John Benjamins Publishing Company
5. Attractiveness and adornment
Abstract
This contribution is based on the author’s lexicographical work in two Papuan speech communities as well as on published and unpublished narratives, songs, and instances of everyday speech. About a dozen dictionaries of Papuan languages and the ethnographic literature was checked. There is a discrepancy between the important messages transferred via the olfactory and visual channels of communication and the poor linguistic means referring to them. The signals used in olfactory and visual communication are not necessarily transformed into meaningful acoustic signals, they form part of the signaling behavior in the functional cycles of eating, pair formation, fight and threat. Words and idioms come into being in relaxed meta-practical activities like the artist’s work or during speaking about being attracted or repelled, examining food, growth, freshness and decay and by exploring the environment for signs of dangerous or useful and beautiful things and humans.
Abstract
This contribution is based on the author’s lexicographical work in two Papuan speech communities as well as on published and unpublished narratives, songs, and instances of everyday speech. About a dozen dictionaries of Papuan languages and the ethnographic literature was checked. There is a discrepancy between the important messages transferred via the olfactory and visual channels of communication and the poor linguistic means referring to them. The signals used in olfactory and visual communication are not necessarily transformed into meaningful acoustic signals, they form part of the signaling behavior in the functional cycles of eating, pair formation, fight and threat. Words and idioms come into being in relaxed meta-practical activities like the artist’s work or during speaking about being attracted or repelled, examining food, growth, freshness and decay and by exploring the environment for signs of dangerous or useful and beautiful things and humans.
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
