Cover not available
Part of
The Language of Food in Japanese: Cognitive perspectives and beyond
Edited by Kiyoko Toratani
[Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 25] 2022
► pp. 55–77

Chapter 2
Analysis of the use of Japanese mimetics in the eating and imagined eating of rice crackers

 | Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
 | Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University
 | Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
 | Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University
This chapter explores how Japanese mimetics are used to verbally express the texture of rice crackers in real and imagined cases. Two experiments were conducted to test whether the use of mimetics varies when eating rice crackers as opposed to merely imagining eating rice crackers. The analysis of the mimetics used to express the physically perceived texture and the imagined texture of the rice crackers shows that these two situations may have different prototypes of rice crackers. This study suggests that the degree of iconicity of the same mimetics can vary according to the contexts in which they are used.
Keywords: cognitive linguistics, iconicity, prototype, food texture, cultural knowledge
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Japanese rice crackers
    • 2.2Mimetics and Iconicity
    • 2.3Previous research on food and language
    • 2.4Hypothesis and goals of the study
  • 3.Experiments
    • 3.1Preliminary survey: Familiarity with different types of rice crackers
      • 3.1.1Method
      • 3.1.2Results
    • 3.2Experiment 1: Mimetics for actually eating rice crackers
      • 3.2.1Materials
      • 3.2.2Method
      • 3.2.3Results
    • 3.3Experiment 2: Mimetics for imagined rice crackers
      • 3.3.1Materials
      • 3.3.2Method
      • 3.3.3Results
    • 3.4Comparing the results
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
    • 4.1Degrees of iconicity
    • 4.2Implications for linguistics studies
    • 4.3Suggestions for future studies
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 9 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.25.02uno
References (45)
References
Akita, K. (2009). A grammar of sound-symbolic words in Japanese: Theoretical approaches to iconic and lexical properties of Japanese mimetics (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Kobe University, Japan.
(2010). An embodied semantic analysis of psychological mimetics in Japanese. Linguistics, 48, 1195–1220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012). Toward a frame-semantic definition of sound-symbolic words. Cognitive Linguistics, 23, 67–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013). The lexical iconicity hierarchy and its grammatical correlates. In L. Elleström, O. Fischer, & C. Ljungberg (Eds.), Iconic investigations (pp. 331–349). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Childs, G. T. (1994). African ideophones. In L. Hinton, J. Nichols, & J. J. Ohala (Eds.), Sound symbolism (pp. 178–204). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body and mind together. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. (1995). Darwin’s dangerous idea: Evolution and the meanings of life. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Diederich, C. (2015). Sensory adjectives in the discourse of food. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dijksterhuis, G., Luyten, H., de Wijk, R. A. & Mojet, J. (2007). A new sensory vocabulary for crisp and crunchy dry model foods. Food Quality and Preference, 18, 37–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dingemanse, M. (2011). Ideophones and the aesthetics of everyday language in a West-African society. The Senses & Society, 6(1), 77–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012). Advances in the cross-linguistic study of ideophones. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6, 654–672. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Favalli, S., Skov, T., Spence, C. & Byrne, D. V. (2013). Do you say it like you eat it? The sound symbolism of food names and its role in the multisensory product experience. Food Research International, 54(1), 760–771. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, C. (1982). Frame semantics. In Linguistic Society of Korea (Ed.), Linguistics in the morning calm (pp. 111–37). Seoul: Hanshin Publishing.Google Scholar
Funakubo, K., Kobayashi, F., Uno, R., Shinohara, K., & Odake, S. (2016, October). How the expression karit on the package changes our description of the food texture (In Japanese). Paper presented at The 2016 Annual Meeting of the Kanto Branch of Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and Agrochemistry, Tokyo, Japan.
Gallace, A., Boschin, E. & Spence, C. (2011). On the taste of “Bouba” and “Kiki”: An exploration of word-food associations in neurologically normal participants. Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(1), 34–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haiman, J. (1983). Iconic and economic motivation. Language, 59, 781–819. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1985a). Natural syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(Ed.). (1985b). Iconicity in syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hamano, S. (1998). The sound-symbolic system of Japanese. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Hayakawa, F., Kazami, Y., Nishinari, K., Ioku, K., Akuzawa, S., Yamano, Y., Baba, Y. & Kohyama, K. (2013). Classification of Japanese texture terms. Journal of Texture Studies, 44, 140–159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirata, S., Nakamura, S., Komatsu, T., & Akita, K. (2015). Cross-regional comparison of mimetic word uses based on the minutes of the Diet of Japan (In Japanese). Journal of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, 30(1), 274–281.Google Scholar
Ishibashi, K., Fukataki, S. & Miyata, K. (2015). Evaluation of human impressions regarding sizzle words for rice crackers (In Japanese). Transactions of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, 3(1), 229–236. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1996). How language helps us think. Pragmatics and Cognition, 4(1), 1–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, R. (1960). Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in language (pp.350–77). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kakei, H., Tamori, I., & Schourup, L. (1996). Dictionary of iconic expressions in Japanese. Berlin: Muton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Majid, A., Roberts, S. G., Cilissen, L., Emmorey, K., Nicodemus, B., O’Grady, L., Woll, B., LeLan, B., De Sousa, H., Cansler, B. L., Shayan, S., De Vos, C., Senft, G., Enfield, N. J., Razak, R. A., Fedden, S., Tufvesson, S., Dingemanse, M., Ozturk, O., Brown, P., Hill, C., Le Guen, O., Hirtzel, V., Van Gijn, R., Sicoli, M. A., & Levinson, S. C. (2018). Differential coding of perception in the world’s languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(45), 11369–11376. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ono, M. (Ed.). (2007). Dictionary of mimetics in Japanese (In Japanese). Tokyo: Sougakukan.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, V. S., & Hubbard, E. M. (2001). Synaesthesia – A window into perception, thought and language. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(12), 3–34.Google Scholar
Sakamoto, M. & Watanabe, J. (2016). Cross-modal associations between sounds and drink tastes/textures: A study with spontaneous production of sound-symbolic words. Chemical Senses, 41(3), 197–203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shinohara, K., & Nakayama, A. (2011). Modalities and directions in synaesthetic metaphors in Japanese. Cognitive Studies, 18(3), 491–507.Google Scholar
Shokuhin Ryūtsū Jōhō Center [Food Distribution Information Center]. (Ed.). (2000). Shokuseikatsu dēta sōgō tōkei nenpō [General Statistics of Dietary Habit Data] (p. 451). Tokyo: Koyosha.Google Scholar
Simner, J., Cuskley, C. & Kirby, S. (2010). What sound does that taste? Cross-modal mappings across gustation and audition. Perception, 39, 553–569. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soka City Website. (2014). “Soka senbei-no rekishi-to genzai [The history and the present state of Soka rice crackers].” Retrieved July 12, 2019, from [URL]
Spence, C. (2015). Eating with our ears: Assessing the importance of the sounds of consumption on our perception and enjoyment of multisensory flavour experiences. Flavor, 4(3). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Takahashi, H., Itou, A., Egawa, H., Watanabe, T., Inoue, M., Arai, E. & Yamada, Y. (2006). Development of rice cracker for aged people (In Japanese). Journal of Japanese Society for Masticatory Science and Health Promotion, 16(3), 70–82.Google Scholar
Takahashi, H., Itou, A., Yamamura, K., Arai, E., & Yamada, Y. (2009). Classification of rice crackers based on hardness (In Japanese). Journal of Japanese Society for Masticatory Science and Health Promotion, 19(1), 29–38.Google Scholar
Tayler, J. (1989). Linguistic categorization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tunick, M. H., Onwulata, C. I., Thomas, A. E., Phillips, J. G., Mukhopadhyay, S., Sheen, S., Liu, C., Latona, N., Pimentel, M. R., & Cooke, P. H. (2013). Critical evaluation of crispy and crunchy textures: A review. International Journal of Food Properties, 16(5), 949–963. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Uno, R., Ogai, Y., Mogi-Hirata, S., & Hayashi, Y. (2017). Confidence in expressing novel textures: An analysis of Japanese ideophones that describe visually-induced textures. Proceedings of IEEE 3rd International Conference on Cybernetics. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Uno, R., Ogai, Y., Mogi-Hirata, S., Hayashi, Y., & Shinohara, K. (2019). How communication affects the use of ideophones describing virtual textures (in Japanese). Handbook of the 36th Annual Meeting of Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 662–665.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (translation of 1962 edition). MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Williams, J. (1976). Synaesthetic adjective: A possible law of semantic change. Language, 52, 461–478. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yu, N. (2003). Synesthetic metaphor: A cognitive perspective. Journal of Literary Semantics, 32(1), 19–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zampini, M. & Spence, C. (2004). The role of auditory cues in modulating the perceived crispness and staleness of potato chips. Journal of Sensory Studies, 19, 347–363. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Raevskiy, Alexander, Shuichi Sakamoto & Nobuyuki Sakai
2023. Psychoacoustic Study of Japanese Mimetics for Food Textures. In Advances in Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing [Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, 339], ► pp. 415 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.