Chapter published in:
The Language of Food in Japanese: Cognitive perspectives and beyond
Edited by Kiyoko Toratani
[Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 25] 2022
► pp. 293–318

Chapter 10
Motion expressions in Japanese wine-tasting descriptions

| Gifu University
This chapter analyzes motion expressions for wine aromas and flavors found in a corpus of wine-tasting notes, applying a typological theory of motion expressions (Talmy, 2000). Japanese wine-tasting descriptions are typically metaphoric, attempting to convey the motion of an entity, particularly aroma and flavor, around the sensory organs, similar to the case of English (Caballero, 2007). However, the following distinct features are observed in the Japanese wine-tasting context: (i) path-of-motion verbs are more predominantly used than manner-of-motion verbs to describe wine; (ii) a combination of a deictic verb and another verb (e.g., de-te-kuru [exit-conj-come] ‘come out’) is more frequently used than a single deictic verb. These characteristics mirror the patterns observed in Japanese descriptions of motion events in space.
Keywords: deixis, manner-of-motion verbs, metaphorical motion, motion events, path-of-motion verbs, wine-tasting notes
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Review of literature
    • 2.1Studies of wine-tasting notes
    • 2.2Motion expressions in wine-tasting notes
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Japanese data on wine-tasting notes
    • 3.2Target forms for investigation
      • 3.2.1Verbs and predicates
      • 3.2.2Nouns and noun phrases
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Verb types and usage ratio
    • 4.2Usage of motion verbs
      • 4.2.1Patterns of motion expressions in Japanese wine-descriptions
      • 4.2.2Compensation for manner-of-motion verbs
      • 4.2.3The role of path-of-motion verbs
    • 4.3Semantic arguments of verbs
    • 4.4Specific feature of motion expressions in Japanese: Deixis
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 09 February 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.25.10yos
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