (Lullus, Bruno). The architecture of sensibility and meaning has been sketched in Condillac’sTraité des sensations (1754) and it demonstrates a fundamental conflict between sensation on one side and communication/ language on the other. Their relation has been further specified after Darwin in the context of an evolutionary theory of human cognition and language. In the final section, the contributions of different disciplines (neurophysiology, psychology, ethnology, linguistics, art history) to the question are compared in order to conceive a strategy of synthesis.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- 1. Speaking of colors and odors 1
- 2. Color smell, and language: The semiotic nature of perception and language 19
- 3. How can language cope with color? Functional aspects of the nervous system 35
- 4. Color perception, color description and metaphor 61
- 5. Attractiveness and adornment 85
- 6. Color terms between elegance and beauty. The verbalization of color with textiles and cosmetics 113
- 7. Color names and dynamic imagery 129
- 8. From blue stockings to blue movies: Color metonymies in English 141
- 9. Odor memory 155
- 10. From psychophysics to semiophysics 167
- 11. Cognition, olfaction and linguistic creativity: Linguistic synesthesia as poetic device in cologne advertisement 185
- 12. Understanding synesthetic expressions 203
- 13. Olfactory and visual processing and verbalization 227
- Contributors 239
- Index 241
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- 1. Speaking of colors and odors 1
- 2. Color smell, and language: The semiotic nature of perception and language 19
- 3. How can language cope with color? Functional aspects of the nervous system 35
- 4. Color perception, color description and metaphor 61
- 5. Attractiveness and adornment 85
- 6. Color terms between elegance and beauty. The verbalization of color with textiles and cosmetics 113
- 7. Color names and dynamic imagery 129
- 8. From blue stockings to blue movies: Color metonymies in English 141
- 9. Odor memory 155
- 10. From psychophysics to semiophysics 167
- 11. Cognition, olfaction and linguistic creativity: Linguistic synesthesia as poetic device in cologne advertisement 185
- 12. Understanding synesthetic expressions 203
- 13. Olfactory and visual processing and verbalization 227
- Contributors 239
- Index 241
