Chapter published in:
Perception Metaphors
Edited by Laura J. Speed, Carolyn O'Meara, Lila San Roque and Asifa Majid
[Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 19] 2019
► pp. 127–143

Sensory experiences, meaning and metaphor

The case of wine

This chapter provides an overview of metaphorical language used to communicate sensory experiences in the context of wine discourse, particularly in the tasting note genre where metaphor provides wine critics with the means to describe what wines feel like in the nose and mouth. Using data from a corpus of tasting notes written in English (2,053 texts and 100,674 words), it examines the language used in the description of wines’ aromas, flavours and mouthfeel in order to better understand the contribution of metaphor in the transfer of the olfactory, gustatory and tactile experiences to readers. The main concern is to explore expressions that cut across sensory modalities, i.e., instantiate synaesthetic metaphor, and point to the possibility of the synaesthetic motivation of a good amount of the language presumably informed by metaphors of the conceptual type.
Keywords: winespeak, metaphor, synaesthesia, tasting note, sensory experience
Published online: 21 February 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.19.07cab
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