A Study on the Extended Meaning of the Chinese Word ‘甜’

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the extended meaning of the Chinese word ‘甜(sweet)’, which is based on the viewpoint of a synesthetic metaphor and conceptual representation. The sense of taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch all influence a human’s basic physical experience and they play an important role in semantics. First, the taste ‘甜(sweet)’ is extended in terms of perception such as the sense of hearing to the sense of smell and to the sense of sight. Moreover, ‘甜(sweet)’ is extended to other ideas such as ‘甜美的氣味(a sweet smell)’, ‘美好的聲音(a sweet voice)’ and ‘甜美的笑容(a sweet smile)’. Secondly, as the base of a metaphor is iconicity, the base of a synesthetic metaphor is also iconicity. Here, iconicity means the taste ‘甜(sweet)’ can extend its perception of pleasantness to other senses, which has been proven in biology. Finally, the taste ‘甜(sweet)’ can also be extended to a psychological sense based on the conceptual blending theory.